Newspaper comic strips

Discuss any comic strip that has appeared in a newspaper over the years. Andy Capp, Rupert, Hagar, Fudge etc

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

wow, I bet nobody on here expected that reply from Pete Nash himself!

Very interesting reading from him...



I suppose today even in BEANO type cartoon strips, cut-and-paste techniques are sometimes used even here, it is just not nearly as obvious as when it is used with photos inserted into a cyber-scene.

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by Lew Stringer »

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:wow, I bet nobody on here expected that reply from Pete Nash himself!
A lesson to learn perhaps that when someone posts comments on a public forum it will get back to the person being discussed. The comics community is relatively small.
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starscape
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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by starscape »

To be honest, I thought Uncle Joshua was Pete Nash. Certainly someone close to him.

As for Striker...well, I tried. I'd no problem with the art and am a big football fan (can't believe I'm going to miss Caley Thistle in the cup final as I have to be away in Wales that day) but...nope. I bought a few with the hookline of a sci-fi comic coming up (never read Psycops as I never read the Sun). I enjoy many of the older football stories (Roy of the Rovers, Iron Barr etc.) so I like a good soccer strip. However, it was designed to appeal to a Sun audience and that simply isn't me. I had no interest in the characters (black with voodoo make-up? snooty Frenchmen? Come on, it's not the 1970s) or desire to read about WAGs. Then Billy's Boots got stopped. Little point me reading with the finances being so poor that it was never going to spark a new comic empire.

Did anyone (not intimately associated with Striker) read the replacement? Quick search says 'The Premier'. Was that 3D art? Any creators we might be aware of work on it?
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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by Lew Stringer »

starscape wrote:To be honest, I thought Uncle Joshua was Pete Nash. Certainly someone close to him.

As for Striker...well, I tried. I'd no problem with the art and am a big football fan (can't believe I'm going to miss Caley Thistle in the cup final as I have to be away in Wales that day) but...nope. I bought a few with the hookline of a sci-fi comic coming up (never read Psycops as I never read the Sun). I enjoy many of the older football stories (Roy of the Rovers, Iron Barr etc.) so I like a good soccer strip. However, it was designed to appeal to a Sun audience and that simply isn't me. I had no interest in the characters (black with voodoo make-up? snooty Frenchmen? Come on, it's not the 1970s) or desire to read about WAGs. Then Billy's Boots got stopped. Little point me reading with the finances being so poor that it was never going to spark a new comic empire.
Yeah, the dated humour didn't sit well with me either. I did like the comic despite that though, and used to read it from cover to cover as soon as I bought it home from the shop. I still have a full set of the issues.
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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

I think we all agree now that '3-D' strips like STRIKER require a lot of skill, and I actually imagine them to be really time-consuming to put together---all that modelling and highlights, etc, it must take ages, like assembling a computer game from scratch.

However! Say 2000 AD or even COMMANDO went this route: making the main characters completely computer-generated---there would be a curiosity factor for readers to start with, but after this, I reckon sales would plunge quicker than ever, one BEANO Book had 3-D versions of the Bash Street Kids that looked like a video-game texture, and I thought these looked terrible.

Dredd and Strontium Dog etc could be done like this, but I think it would lose a lot of the charm of hand-drawn graphics---perhaps 3-D strips work better with sporting themes.

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by Uncle Joshua »

starscape wrote:To be honest, I thought Uncle Joshua was Pete Nash. Certainly someone close to him.


Did anyone (not intimately associated with Striker) read the replacement? Quick search says 'The Premier'. Was that 3D art? Any creators we might be aware of work on it?
Ha. I am not Pete Nash. I run what is classed as the official Warbury Warriors chat forum but it is intact nothing to do with Nashy or Striker. I am a big fan of the strip obviously but I'm definitely not the man himself and have no contact with him.

I found the post about Striker unfair and a tad snobbish, so I posted it on my forum so Pete could respond.

The other football strip and the vampire story The Sun ran were both done by former Striker trainees. Sadly they were artists rather than script writers and they seemed to just cobble old Striker stories together.

Striker isn't for everyone and some of the stereotypes are ott (Mustafa Footi klub) but that is why some of us enjoy it. Sometimes it is beep, sometimes it is dark and sometimes it is bloody ridiculous but it is always Striker.

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by Uncle Joshua »

Got to add a little bit more to this..

If anyone saw the 31-5-15 strip..
Nashy used something I did on the forum in today's strip, he also had a forum banner as a main part of the strip. :cheers:

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by Lew Stringer »

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:I think we all agree now that '3-D' strips like STRIKER require a lot of skill, and I actually imagine them to be really time-consuming to put together---all that modelling and highlights, etc, it must take ages, like assembling a computer game from scratch.

