SPARKY "Writers"

[alanultron5]

I do get some slant on DCT working practices mid 50s to the early 60s via Leo Baxendale's book! Top say that it was a `strict` regime would be a bit mild! Only a couple of management staff come across as `flexible`; one in particular is Iain Chisholm. Leo instantly saw a more enlightened man in Iain and they stayed good friends long after Leo left DCT!

If ever a comic got the right editor to helm it `Sparky` was the lucky recipient of Iain's more `progressive` stewardship circa late 68, early 69. No disrespect to previous Editor Willy Mann, but Iain was the man for those times -what with a big surge in `wacky-off the wall` humour in the media such a Monty Python and the `Q` series! I have said it before- but to repeat again, from 1969-in my view- Sparky was the most progressive and experimental of the five DCT `fun titles and it's down to `Chiz`.

[Gordon Cook]

Rab Smith once informed me that artist on "Puss and Boots" John Geering scripted most of those!

The classic period Puss and Boots weren't written by John Geering, but by a writer who eventually went on to be a journalist, as I recall, but I can't remember his name!

Puss and Boots was originally a single page, scripted by myself (Gordon Cook) but as it got wilder and became a colour centre-spread John did more and more of the scripting. The thing that made Puss and Boots was the fact that editor Ian Chisholm let us away with virtually anything in the speech balloons, hand-lettered because the type-setting machine couldn't cope. I've only one more thing to say. Baggle!

[alanultron5]

Thank you for that bit of scripting info Gordon. I'll add it to my `Sparky File`.

[stevezodiac]

I met Ian Chisholm a couple of times in the Fleet Street office in the mid seventies and found him to be a very affable bloke.

[stevezodiac]

Funny but it's the Cheltenham Festival and I just watched the Champier Nirdle. (Champion Hurdle)

[alanultron5]

Hoping Gordon might know just when Iain Chisholm took over Editorship of `Sparky`