Buster's big five-0

[Lew Stringer]

It's 50 years this weekend since Buster No.1 was launched. Here's my blog to celebrate.

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2010/05 ... thday.html

Anyone else blogging a Buster nostalgia-fest this week? Add your links to this topic.

[Peter Gray]

All my posts this Month have been on Buster comic including issue 1 and 2..
hope people have enjoyed it..

I've put a link on my latest post to your blog post.

[Lew Stringer]

All my posts this Month have been on Buster comic including issue 1 and 2..
hope people have enjoyed it..

I've put a link on my latest post to your blog post.

Thanks for showing that ThunderThugs strip Peter. I'd forgotten I'd done that episode!

[Peter Gray]

Did you draw for Thunderbirds comic?

[Lew Stringer]

Did you draw for Thunderbirds comic?

No. I never even submitted samples as it's not my style of artwork.

[kezandluke]

I'm not gonna be blogging about it, Lew, but one of the great joys of the last few months on TOXIC was getting a look at just some of the Buster archive books that we have in storage at Egmont. By my desk now, we have two or three massive folders filled with later (mostly reprint, I think) Buster comics and it was great to flick through some genuinely fun and funny British comics.

We had the archives out as there was talk of re-using some old Buster comics (obviously, only colour comics) in TOXIC at the end of last year, but it's all gone a little quiet now...

[bustercomic]

Fifty, eh? And last time I saw him ten years ago, he didn't look old enough to buy alcohol!

The first three interviews (Trevor/Lew/Scott) will be up online tonight. Allen Cummings will follow - it's a longer job as I've got to type up the transcript first. Optimistically, it'll be Sunday. Realistically, it'll be next weekend. Pessimistically, it'll be by Buster's 51st Birthday I promise!

I can also confirm two more interviews that'll appear on the site later this year. Jack Edward Oliver provided an interview to Bustercomic.com (our former sister site) before his death in 2007. It's never been published before, but it will finally see the light of day this summer.

I've also been promised copy of a transcript from Ron "Nobby" Clark who died last year. His son Chris, has recorded an interview about his life, and we'll have access to the Fleetway years as Ron talks about life scripting Buster in the early 1960s.

They've been delayed for launch weekend, but will be up online later this year.

[Digifiend]

We had the archives out as there was talk of re-using some old Buster comics (obviously, only colour comics) in TOXIC at the end of last year, but it's all gone a little quiet now...

Blimey, even Toxic was considering using 90s reprints? I know they already sometimes reprint Team Toxic (alongside new episodes) which would be from around 2004/5, but I always thought they'd never have to resort to strips which predate itself, since they only have 3 or 4 strips in each issue anyway. I joked about that when Beano was using those 80s Rasher reprints last year.

By the way, it doesn't matter if they're not already in colour, they can add the colour - Beano did that with Rasher and I think currently does so for Calamity James, Dandy Xtreme would've done likewise when they reprinted Snip and Snap from 1970s Sparky in 2007. I think a lot of Buster's 1990s reprints were originally black and white in 80s issues of Buster and Whizzer and Chips.

[bustercomic]

We had the archives out as there was talk of re-using some old Buster comics (obviously, only colour comics) in TOXIC at the end of last year, but it's all gone a little quiet now...

That's rather interesting. I'm getting the impression the Buster special last year didn't do as well as Egmont hoped. My Egmont contacts have been very quiet this year and haven't returned e-mails.

Perhaps that goes some way to explaining why the reprint in Toxic has been shelved.

[kezandluke]

By the way, it doesn't matter if they're not already in colour, they can add the colour

I believe the original idea was to get comics into the mag without spending money. Adding colour would cost and we might as well get new, original stuff if we were willing to spend at that point. This was a credit crunching time, afterall, and all options were being considered.

I honestly don't know about the sale of the Buster reprint - I know they were highly thought of within the company and generally lauded as a great idea. But, I don't know if any more are going ahead.

[Peter Gray]

Loved seeing the script by Scott in the interviews...very funny the last bit..

Bob Paynter he really should be interviewed too..also I would love to meet him one day..almost did when Jack Edward Oliver was going to arrange it then he became ill..

I bet Bob has lots of stories..
look forward to the rest of the interviews..

also nice Lew the hidden details in the last Tom Thug you put in.never seen your last one..

Its good Trevor is still working on different projects..

[Raven]

Nice to read these interviews, bustercomic - well done!

A strange comment from Scott: "I certainly invented "Fishboy" - based, I think, on a TV series of the time called "The Man From Atlantis" about a bloke who lived in a lost underwater city." Strange because The Man From Atlantis started in 1977 and Fishboy started in, I think, 1968. The fact that Fishboy had been running for over eight years before - and had also ended - some time before the TV series first aired makes that a very odd mistake to make about his own work.

If only you could track down perhaps IPC's greatest adventure writer Tom Tully!

For future interviews it might be interesting to ask the contributors whether they've kept old copies or how many they still have. I wouldn't be that surprised to find they don't have any!

[bustercomic]

Blimey - that's quite an anomally!

Perhaps The Man from Atlantis was based on Fishboy! I'll mention that to Scott and see what he says!

Allen Cummings touches on work going back to artists from the Fleetway vault......I will get that up next weekend (come hell or high water).

Any other feedback/wish lists welcome!

Matt

[Digifiend]

Fishoy's certainly not based on the Man from Atlantis, maybe the inspiration came from Aquaman or Namor the Sub-Mariner instead, DC and Marvel superheroes with similar powers to Fishboy who both debuted in the early 1940s.

[Jonny Whizz]

I'm too young to remember Buster but I do have one issue from 1998, it was mostly reprint by this time though.

While I'm at it, good grief! You know the Tom Thug strip you put on your 50 years of Buster blog, Lew? The issue's dated for the day I was born!