Comics UK

philcom55 wrote:Which are the issues you've not seen?As a matter of interest have you compiled similar lists for any other characters or picture libraries?

The Sally issues I don’t have are:

44: Ballet Cruise for Sally
52: Showboat Sally
60: Three Cheers for Circus Sally!
81: Sally’s Space Ballet

Yes, I do have plenty of other lists, covering most of the comic material I have. When I first became interested in girls’ comics, I couldn’t believe that the creators of some of the most brilliant and original artwork that I had seen in picture strip stories should be anonymous, with some of them unknown even to comics historians. This started me listing stories as a means of tracking and finding the names of as many of the artists as I could.

Not all the lists are comprehensive - I haven’t tried to list all the annual stories for example – but I have done a complete list of all the picture libraries I own, albeit with many blanks and plenty of guesswork. I do have some character lists, but these are mostly of characters whose artists are well known – Lucky’s Living Doll, Bella, Patty’s World, Bobby Dazzler, Barbie etc.

I’d be very happy to share any of this if anybody feels it would be useful. But I’m afraid some of the lists would be too large to post here – the picture library list has 500+ entries and the annuals list runs to over 1,000.

PM sent.

Of those four issues I have no's 52 and 81. I'll post scans from them when I get the chance.

Here are the first two pages from 'Showboat Sally' - almost certainly drawn by R B Davis I'd say.

Thanks very much for this, Philcom. Yes, the closeup on the second page looks like R B Davis.

Some great examples of artwork, I am not as confident or knowledgeable about attributing artists but nice to see them getting named.

Here are the first two pages of 'Sally's Space Ballet' from Princess Picture Library #81 - though in this case I don't recognize the artist at all. It's interesting that whenever Sue Day encountered fantastic elements like flying saucers there always turned out to be a down-to-Earth explanation, but in this case, for her last adventure, Sally really does seem to meet a genuine visitor from the stars.

Thanks very much again for this, Philcom. The artist is new to me also. I like the look of the story, though. What an opening! One of the things I like most about the Sally stories is the imaginative backgrounds thought up by the writers. In the course of these PLs she seems to pretty much quarter the earth, from dodging avalanches in the Alps to escaping from exotic hidden kingdoms. One I found particularly striking is in Sally and the Fifteenth Doll, where she chases the villains through an eerily deserted stretch of Japanese coastline, which has been evacuated because it is about to be hit by a typhoon. It seems rather fitting that the final story should take her outside the earth altogether.

I'll reply to your PM soon.

philcom55 wrote:Here are the first two pages of 'Sally's Space Ballet' from Princess Picture Library #81

WOW! That is lovely artwork Phil. The girl's look seems to me to be similar to others but the man is drawn so 'photographically' to make it hard to work out who the artist is! Thanks for sharing and who would think that a small query re Sue day would bring such riches to the table!

While I'm still working my way through several hundred issues of Princess and Princess Tina to check for reprints of Happy Days stories I can at least confirm that some stories WERE reprinted based on a page I just noticed in my collection of original art. As you can see from the marginal notes at the bottom of this episode it was originally printed in an issue of Princess dated March 5th 1966 and then apparently re-used in an issue of (Princess) Tina dated February 24th 1973.

I have come across another example. In digging around on eBay, I found that a story which was first published in Princess 10th-24th June 1967, was reprinted in Princess Tina 12th-26th August 1972:



I also saw extracts from three other Princess Tina stories printed during September and October 1972 which are drawn in the same style as these two examples - more rounded and less angular than his later style. This suggests that they too may have been originally published in the late 1960’s. It’s starting to look as if the Princess Tina/Tina series may have depended quite a lot on reprints during its last year or so, especially while the parallel series was running in Pixie.

It also looks as if some of the Pixie stories may have been originals. The Illustration Art Gallery has a page of original artwork which includes a space for the distinctive Pixie title header, and which looks therefore like it was drawn for publication in Pixie:

http://bookpalace.com/acatalog/info_Wil ... ml#SID=385

(The date attributed by the sellers is clearly wrong: they have mixed it up with two pages of artwork from an earlier story).

I do like Wilson's art, and it's fascinating to see how his style evolved over the years. Until a few months ago Phil Clarke had virtually ALL the Happy Days artwork for sale in a pile several feet high, but I seemed to be the only one who ever bought any. Now it's all been donated to a museum or university up North.

On the Pixie stories Goof I think I can confirm your suspicion that they were newly drawn for that publication as I've just found a couple of pages in Wilson's later style which also feature that distinctive header space, as well as having 'Pixie no.19, Oct 28 1972' written in the margin. What's more it's quite clear that they have never carried any other notes relating to an earlier use. Here's a detail of the opening panel.


...Funnily enough I think I prefer this style AND the very early one to the middle period - though they all have something to recommend them.

Incidentally, it's worth noting that Wilson also drew a full-colour version of 'Lassie Come Home' for Princess Tina during 1969 so it seems unlikely he'd have had time to produce a new Happy Days strip every week as well. Here's an example of his original art for that series, also from my own collection.

philcom55 wrote:I do like Wilson's art, and it's fascinating to see how his style evolved over the years. Until a few months ago Phil Clarke had virtually ALL the Happy Days artwork for sale in a pile several feet high, but I seemed to be the only one who ever bought any. Now it's all been donated to a museum or university up North.

At least it's been preserved. Very little IPC original artwork survives because they did not have any preservation attitudes.