Infamous Magnet Editor?

Brendan McGuire · Post by **Brendan McGuire** » 05 Apr 2006, 23:17

I have been browsing through Alan Clark's Dictionary of British Comic Artists, writers and Editors and came across a rather intriguing submission. Under the entry for Sidney Pride, Clark writes Pride's daughter married John Nix Pentelow, the famous (infamous to some, due to one particular story he wrote and published) MAGNET editor. Naturally I went rushing to the Pentelow entry only to find that there wasn't one. So, what was this story? Why was it infamous?

nelclaret · Post by **nelclaret** » 23 Apr 2006, 02:13

Just came across this and had a look in the 'Magnet Companion '77' (Howard Baker)

John Nix pentelow was Magnet editor between 1916 and 1919. He wrote a large number of Greyfriars and St Jims stories in the last two years of WW1, when there was little material from Frank Richards available. The only hint of 'infamy' in the entry is that there was uproar when he killed off a character by the name of Arthur Courtney, a greyfriars sixth-former, in issue 520 of the Magnet.

It seems rather a trivial thing to earn an 'infamy' tag but that is the best I could find.

Hope this helps.

Nelclaret

Brendan McGuire · Post by **Brendan McGuire** » 23 Apr 2006, 03:10

Judging by the years of his editorship I can see that the death of a young man at that point in time would have nettled sensibilities. I was rather expecting nuns on crack cocaine, at the very least, as a description of infamy, but then, I am rather warped.