Charles Grigg passes

[Lew Stringer]

Earlier this evening I received the sad news from the family of Charlie Grigg that he had passed away this morning, just a couple of days after his 97th birthday.

Most of you will be familiar with his name, but if not you'll certainly know his characters. He drew Korky the Cat on the covers of The Dandy from 1961 to the early 1980s, Foxy and Splodge for The Topper, and could also turn his hand superbly to adventure strips such as The Red Wrecker and The Umbrella Men for The Dandy.

I've written a short tribute to him on my blog, alongside some memorable images:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/ ... -2013.html

[blaing]

My deepest sympathies to Chas' family.

I'll try to do a tribute to him on my blog either on the weekend or on Monday.

Update: I have instead done a mini tribute with his most iconic character, Korky the Cat here.

[Peter Gray]

A very long life...
Glad his family were around for his Birthday before he died...

I love the Beano and Dandy book article when he visits DC Thomson to look at his old work again..
He had done such memorable characters...Korky has to be his best..

Thanks Charles...God bless you and your family.


http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogs ... les+griggs

[Lew Stringer]

I've just realized that the sad irony is that the day he died (today, December 4th) would have been the 76th anniversary of The Dandy.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Charlies' work was some of the most memorable comics imagery from my youth, he was a truly brilliant illustrator as well as a tip-notch cartoonist.

His prolific style is burned into my memory forever and his work brought me much joy, long before I even discovered his name.

His Korky covers were easily on par with the Watkins Biffo during the 60s.

I especially appreciated the two-page epic double-spreaders he done for the DANDY books at one point: he was great at adventure fare too, like CAPTAIN WHOOSH or the PURPLE CLOUD

I saw some of his original artwork on Korky for the Dandy comic Library during the mid-80s: he was supplementing his pension with cartoon work, nearly 30 years ago! I remember he was interviewed in later years, and the impression was that comics artwork of his calibre was pretty time-consuming, and he really would have liked to retire altogether, but Thomson held him in high regard, often requesting more work from him---the lure of the nib would have been hard to resist.

A true giant in UK Comics History , probably the last of the DANDY greats from my particular childhood.

[-MikeD-]

As a young man, excited by the potential of comic art, I pored over his pages with, yes, excitement. I was once asked to draw Korky for a friend and I struggled to even produce a passable approximation of Charles' beautiful and accurate line work. Not to mention his humour, design sense and sheer unadulterated storytelling skill. I'm guessing those pages took him many, many hours to draw and I'll always be grateful he put that amount of effort into entertaining comic fans every week. Genius.

[philcom55]

Sad news - we really are living through the twilight of the last few giants.

Given that nearly all the surviving artists I grew up with during the late 1950s and early 1960s are either retired or semi-retired I'm all the more astonished that the amazing John Burns can still turn out quality work on a regular basis - like his current run on Judge Dredd in 2000AD.

- Phil R.

[dandy mad]

Another comic art genius that brought the definitive Korky The Cat on the front cover of the Dandy has gone to the great drawing board in the sky a sad loss

[AndyB]

Charles' Korky was the real Korky - far better than James Crichton's. (Sorry, Bob Nixon!) Even after Dave Gudgeon had become the regular Korky artist, I'm pretty sure he did odd strips, and of course he drew his last Dandy Book covers for the 1987 volume, as reproduced on one of the last print Dandy covers. I loved his adventure work in old Dandy books.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Crichtons' Korky was pretty good and had cool olde-worlde charm, but even at DCT the general consensus was that Charlies' interpretation was the definitive version.

Bob Nixon was a phenomenal talent, but his version of Korky was too removed from the established template of the cat. [for me, anyway]

[philcom55]

In addition to the regular Korky strips that appeared in the weekly Dandy Grigg was justly famous for the stunning covers he provided for that title's Annuals and Summer Specials. While most of those can be studied in the gallery section, however, it's always seemed to me that his endpaper illustrations for the annuals rarely get the praise they deserve:









Generally printed in red and black these short sequences had all the impact of a series of posters as they led up to an inevitable 'surprise' ending - allowing Charlie to show off a natural sense of design that IMHO had few, if any, rivals amongst DC Thomson's stellar lineup of artists.

- Phil Rushton

[philcom55]

...And even better were the many title page spreads he drew for those same annuals:



Over on the Beano Annuals other artists desperately crammed in more and more detail for their title pages in a desperate attempt to compete, but for me none of them could match the sheer bold simplicity of Grigg's vision.

We'll not see his like again...!

- Phil Rushton

[-MikeD-]

I'm glad we have a good archive of the older stuff to admire whenever we need a comforting nostalgia kick. Thanks for posting it, Phil - it's now my desktop wallpaper!

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

yes, Charlie sure knew how to use all that extra space that was available in the Annuals template to utilize great impact: even his more 'economical' material [by his standards] like Phil posted above was top-quality material.

Like Ken Harrison, he was a master of composition.

AND a master of comic-strip comedy: witness the charm-filled scenarios of the corner mice, above.]