Sparky junior to growing up...

Peter Gray · Post by **Peter Gray** » 20 Apr 2007, 17:48

Sparky junior to growing up...

The junior Sparky the good bits was Hungry Horace..The Moonsters (my Fav) Peter Piper (the funny thing about this strip is they don't seem to turn back to what they were..so strange place to live seeing small people..statues walking about

)..Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora was very imagnitive

...did this artist writer do other strips? Invisible Dick..Keyhole Kate

1969 Sparky got good.....was it because of a new editor...
I Spy.....the Sparky people...Pansy Potter..Klanky..Spoofer..Puss and Boots...L Cars..Barney...Mr Bubbles..Ali and his Baba..Dreamy Daniel..Some Mummies do ave em...Thingummy blob..The Planet of the Nirdles (doddle bug of its time).......loads of top zany fun characters...

Also new adult characters were used......which is rare these days other than The Dandys characters...

Sparky is still good to read today..

was Brainless the some mothers do ave em Frank Spencer type character in the comics.....he is great in the annuals...

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 24 Apr 2007, 11:12

By the late 1960's the editor of Sparky was Ian Chisolm, the original Beezer editor, hence the change in direction for the comic which had originally been edited by Willie Mann, an editor from the boys picture papers who had launched Victor in 1961.
'Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora' had no regular artist so it depends which one of the artists took your fancy as to whether they drew other comic strips and what they were.
'Brainless', drawn by John Geering, only ever appeared in the Sparky Book (1978-1980) the weekly comic having ended before his arrival.

Peter Gray · Post by **Peter Gray** » 24 Apr 2007, 12:59

new editors sure change a comic....wonder how The Beano will look like later...

thanks again..

Peter Gray · Post by **Peter Gray** » 25 Apr 2007, 17:44

The Circus of P.T Bimbo by NEA inc so that must be from the Netherlands...

Also on I Spy (which I'm sure Lew will cover in his blog)
I know the later artist was Frank McD But who was the other artist and did he draw other comic pages....?

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 26 Apr 2007, 11:31

'The Circus of P.T.Bimbo' was indeed a foreign strip bought in by Thomsons. The artist, who usually signed his work, was named Schneider.
The first and principal artist on 'I Spy' was Les Barton. Off the top of my head I think he also drew another strip for Sparky titled 'Ma Kelly's Telly' or something like that.

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 26 Apr 2007, 13:40

Kashgar wrote: The first and principal artist on 'I Spy' was Les Barton. Off the top of my head I think he also drew another strip for Sparky titled 'Ma Kelly's Telly' or something like that.

That's right. A few of them were reprinted in Classics from the Comics recently. Good strip, albeit strongly influenced by The Tellybugs from Smash! a few years earlier.

For me, Les Barton's I Spy is the definitive one. Brian Walker did some good work on the strip after him, but it's Barton's dynamic layouts and serials that stick in my mind. I'd hoped Classics would reprint them but they tend to keep to complete stories where possible, and for some reason won't reprint strips over two pages in length. (Some of Barton's episodes were 3 or 4 pages in length at times.)

Lew

ISPYSHHHGUY · Post by **ISPYSHHHGUY** » 16 Oct 2007, 20:44

I wrote to 'CLASSICS of the COMICS' twice, requesting reruns of LES BARTON'S version of 'I SPY'..........I've bought every issue of 'CLASSICS' and good as it is, the vertible icing on the cake would be ongoing serial repeats of early 'I SPY'.........to date, only 4 pages of this early work has resurfaced [in numbers 66 and 123].

Comics UK