Comics UK

I have just discovered the book Owd Bob by Alfred Ollivant and I am struck by the similarities with Black Bob. Does anyone here know if Owd Bob was an inspiration for our intrepid D C Thomson writers? And if so, would you care to enlighten the rest of us?

colcool007 wrote:I have just discovered the book Owd Bob by Alfred Ollivant and I am struck by the similarities with Black Bob. Does anyone here know if Owd Bob was an inspiration for our intrepid D C Thomson writers? And if so, would you care to enlighten the rest of us?

Don't know about the inspiration for Black Bob, but it seems there have been at least 3 films made of Owd Bob. I think I may have seen part of an early one some time ago.

colcool007 wrote:I have just discovered the book Owd Bob by Alfred Ollivant and I am struck by the similarities with Black Bob. Does anyone here know if Owd Bob was an inspiration for our intrepid D C Thomson writers? And if so, would you care to enlighten the rest of us?

Hi Col, Kelman Frost, who wrote all the early Black Bob stories was asked to come up with the initial story in 1944 by the Dandy editor at the time John Low, brother of R D Low the managing editor of all Thomson's juvenile output. It was certainly commissioned in response to the success of the film version of Eric Knight's 'Lassie Come-Home' but whether Frost or Low took elements from other sources including Ollivant's 'Owd Bob' is, sadly, lost in the mists of time but there are, of course, similarities.

As well as at least four film versions, there was an American Owd Bob comic book under the title Bob, Son of Battle, published by Dell Comics as a one-shot, issue #729 of their Four Color series.

More details are at the Wikipedia Owd Bob page.

The comic book, by Gaylord DuBois and Mike Sekowsky, can be read at http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=37780