The Tough of the Track

shawfield · Post by **shawfield** » 29 Mar 2006, 09:49

Any 'Victor' fans out there, go here for a dose of nostalgia

http://www.toughofthetrack.net

cheers

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 10 Jul 2007, 12:17

Great website and recommended to all fans of Alf. Talking of Alf, can Kashgar help with artist identification of who drew the Tough Of The Track during 1981 when Alf coached the England U-18 cross country team. It seems to be reminiscent of Eric Bradbury's style but I am not 100% sure.

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 11 Jul 2007, 11:04

colcool007 wrote:Great website and recommended to all fans of Alf. Talking of Alf, can Kashgar help with artist identification of who drew the Tough Of The Track during 1981 when Alf coached the England U-18 cross country team. It seems to be reminiscent of Eric Bradbury's style but I am not 100% sure.

It is a great website for all Alf Tupper fans. For my part I've already supplied them with a complete list of the artists who provided the heading block illustrations for the original text stories and will soon be sending them a complete listing of all Alf's picture strips in Victor etc.
I'll double check to be sure Col but I think the artist for the 1981 strip in question was probably Ted Rawlings. I'll get back to you once I've had a look to make sure.

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 12 Jul 2007, 10:55

'Bloomin' Ada!' Wrong guess again. I really must stop predicting the answers to questions before I go and check them out. The artist on the 1981 Alf Tupper strip (Victor Nos1068-1086) wasn't Ted Rawlings as I rashly posited but a European lad named Maidagan who also drew the Tough strip in the 1981 Victor Summer Special and the 1984 Victor Book.

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 06 Jan 2008, 17:52

Just an update to say that I am now into the last run of Victors and I have found that Alf is not an only child anymore! The last story arc published in the Victor was about Alf trying to break the world record of Nigel Caxton, a typically upper-class rogue and it comes to light that Alf had a twin brother named Danny, who was adopted at an early age. Stone the crows! Once I'm up to date, I will see if I can get some scans sorted and pass them onto Shawfield for use in his website.

Peter Gray · Post by **Peter Gray** » 28 Aug 2008, 17:37

Now Tough is in Classics thought I'd bump the post up..

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 05 Oct 2008, 18:45

Just to add a random thought. The Edinburgh Or Bust story always niggled at me. Why did DCT take the highly successful Pete Sutherland off the Alf Tupper story and replace him with Ted Rawlings? Nothing wrong with either style, but it always niggled at me.

Now I think that I have the answer. Just got hold of a decent run (spotty in part, but still respectable of 92 out of 156) going from early '68 to late '70. And I am avidly reading them (Yes, I know that I should be indexing those covers, but like I said Read first, indexing a very poor second!) and my suggestion is this....

Pete Sutherland was illustrating the serial Fists of The Blackfellow about an aboriginie who wanted to box, so his one appearance by an artist in an issue had already been taken by this story, therefore the current Victor Editor gave the Edinburgh story to Ted Rawlings. Does this sound plausible? Or would we have to delve into the DCT archive to find if another reason existed? The only other reason that I can think of is that Pete Sutherland was up to his ears in work with The Big Palooka, The Coonskin Grenadier, etc and said Enough!

Post by **AndyB** » 05 Oct 2008, 21:08

I'm sorry only two Tough of the Track strips got reprinted in Classics. Aunt Meg's characterisation was very good in particular, as the selfish evil ugly washer woman, against Alf's dedication to running and the well-established fact that as long as everyone played fair, the only problem Alf caused was that he was the best.

alanultron5 · Post by **alanultron5** » 03 Feb 2009, 15:59

When I was reading the strip in early to mid 1960s Alf could never beat a East European runner called `Zandor`. Does anyone know if Alf ever `did` get the better of that fellow?

Comics UK