However! Say 2000 AD or even COMMANDO went this route: making the main characters completely computer-generated---there would be a curiosity factor for readers to start with, but after this, I reckon sales would plunge quicker than ever, one BEANO Book had 3-D versions of the Bash Street Kids that looked like a video-game texture, and I thought these looked terrible.

Dredd and Strontium Dog etc could be done like this, but I think it would lose a lot of the charm of hand-drawn graphics---perhaps 3-D strips work better with sporting themes.
2000AD has been using digital imagery and CGI in some of its strips for years Rab.

Recent cover by Alex Ronald:
http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/w ... 929-01.jpg

The art of Clint Langley:
http://www.clintlangley.com/galleries/gallery08.htm

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Yes Lew I have seen a few of these items just recently, and although there is nothing wrong with experimentation like this, I personally just skim through these strips quickly, although this technique did work quite well on robotic themes, like ABC Warriors.---the MEGAZINE went even further, inserting photos of actors posing admidst fantasy futuristic 'comic strip' scenarios-----I personally found these unreadable, though if others like them fair enough.

Most readers seem to prefer characters drawn traditionally though, I bet: if the comic jettisoned the likes of Carlos Ezquerra or Henry Flint in favour of their characters being all done by computer, I am not convinced they would be all that popular with fans.

Many of these established artists have a small but loyal and vocal following.


You could actually claim that even the BEANO is regularly using CGI these days---in image manipulation that is usually invisible to the reader, or the colouring techniques that in most cases exist only as pixels on a monitor before publication. [and certainly in a lot of the logos]


One CGI development I am not too keen on is computerized sound-effects in comics: 2000 AD have been using these fairly recently, and for me, they look jarring , un-natural and unclear to read compared to the way they used to do them. [maybe they shrink them down too much?]

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by Lew Stringer »

Fair enough if you don't like it, Rab, but calling it "experimentation" makes it sound new and untested. 2000AD has been using it for quite a few years now and Striker comic was 12 years ago. You're right that some readers don't like it, but every artist has their critics. I'm not keen on the Reaper photo strip look either, but I do like Clint's work on ABC Warriors.

As for colouring and lettering; that's been done via Photoshop and fonts for a long time now. Don't you use computer colouring on your own strips and cartoons?
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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by starscape »

The CGI art in 2000AD is, IMHO, amazing. Clint and Alex are masters of their art. I've seen the build up and it does start with traditional art. Not that it matters to me, however. Just like my music, if it sounds good, I don't care if it's played on an Argos guitar or a Les Paul. The end result is all.
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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by philcom55 »

As far as I'm concerned there's quite a difference between modern comic artists who use computers to achieve specific effects and the specialized 3D modelling software employed on strips like Striker. While I have no real problems with the former the latter has always looked uncomfortably artificial to me - and even if it ever becomes so sophisticated as to be indistinguishable from photo-realism I can't help thinking it'll run into the same problems as those awful photo-strips that were briefly popular with publishers during the 1980s.

On the other hand, if anybody ever manages to produce comics that look as good as Toy Story then I might be forced to reconsider...!

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Lew Stringer wrote:
As for colouring and lettering; that's been done via Photoshop and fonts for a long time now. Don't you use computer colouring on your own strips and cartoons?

I draw on paper first [as I think you still do] , then use a computer manipulation called GIMP which you may have heard of, Lew----it is free and does over 90 per cent of what Photoshop does------I actually have grown to love and be deeply impressed by what can be achieved with digital colour/ manipulation in comics; there was a Dredd story called Day of Chaos that lasted almost a year over 2013 , that has really well-accomplished computerized colour that I often just gaze at and admire [saddo I am, but I love fantasy imagery like this!]--------whoever coloured these is an absolute master.

As Phil says, it's the totally-computerized imagery that looks like a computer game/ inserts photos of real actors that I have no real affinity for-----I absolutely appreciate good hand-drawn frames combined with effective digital colour, which if done with real skill, goes beyond even what was done in TV21 in colour in the 60s---and that was bloody good !

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Regarding the limits of totally computerized imagery , there are still certain images that even today's sophisticated, powerful computers cannot obtain:

for example, the upcoming TERMINATOR film has to make do with a 67-year-old Arnie Schwarzenneger, they can't just give him a CGI overlay to make his face look 30 years younger--it just would not look convincing----in the last film, they done a very brief scene with a 'young' CGI Arnie, but it was all disguised with steam and rapid action-------in this upcoming film, it looks like they are simply recycling original footage from the first Terminator film from 1984.

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Re: Newspaper comic strips

Post by stevezodiac »

As a Clint Eastwood fan I remember the film "In the Line of Fire" where they showed some old footage of Clint guarding President Kennedy.They superimposed some footage from Dirty Harry against film of JFK to make it look like Clint was his bodyguard.

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