Comics Britannia reviewed

[PaulTwist]

The programmes were pitched at educating the "man in the street" about the movers and shakers of the industry.

Lew

Exactly - it's a documentary aimed at a mainstream audience that is covering a niche hobby. Fans of the subject matter are always going to come away from these sorts of shows disappointed, but it needs to be accessible to everyone. While comics like Oink! were a big part of my childhood, I'd be a fool to think it was more deserving of airtime than Viz (which deserves its own programme really).

It's like those recent documentaries about rock music on BBC2 - fine for what they were, but to anyone who is already interested in the genres covered there was nothing new, and many influential and well-respected artists were overlooked in favour of the popular ones.

I'm just pleased that there has been a three part series on British comics, that has avoided being patronising and has at least tried to cover as much ground as possible. If it'd been six parts then it would've covered more ground, but at the risk of alienating the casual viewer.

[Peter Gray]

Arena the comic strip hero.....Superman in comics.....BBC 4 8:10-9:00 tonight should be good....Johnathon Ross meets Steve D is afterwards

Arena of course did a Beano and Dandy celebration the 50th as well in the past

[TomRaymondUK]

Minnie was super by Jim Petrie he really captured the energy and action....

I seem to remember one of IPC's comics publishing a letter along the lines of "Who is the artist behind the Incredible Sulk, and is he a sulk himself?" The editor responded "The artist is jolly Jim Petrie, and he's never been known to frown!" So Petrie was the first Beano artist I got to identify by name...the others, like Ron Spence and Ken Harrison, came later, when I read one of Denis Gifford's excellent reference books.

I think I would find it hard to meet Leo Baxendale...surely he must like Tom Patersons work...

I had a brief correspondence with Leo Baxendale in the late 1990s and he described Paterson as "a good artist who puts a lot of energy into his work", so I assume he does.

[TomRaymondUK]

In part one, I thought it was quite strange seeing people roaring with booming laughter at some of the original strips. Much as I loved them, and even at their best, I never thought the British humour comics ever induced room-shaking belly laughter like maybe a Fawlty Towers episode might - more like quiet inner chuckles or delight at best, and I think at least one other participant said they didn't think they ever actually laughed at their favourite humour comics as kids, but read them quite seriously.

Did anyone else here ever actually laugh out loud at the Beanos, Sparkys, Dandys, Cor!!s and Whizzerzes and Chipses? Despite their claims, they were never really funny in *that* way, were they?

Oddly enough, I do laugh out loud at old comics now I'm in my thirties, so I assume the depictions of kids laughing at their favourite comics is a fanciful adult interpretation more than anything. I don't think I ever laughed out loud, even at Nutty which was my absolute favourite, as a child, but now I'm an 'old fart' (and, let's face it, there's not much to laugh about nowadays is there?) I do find they actually reduce me to loud, helpless laughter - particularly a sequence from Nutty's 'Wild Rovers' reproduced in Classics From the Comics with a frozen and chattering Basil Crumb being used as a lawnmower by his irate boss!

[Kashgar]

So Petrie was the first Beano artist I got to identify by name...the others, like Ron Spence and Ken Harrison, came later, when I read one of Denis Gifford's excellent reference books.

It's Ron Spencer not Ron Spence BTW and sadly he is an artist who is no longer with us unlike Gordon Bell.

[TomRaymondUK]

Duh!

I liked Ron Spencer's style. Being eternally unable to capture that 'flowing varying thickness of line that creates the illusion of movement' myself (as mastered by Al Hirschfeld) I really appreciated the fact that Spencer's work used a regulation thin line.