Ted Rawlings

[Kashgar]

Just learnt the sad news that D C Thomson adventure strip artist Ted Rawlings died last week aged 89. Always loved his work in Victor, Hotspur and Rover & Wizard as a kid. I imagine he'll be best remembered for his long running Victor series 'The Hammer Man' although I think he did many better things personally.

[crow]

I liked his work but his monsters were a bit odd and often quite comical. They looked like they'd come from a 1920s Buck Rogers strip.

http://britishcomicart.blogspot.com/sea ... 20Rawlings

I'll put some more of hs straight adventure stuff up on the blog soon.

If you look at his pages you'll notice he (nearly always) included a frame where the characters were in silhouette. Quite unusual.

[colcool007]

Sh...sugar! Another one lost. I didn't realise that Ted had still been going strong. I am so inured to hearing that so many of my favourite artist passed away long ago, I keep forgetting that some of them are still going.

My condolences to the family and I hope that they remember that Ted brought joy to millions of kids.

For me, the ones that always stand out as Ted's work is his Alf Tupper work and his true stories covers. And it is even more ironic that he spent his last years in Fife, so I may have bumped into him a time or two and not realised who he was. Such is life.

[Kashgar]

As a childhood favourite Ted Rawlings kind of defies criticism in my eyes. Cherished items that spring to mind include Stark of the Samurai, The Dark Domain, The Dragon Flag and The Battle Line all from Victor but there are many more.
For the record Ted's first work for Thomsons was a feature page in Topper No 130 in July 1955 titled 'Quaint Tales of Long Ago', a comic for which he drew 30 such full colour feature pages in the next four years and his last work for Thomsons, after his retirement in Mar 1987, was a stockpiled series of The Hammer Man which ended in Victor No 1432 in July 1988 and four picture strips, all with a historical theme, that appeared in the Victor book for 1989.
And also, while he did do most of his strip work for Victor (1963-1988) he also did a considerable amount of similar work for Bunty (1958-1963) and New Hotspur (1960-1966) and even the revived Wizard (1973). He also provided lots of heading blocks for prose stories particularly in Rover & Wizard and the revived Wizard where he was responsible for illustrating the last regular prose story to appear in a Thomson paper (1978). In a silmilar vein in the 1950's he had been most involved with drawing heading blocks for the original Hotspur boys' story paper (1956-1959) as well as
providing the front page cover illustration for approx a third of the Hotspur covers to appear in the last three years of paper's life.
As a great fan of his work I feel Ted deserves a proper stripopgraphy to be prepared of his work and, when time permits, I'll try to put one together.

[Digifiend]

Next month's Classics has a Jim Petrie Classic Artist feature. Maybe they should do one for Ted the following month? It would please one of the correspondents on the letters page this month, who wanted more Tough of the Track!

And on a serious note, it would be a nice tribute.

[VictorHornet]

Hello,

Just before Ted Rawlings died I was contacted by a friend of his. The lady in question very kindly provided me with a brief biography of Ted.

For those who are interested please visit http://www.victorhornetcomics.co.uk/tedrawlings.html

Thanks.

[Digifiend]

Next month's Classics has a Jim Petrie Classic Artist feature. Maybe they should do one for Ted the following month? It would please one of the correspondents on the letters page this month, who wanted more Tough of the Track!

And on a serious note, it would be a nice tribute.

Well this won't happening now.

[stevezodiac]

These are from issues 1340 and 1341 of the Victor. Nice change from the comic strip.

[VictorHornet]

Hello,

Please note that the above page has been updated, with three images of drawings from one of Ted Rawlings drawing books.

http://www.victorhornetcomics.co.uk/tedrawlings.html

Thank you.
Adrian

[philcom55]

In this Digital Age we tend to forget how many older people are totally ignorant about the world of computers and the internet, and seem resigned to remaining so for the rest of their lives. I was reminded of this fact at the last Birmingham Comic Mart while talking to an old chap who was almost tearful with joy to finally learn the name of Ted Rawlings - an artist whose work had fascinated him since childhood. As he had no access to the net I promised to print out a hard copy of Adrian's excellent biography for the next time I saw him, as well as noting down some of the historical details mentioned by Kashgar on this thread.

Although there can't have been many comic artists with such an instantly-recognizable style it nevertheless came as something of a shock to discover that there are still fans out there forced to think of their favourite creators as 'the guy who drew Hammer Man', etc.



Personally I tended not to read many of the DC Thomson boys' comics like Victor when I was growing up, but even I couldn't fail to be impressed by Ted Rawlings' dynamic technique - and the more I see of it now the more impressed I become: to my mind this is swashbuckling action/adventure of the highest order - pure comic storytelling that unfailingly compels its readers to turn the page and find out 'what happens next'!. If anybody else can think of any other highlights from his career that might be worth recording I'll be happy to pass them on too.

- Phil Rushton