Discuss all the girls comics that have appeared over the years. Excellent titles like Bunty, Misty, Spellbound, Tammy and June, amongst many others, can all be remembered here.
philcom55 wrote:
Incidentally it's interesting to note that Black Beauty-type stories had traditionally been seen as a staple ingredient in the lineup of girls' comics, which shows how Look In steadfastly bucked the trend by catering to readers of both genders.
- Phil Rushton
Though the Black Beauty TV series was never really a girly horse type show as some tend to assume: they were Gothic adventures (sometimes even with a macabre Hammer horror-type tinge) of escaped prisoners and roaming villains, Dickensian crooks, evil squires and imprisoned waifs, aimed at the whole family, and equally popular with boys and girls, I'm sure.
Look-In certainly did cater for both sexes though, with its cookery page and its football page!
I knew I would have my chops busted but when I said a waste of his talent it was just the wrong phrase that came to mind, I meant a bit like Wally Wood drawing a funny animals comic. Mike Noble drew great sci fi and it was just a shame to see him drawing a strip about a horse running around a field. (cue more chop busting) I actually threw away the first years worth of Look-In magazines (apart from issue 1) but not before taking out all the Timeslip pages and putting them into a scrap book which I still have - so I do appreciate his art. Just prefer SF to Gee Gees.
Funny you should mention Wally Wood; along with Murphy Anderson he was one of my favourite American comic artists, and I've always seen Mike Noble as a kind of British equivalent of those two. Also, of course, both Noble and Wood drew Gerry Anderson's Fireball XL5 - however briefly in Wood's case!
Nevertheless I must admit that during Look In's lifetime I was enough of a Science Fiction junkie to have agreed with you that Noble was effectively wasted on any other subject matter. It's only in retrospect that I learned to appreciate his horse strips - particularly Black Beauty which, with its period setting, is actually comparable to some of Wally Wood's work for EC's war comics. In the case of Wurzel Gummidge I tended to dismiss it altogether as pure hackwork until I saw some of the original art and realized how effectively Mike made use of a drybrush technique on abraded boards. He really was too versatile to be tied down to just one genre or style.
...Then again, even in the case of Wurzel Gummidge Science Fictional elements weren't entirely lacking:
philcom55 wrote:In the case of Wurzel Gummidge I tended to dismiss it altogether as pure hackwork until I saw some of the original art and realized how effectively Mike made use of a drybrush technique on abraded boards. He really was too versatile to be tied down to just one genre or style.
I thought it was pastel on watercolour board (from an interview) but have to admit I haven't examined any originals on the occasion where opportunity has arisen...
philcom55 wrote:...Then again, even in the case of Wurzel Gummidge Science Fictional elements weren't entirely lacking:
I've gone through a lot of 'Look-in' issues in my time but don't recall that frame... is it actually from a Worzel Gummidge?
It's a dream sequence taken from a page of original artwork (on 'Frisk CS6 Abraded Board' - though you could well be right about him using black pastel). I'm not sure of the date or volume number but 'Issue 16' is written in the margin.
I picked up several issues of TV Comic from 1960 at the ephemera fair in London today. Having looked at the Mike Noble Lone Ranger strips in some of them I am now willing to reappraise my anti horse sentiments.
stevezodiac wrote:I picked up several issues of TV Comic from 1960 at the ephemera fair in London today. Having looked at the Mike Noble Lone Ranger strips in some of them I am now willing to reappraise my anti horse sentiments.
Good man Colonel. I know there aren't any in space Sector 25 that you patrol but no one should be anti-horse.
The red and silver grey colouring is very effective, probably better than full colour. Finding 1960s TV Comics is a great pleasure they had a lot of surprises in them - Dr Who, Fireball, Supercar, Space Patrol, The Avengers etc. Also Huckleberry Hound, Pixie and Dixie, Popeye, Yogi Bear. Was Chick Henderson (who drew some of these) American or British?
steelclaw wrote:Came across my first Sally Comic the other day it's quite a Progressive girls comic for it's day with some really good strips, not the Horsey/ballerina type stories you expected to see in Girls Comics at the time.
Looking at the family tree I see it only ran for 21 months before merging with Tammy.
I see by the signature that "Tiny Tania in Space" seems to be drawn by Comos! If so it must be one of the earliest pieces of his work I've seen in British comics. Lovely to see these, many thanks!
