RIP-ROARING RE-POST: NOT JUST A LETTERER...

'Homage' to the cover of IRON MAN #150.  Hand drawn, no tracing, graph
paper, or projectors involved.  Characters copyright MARVEL COMICS

It's not generally known, but although I was primarily a lettering artist throughout my 15 year career in comics, my original 'ambition' was to be an adventure comic strip artist.  I started lettering simply to get my size 9s in the door, but when I saw I could earn more as a letterer than as an artist (on account of being faster at the former than the latter), I stuck mainly with the lettering.

However, I did a bit of drawing as well, adding to panels when re-sizing IPC comic libraries, and doing occasional spot illos when the opportunity presented itself.  I also worked as a restoration artist on some MARVEL MASTERWORK volumes, re-inking and even re-creating JACK KIRBY art, which was a huge thrill for me.

However, my frank and forthright views on this blog on the current state of the British comics 'industry' (hah!) has brought me in for criticism from some quarters, with a few disgruntled individuals dismissing me as "only a letterer" and a "Kirby tracer".  Thing is, I got my first paying gig as a cartoonist when I was still at school, and have produced artwork for publication (for which I was paid) since even before (during and after) I started freelancing for the likes of IPC/FLEETWAY, MARVEL COMICS (and others).

So here are a few examples of pencil and ink artwork ranging from my teenage years right up to adulthood.  Quite a few are professional pieces I was paid for, some were freebies for people I know, and the remainder were done simply for my own amusement.  I've shown them all before on the blog at various times, but it can't hurt to remind people I'm certainly more than "only a letterer".  Funny how some people who work in comics mistakenly imagine it's the only legitimate outlet for an artist's work, eh?

Pencil caricature (using my pseudonym) done as a gift for someone

"If you don't like a certain cartoonist's version of DESPERATE DAN, then why
not try drawing it yourself?" someone dared me. So I did!  Characters copyright
D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd

B&W copy of a colour ad for a local restaurant.  I was going
to be paid £100 for it, but decided against it in the end

2000 A.D. pin-up.  I was paid for it, but don't know if it was ever
published.  Characters copyright REBELLION PUBLISHING

One of the lettering samples that got me the promise of work from
IPC.  Pencils by me, characters copyright MARVEL COMICS 

Set of four cartoon illustrations (sans captions) for equestrian events programme

Cartoon illustration for local business

Acrylic ink illustration of a friend's son

Pencil caricature done as a gift for someone

Parody of AMAZING FANTASY #15 splash page

Cartoon strip for local business

Proposed strip (at the request of BOB PAYNTER) for OINK! while at the preparation
stage.  Never got any feedback, but a similar character appeared a few months later

WILLIAM HARTNELL 'DOCTOR' figure and TARDIS drawn
in 1983, background completed 30 years later, in 2013

Acrylic ink portrait done as a gift for someone.
Yeah, you can see my heart wasn't really in it

Ink drawing done as a gift for someone.  Characters copyright KING
FEATURES SYNDICATE, Inc

Newspaper ad drawn as a teenager for local business

Photocopy of pencil drawing done for my own amusement around 1981

Instruction leaflet done for local business's delivery drivers

Newspaper ad for Glasgow hairdressers

Acrylic ink caricature done as a gift for someone

Logo for The ILLUSTRATED COMIC JOURNAL

Drawing done as a gift for someone

Pair of flyers for local business

Proposed logo for Glasgow Con.  Don't know if it was used or not

Cartoons (sans captions) for two camping posters done in my late teens/early 20s

Logo for local business

Acrylic ink caricature done as a gift for someone

Quick caricature done as a gift for someone

Fun & Activity booklet produced for local business

Acrylic ink caricature done as a gift for someone

Unfinished pencil caricature

Comic strip drawn for The BOOTS NEWS when I was 17

Pencil drawing done as a teenager

Unpublished strip for local paper.  Others were published though

Cartoon strip drawn for my own amusement

Character copyright DC COMICS

And finally - a couple of JK pages of artwork I inked.  The FF one appeared in an issue
 of The JACK KIRBY Collector.  Characters copyright MARVEL COMICS  

BABE Of The DAY - KIRSTEN STEWART...

Today's Babe is KIRSTEN STEWART.

And that's really all you need to know.  (I'm

 keeping her 'phone number to myself.)

RIP-ROARING RE-POST: LOVELY LETTERING FOR YOU TO LOOK AT...

I don't like the balloon placement in pic 2, but I lettered within existing balloon shapes, so don't blame me

During my 15 years as a professional comics contributor, I lettered a couple of regular strips for LOADED magazine, which was published by IPC, I think.  This was well-after the infamous ROBERT MAXWELL had bought their YOUTH GROUP, the division responsible for the various comic periodicals that IPC created for the nation's youth.

What you're looking at above, is a scan of a photocopy of a strip which appeared in Loaded mag, which I took it upon myself to re-letter as the original lettering was pretty poor.  I then sent it in to the magazine and it was this that led to them asking me to letter a couple of strips for them as they were quite impressed with my calligraphic skills.

When I spoke to the editor about remuneration, I quoted him £20 per page, this being the going rate for 2000 A.D. at that time.  The editor (whose name I forget, sorry) told me to invoice for £50 and I wasn't going to argue with him.  So each page I lettered for Loaded was worth a fabulous £50 per pop, a very nice paying gig indeed.

