MY LEAST FAVOURITE CURRENT COMIC ARTIST

[Lew Stringer]

Comics have always reflected the world around them. The style of Tom Browne, who influenced the likes of Roy Wilson and Reg Parlett, and became the "traditional British humour style" was itself influenced by the slapstick and costumes of the music hall comedians. (Look at the early films of Charlie Chaplin: all the ingredients of the "traditional" humour strip, right down to the posture and body language).
Originally posted by Lew Stringer on the old forum on 31/1/2006

Ha! Shows what I know. I've since learned that Chaplin based the Tramp on Weary Willie and Tired Tim, (from Illustrated Chips) - and no doubt based his body language on the comic poses too.

Although the comics themselves soon imitated Chaplin! It's like a time travel paradox!

Lew

[Old Freddy]

I'm not a fan of Wayne Thomson. I liked his Billy Whizz at first when he was drawing it like Mal Judge (those strips are some of my favourites), but his style declined sharply and worryingly, to the point where it looked slapdash and rushed. I honestly thought at the time that I could have done a better job (I was 10 at the time!). I've never liked anything else he's done.

I think Nick Brennan wasn't a bad artist, but by 2006 his work was poor. The characters looked distorted. I don't think the colouring helped either - the very bright colours used by that time made his work look a lot worse in my view.

Wierd, I was about 10 at that time too!

I do know what you mean about both artists. The "badness" of Wayne T at Billy Whizz after the appearence of Joe Jitzu didn't affect the otherwise reasonable popularity of the strip, but his style was too wacky. And Jak III isn't that much better than Jak II. I hate the word "Dweeb" and other childish words that only... err.. dweebs use.

I think that when Brennan first arrived, his style was completely brand new to Thomsons. Colour also wasn't a downturn as opposed to Tom Paterson's work. I really like Brennan's unique technique of using crayons rather than a printing machine, paints or a computer. He used watercolours when drawing Blinky but even this wasn't a bad thing. However, by 1997, not only had the strips become less funny but the artwork became less witty and wackier instead. Crazy for daisy isnt really the greatest brennan strip in the world.

These days his work is just so messy. I also think that, if they want to reprint blinky strips, they should be between 1994 and 1996, not between 1997 and 1999.

[AndyB]

When Peter Davidson first started drawing Oor Wullie in the late 1980's/early 1990's, I must say I thought his style was a bit rubbish, and there wasn't really much life to the work and barely anyone opened their mouths

I wasn't aware that anything had changed...!

I also detest Henry Davies' work. Too much cutting and pasting of other artists' work. On the other hand, Kev Sutherland's work has grown on me considerably since my comments three years ago.

[Digifiend]

Shame Kev's services were dispensed with eh?

Davison couldn't hope to match Oor Wullie's original artist - the legendary Dudley Watkins. So it looks like he doesn't bother trying. *shrugs*

[Old Freddy]

When Peter Davidson first started drawing Oor Wullie in the late 1980's/early 1990's, I must say I thought his style was a bit rubbish, and there wasn't really much life to the work and barely anyone opened their mouths

I wasn't aware that anything had changed...!

I also detest Henry Davies' work. Too much cutting and pasting of other artists' work. On the other hand, Kev Sutherland's work has grown on me considerably since my comments three years ago.

I don't like the Dennis the Menace Circus episode in the Beano book 2007. Everyone's drawn too wrinkly, and It's almost like everyone seems to hate Dennis and he doesn't care!

[Steve Henderson]

I wasn't a fan of dennis the samurai. For me a strip hits the viewer visually first and you make a split second decision as to wether its worth your time or not the art is key to this and I didn't like dennis in 'nutjob' style didn't do anything for me! Sorry to spread the hate people! Dennis is quite a precious character to some people and change isn't aways seen as good, hence the upset caused by the possible refurb

[Jonny Whizz]

I definitely agree about Henry Davies. The Dennis strip in the 2007 annual looked horrible, with the characters wrinkly (especially Dennis, who was dreadful) and realistic. Their eyes looked weird as well. I don't like realistic looking cartoon characters - it's one of the reasons I dislike Manga.

