40th anniversary of Janus Stark!

[Lew Stringer]

I don't think that single experience should be taken to signify more than it probably did, though: I expect they just weren't keen on his style. Looking at his Space School in W + C, I can see it might not be to everyone's tastes; maybe they considered the style a little too crude looking, or too old fashioned? Perhaps Space School didn't prove popular with the readers.

But this proves my point about formula. They took away a strip that was popular (The Cloak, which Mike wrote and drew) because it didn't suit their formula of strips about happy cheery children, and gave him a strip they'd scripted which was more in their tastes (a school strip).

It's not like IPC or W+C had a house style where everyone had to draw like Reg Parlett. W + C itself stood out for having such a broad range of different artistic styles side by side; lots of different looks for so many strips in the same title.

I don't think they meant clone the style, more like have the same ambience: jolly happy smiles everywhere. Reg's work had the same upbeat feel that AP / Fleetway / IPC had been nurturing since Roy Wilson's day. This might also explain why IPC hated The Nervs so much, as it was a square peg in a round hole for their comics. It was this "edge" that they didn't like about Power Comics I think.

It just sounds like whoever took over wasn't keen on his work. It's very possible that a fair few new artists at Odhams were told to draw more like Leo Baxendale ... (I expect they were. Weren't many of the young Wham posse groomed to draw in his style?)

I take your point. They certainly were attempting a Baxendale house style unfortunately, often to a lower standard than IPC would have accepted. Still, genuine talents did emerge such as Graham Allen and Gordon Hogg with their own distinctive styles. Even a top-notch artist like Brian Lewis was asked to imitate Baxendale when he drew Space Jinx for Smash.

I think the Odhams tone stayed in a few things. Ken Reid's Faceache in early-mid 70s Buster had that feel a bit: very wordy speech balloons and strips more concerned with piling up grotesque imagery or people having increasing nervous breakdowns than actual traditional story lines!

And the darker feel non-traditional adventure strip especially flourished in Valiant (which took on Janus, of course) and even, to an extent, in Buster for a while.

True. I think what they lost mostly were the cultural references that Odhams used so much, and the reckless attitudes. Odhams thought nothing of having characters smoking in the strips, - sometimes even the kid characters were at it, despite those same comics featuring an anti-smoking campaign. Then again it was a sign of the times, as Corporal Clott over in The Dandy would sneak out for a fag now and then if I recall correctly.

IPC were definitely more cautious than Odhams had been. Speak to anyone who knew him and they'll tell you that humour group editor Bob Paynter's catchphrase was "We have to be careful here" and this was decades before so-called "political correctness". We tried to change things with Oink! a bit (and Power Comics were a direct influence on my work there) but we all know how the establishment (WH Smith) reacted to that. I suppose IPC could see this over-cautious wave coming into society way back, and safeguarded against it. When they let their defences slip (Action, Oink!) the establishment hammered them for it, so maybe it's understandable why IPC had the attitudes they did.

Lew

[Raven]

Lew Stringer: "But this proves my point about formula. They took away a strip that was popular (The Cloak, which Mike wrote and drew) because it didn't suit their formula of strips about happy cheery children, and gave him a strip they'd scripted which was more in their tastes (a school strip)."


But is it fair to say that IPC had a formula of happy, cheery schoolchildren? There were enough strips about miserable or long-suffering schoolchildren - Whacky, Loser, etc. - and plenty that weren't about schoolchildren at all: The Mummy's Curse, Scream Inn, Harry's Haunted House, Gums, Damsel in Distress, Match of the Week, etc. so they didn't have to be full of kids for IPC to publish them.



"I don't think they meant clone the style, more like have the same ambience: jolly happy smiles everywhere. Reg's work had the same upbeat feel that AP / Fleetway / IPC had been nurturing since Roy Wilson's day. "


He also specialised in strips like Hire a Horror, Rentaghost and Evil Eye though for IPC, which weren't all jolly, happy smiles everywhere; more like people being frightened out of their wits by freaky beasties.

It's true they weren't nihilistic (though I dislike the idea that things have to be bleak and nihilistic to be cool), but IPC wasn't all cheery smiles like a 1930s 'Jolly Cheery Fun For Rosy Cheeked Chummy Cheery Boys' type annual either. I think of all those strips like Terror TV, Freaky Farm and the Badtime Bedtime tales and think you slightly underestimate the weirdness/outre factor of IPC. A certain amount of their stuff featured people being relentlessly antagonised into nervous breakdowns rather like the main characters did to people in the early Looney Tunes cartoons.


"True. I think what they lost mostly were the cultural references that Odhams used so much, and the reckless attitudes. Odhams thought nothing of having characters smoking in the strips, - sometimes even the kid characters were at it, despite those same comics featuring an anti-smoking campaign. Then again it was a sign of the times, as Corporal Clott over in The Dandy would sneak out for a fag now and then if I recall correctly."

I think it was and Odhams, had they continued, probably would have changed quickly, too.

I do recall one example of recklessness in Whizzer and Chips, though. That 1969 fireworks issue with the front cover kids waving lit fireworks - fountains and bangers. You'd also have the odd thing that would raise eyebrows today from time to time - like attackers with a knife or broken bottles in Raven on the Wing; that sort of thing.

Do you think the reckless approach was a good thing in retrospect, as an adult? If you were allowed to, now, would you feature, say, kids smoking in one of your own strips? It is surprising, some of the stuff that went out in the past.

[Lew Stringer]

Do you think the reckless approach was a good thing in retrospect, as an adult? If you were allowed to, now, would you feature, say, kids smoking in one of your own strips? It is surprising, some of the stuff that went out in the past.

Well, characters smoking in comics never turned me into a smoker so I don't see any harm in showing adult characters with a cigarette, as the Marvel reprints in Power Comics often did. In the case of kids, even Odhams presented it as unglamorous, - Tuffy McGrew turning a sickly shade as he drew on a ciggie IIRC. So that's doing it in a responsible way rather than ignoring it.

I did actually have Tom Thug smoke in one strip, in the Oink Smokbuster's Special, an anti-smoking comic:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_448y6kVhntg/R ... smoke2.jpg

Lew

[AndyB]

Nice bit of Ian Knox at the bottom as well!

[Raven]

I did actually have Tom Thug smoke in one strip, in the Oink Smokbuster's Special, an anti-smoking comic:

Thanks for posting that page, Lew. That's very responsible, of course, as it's anti-smoking, and the Odhams example you cite sounds so, too. When you'd said they were reckless with such things, i thought you meant maybe kids were randomly shown smoking without any kind of comment (which you did get in the odd 70s children's TV series.)

Was that Smokebuster's Special given free with Oink or given out at schools or on sale in its own right? (I'm presuming a freebie as it seems more of an educational sort of edition.)


Back to Mr. Stark, I found it interesting that he was popular in France with his own comics over there reprinting the UK strips - and didn't they go on a little longer with a few new ones?

It's a pity Hammer Films didn't do a full-blown Gothic adaptation of Janus Stark back in about 1970. I could have imagined the much younger Peter Cushing playing him, at least.

[Lew Stringer]

When you'd said they were reckless with such things, i thought you meant maybe kids were randomly shown smoking without any kind of comment (which you did get in the odd 70s children's TV series.)

Sometimes they did, such as this page from Pow which is a good example of the sort of things Odhams got away with, for better or worse. In the final panel one schoolgirl is pouring herself a pint of beer, another is smoking a cigarette AND a pipe (at the same time) whilst another sits on a builder's knee chatting him up! Hmm, perhaps they DID go over the top sometimes...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_448y6kVhntg/R ... dolls2.jpg

Lew