However, I'm not here to rub your faces in what I could earn for half an hour's work 20 years ago.  No, the reason I've included the above page is because I'm really proud of my lettering on it.  See, there's quite a big difference in working on something at one's own pace and for one's own amusement, and doing it under a deadline for a professional publication in order to earn a living.

When I used to letter my own home-grown strips, I employed an ordinary fountain pen and took as long as I needed.  However, when I first started my professional career for IPC, I was using Rotring pens I wasn't yet comfortable with, and the wrong kind of patch-paper (matt instead of gloss), which the 2000 A.D. boys kindly provided me with to start me off.  (Patch-paper is the generic name for the adhesive paper on which one lettered and then stuck onto the art.)

Consequently, some of my early lettering for various comics wasn't exactly as good as it might've been, and it took me a while to develop a style I was happy with.  By the time I did the above page, I was at a point in my career where I'd achieved a standard I was proud of, and I'm still proud when I see it today.  Which is why I decided to share it on the blog with all you pantin' Criv-ites.

So if you ever see any of my early pages and think they aren't particularly good, remember that I improved, and became one of the better letterers then working in U.K. comics.  Truth to tell, I was almost as good as I am modest and humble, and as you can see, I'm very modest and humble indeed.  In fact, I'm actually quite proud of my humility and am justly famed for it.

Huh?  Wait, come back!  What did I say?

THE COMICS THAT MEN LETTER LIVE AFTER THEM...

Images copyright relevant owners

I've now not worked in comics for longer than I worked in comics.  Wow!  A few people will regard that as just cause for dismissing my 15 year career as insignificant, and my place in the scheme of things as equally without note, but I think I had quite a presence back in the day in weekly and monthly magazines - especially for someone who was 'only a letterer' (as my small band of detractors are fond of describing me).

Fact is, no one in comics is ever 'only' anything.  Quite a few writers can also draw (and vice versa), and some letterers are involved in artistic areas outside of the world of comics.  But I digress.  The reason for this post is not to justify myself, but to express my amazement that li'l ol' me worked on some of the most famous British titles of the time.  EAGLE, TIGER, BUSTER, WOW!, WHIZZER & CHIPS, 2000 A.D., WHOOPEE, etc., to say nothing of characters from deceased comics that continued in other periodicals.

SAMMY SHRINK, for example, started in WHAM!, GUS GORILLA started in COR!!, and JOKER started in KNOCKOUT.  Because I was also a 're-size artist', I worked on the back catalogue of many old characters, adapting them from larger-sized pages to smaller ones for their reprint appearances in some of the IPC comics libraries.  This involved not just 'cutting & pasting', but actual drawing to facilitate a seamless fit of diversely shaped, rearranged panels.

I sometimes feel like pinching myself when I remember that I contributed to many comic characters of my youth, and that my name regularly appeared in the best-selling IPC weekly boys comic of the time.  I still get an enormous thrill at seeing my name in new reprint collections, and even in old comics in charity shops and jumble sales.  So my comics career may be no more (though I've been invited to return a few times), but the fruits of my labour live on.

Hey, I'm happy with that!

******

(Obviously I never worked on the specific issues featured in this post.  They are, it should go without saying, merely for 'decorative purposes'.)

KID KLASSICS: The GREATEST BRITISH SUPERHERO Of ALL?

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

How could I forget?  And how could I forget I'd forgotten?  If I hadn't spotted the cover staring out at me from a previous post on this very blog, I wouldn't have remembered that I'd forgotten to remember I'd forgotten.  All clear?  Good.  (You know how I hate confusion.)

Back on October 6th, 1976 (wow, forty years ago), MARVEL's U.K. answer to CAPTAIN AMERICA went on sale in newsagents all across the country.  The accompanying scans come from the very copy I purchased from JOHN MENZIES in my local shopping centre on the way to work that morning all those years ago.

CAPTAIN BRITAIN was a first for Marvel U.K. - the debut of an all-new, specially created superhero, as opposed to the steady diet of reprints from across the pond that we Brits had hitherto enjoyed with avid appreciation.  The strip was still produced in America (though writer CHRIS CLAREMONT and artist HERB TRIMPE had British connections), but set in England, and featured the kind of mockney-Cockney dialogue that our Yankee cousins imagine we all speak like.  (Think DICK VAN DYKE in MARY POPPINS and you've got the picture.)

Various hands have guided the LONDON LION in different and diverse directions since his first humble beginnings in '76, but despite basically being a SPIDEY knock-off, there was an unconvoluted innocence about CB's early tales which was refreshing.  But don't take my word for it.  Judge for yourself as BRIAN BRADDOCK's initial voyage of discovery now unfolds before you for your reading pleasure.  Ready?  Hold on to your hats and off we go!

Unfortunately, the budget didn't stretch to full-colour throughout the mag, so the FANTASTIC FOUR reprint had to settle for Letratone, although by now the printing standard was good enough to reproduce the grey hues without turning them into the muddy mess that had blighted many earlier weekly titles.  NICK FURY, AGENT Of S.H.I.E.L.D. brought up the rear of the comic, which had returned to colour for JIM STERANKO's classic tales of super-espionage.

So there you have it!  Britain's Brian Braddock battling the bombastic baddies of the brutal JOSHUA STRAGG - The REAVER - for the very first time in a classic tale from the vaults.  Now don't say I'm not good to you, 'cos it simply wouldn't be true.