In late 2004, he drew a special long Dennis strip. Frankly, it looked like he'd just copied drawings off other artists, but he couldn't decide which artists to ape. In the one strip, his characters looked remarkably like a huge variety of different artists, such as Davey Law, Tom Paterson and Dave Sutherland. This variety meant the strip lacked consistent appearance, and unsurprisingly, aside from the 2007 annual strip, he hasn't done any more strips like that for the Beano since.

I didn't enjoy the Samurai Dennis in the 2009 annual either. The strip itself was okay, but Wayne Thompson's style simply didn't suit Dennis. Having said that, it's not always bad when an artist draws a strip for the annual that they don't usually draw in the weekly comic. Tom Paterson's Billy Whizz in the 2008 Beano annual was excellent.

[Old Freddy]

The ultimate thing I hate in the 2007 annual is that calamity james looks like a 25000 year old wrinkly carrier bag that's been over James' head.

I think paterson's billy whizz was good too. I like the first frame where it shows billy zooming along with his long tongue trailing behind...

I'm not too keen on realistic cartoons, and I detest manga. As a matter of fact, taking more of a manga orientation in some of the 1998-2008 sonic games is one of the reasons why they suck so bad (Sonic next gen was appaling, yet it was supposed to be the big killer game to celebrate his 15th birthday). And what exactly is the point in manga in the first place? It just has animation at 2fps, and there's not even funny bits in manga, and yet it sometimes ends up being the only thing on TV to watch (Disney channel just churns out bull and Nick & CN aren't much better). I usually watch GOLD, Dave and Challenge.

But I'm not really on topic. Of course I hate G hall, who is famous for sapping all the fun right out of the world's fastest boy. (has he drawn anything else at all that we know of?)

When I was younger, I could really take or leave Keith Reynolds, but his work has grown on me recently.

I also could take or leave Kev F, with his rather slapdash work, when I was little. But now his work I believe is very humorous, and I enjoy spotting the signatures on all the pages!

Dave eastbury is really a pretty cool artist, he's sort of like an artist who's better than you think. However, his work looks almost like it's done on flash as opposed to being hand-drawn.

Who drew the Mini-egg adverts featuring "Little Percy Chump" around 1993? Because I absolutely LOATHE him. It may be done on a computer, but he's absolutely terrible.

[Jonny Whizz]

I have an issue of the Beano from Feb. 2001 where the Ball Boy strip was drawn by G Hall. That certainly doesn't count as a regular though - it appeared to be a one-off, filling in for John Dallas. I can't think of anything else he has drawn.

[Digifiend]

Manga? Realistic? Giant eyes! Not all manga looks realistic. Anyway, if you don't like realistic looks, you probably don't like any Thomson/Fleetway/2000AD adventure strips, nor Marvel and DC Comics. So I find it very hard to believe. Would be interesting to see a response from Laura Howell, since she's done manga in the past.

[Jonny Whizz]

Hmmm. You're right, maybe Manga isn't realistic. You caught me out there! It's just those giant eyes that bother me. I might add that Wayne Thompson is the only DCT artist I know of that draws like this. To be honest though, there is an element of truth in what you're saying. I prefer a more cartoony look and have always preferred the humour strips to the adventure stories. The adventure strips certainly aren't bad though - the artwork on them is usually excellent and the stories are good.

[Digifiend]

I can think of another example besides Wayne's Jak and Todd strip: Bea had excessively large eyes when drawn by David Parkins - and Dave Sutherland, since he used Parkins' style (as opposed to NP's) when drawing her in the Dennis annuals, as Bea didn't exist when he drew Dennis regularly.

[wayne thompson]

can everybody remember to put a P in my surname.

[AndyB]

Welcome to the forum, wayne!

[philcom55]

can everybody remember to put a P in my surname.

Damn! Just when I'd got used to not putting one in DC Thomson...!

- Phil Rushton