The other Cheeky artists

[Niblet]

Thanks for the replies, I needed some feedback to challenge my assumption, but it's actually convinced me even more that it is Tom.

We have to remember that we're not expecting Tom's ghosting on Cheeky to look exactly like his 'own' work.

Have a look at this page - the milkman in the first panel, the face, the way he's standing, is so much like Tom's work on, for example The Park or School Belle.



The lettering in the captions, the onomatopoeia, the buildings on the horizon. It's all Tom, I tells ya! I'm not getting obsessed by this, honest...gibber gibber!

[NP]

It just doesn't look like Tom to me. I recently studied some of his 1970s art and it doesn't have this kind of line. (The Park is clearly Tom of course).
You could ask him?

[Lew Stringer]

I can see what Niblet means but a couple of thoughts against the theory:

1: Whilst the notes look like Tom's lettering the "Crunch" sfx doesn't look like his style at all.

2: Might be worth remembering that both Frank and Tom have Ken Reid as an influence so there's going to be slight traces of that in their work. (In this case the positioning of the hands and the feet with the milkman and the parkie. Both subtle Ken-inspired techniques.)

[AndyB]

That second page is definitely Frank. It's completely different from Tom's The Park (or School Belle, or Horace and Doris, or Scooper, or Krowjak etc)

Key things to notice: Tom's lettering is very precise where Frank's is uneven. Also, Tom's lines are more even where Frank's lines are often very broad in mid-stroke, and Frank makes a lot more use of shadow than Tom (yes, Tom does use small shadows and silhouttes - just not as much as Frank)

Finally, compare the Cheeky strip to Boy Boss and 1970s Roger the Dodger. It's definitely Frank.

[Niblet]

Thanks again for the feedback. It seems no-one shares my conviction over the Tom P theory

Anyway, I'll continue with my project and when I've loaded all the data and get some statistics out of my database that might throw up some more ideas.

[RobFilth]

I remember this mysterious artist in Cheeky comic.

I think it was the pencils of Frank McDiarmid, and because he was finding the workload so gruelling by then, the inks of Tom Paterson, or someone else.(although the lettering looks like Franks)

There was ANOTHER Cheeky artist not mentioned in this thread who only ever drew the strip once for a Summer special as I recall and who had a distinctly more radical style than the others.

I need to check out some of my back issues and see if I can't crank my scanner up to work.

The third page by Barry Appleby does actually look like the pencils of Ian Knox with the inking done by someone else too(the lines are too thick to have been inked by Ian Knox)

[AndyB]

Now I've seen an annual of monthly strips certainly drawn and designed by Barrie, it's original Barrie for sure.

I asked Ray, and he agrees the first one isn't Tom - it's pure Frank.

[Niblet]

There was ANOTHER Cheeky artist not mentioned in this thread who only ever drew the strip once for a Summer special as I recall and who had a distinctly more radical style than the others.

Cheers, Rob. Yes, there are at least a further 4 ghost artists on the Cheeky strips - Jim Watson, Paul Ailey and another who I can't identify (not the one I think is Tom P) who all provided pages for the weekly comic, and, as AndyB mentioned, Jim Petrie on the annuals (actually, I haven't read the annuals since I bought them when they came out - need to delve into the cupboard under the stairs and retrieve them. It's the same with the summer specials, I need to get them out of my 'specials' box and have a butchers).

I think it was the pencils of Frank McDiarmid, and because he was finding the workload so gruelling by then, the inks of Tom Paterson, or someone else.(although the lettering looks like Franks)

Frank understandably needed help in providing the high number of Cheeky pages, hence the ghosted pages, but did artists ink others' work? I'd never thought about that in relation to British comics, but I suppose if one artist had completed pencils before being told to work on something else, they would have to get another artist to do the inking. Was it a commonplace occurrence? Would a 'name' artist ink another's work, or would it be a member of staff who usually does page resizing/speech balloon modification on reprints-type jobs?

Cheers for bringing this idea up, if it is likely to have happened, you've just added a whole other level of complexity to my artist-id project

I asked Ray, and he agrees the first one isn't Tom - it's pure Frank.

It's funny, isn't it? To my eyes, none of the art posted in this thread looks anything like Frank's work. I don't think we're ever going to reach a consensus on these artist ids, but it's good to get a bit of a debate going.

[RobFilth]

There was ANOTHER Cheeky artist not mentioned in this thread who only ever drew the strip once for a Summer special as I recall and who had a distinctly more radical style than the others.

Cheers, Rob. Yes, there are at least a further 4 ghost artists on the Cheeky strips - Jim Watson,

Ah yeah, Jim Watson was another one I was about to mention on this thread.

I think it was the pencils of Frank McDiarmid, and because he was finding the workload so gruelling by then, the inks of Tom Paterson, or someone else.(although the lettering looks like Franks)

Frank understandably needed help in providing the high number of Cheeky pages, hence the ghosted pages, but did artists ink others' work? I'd never thought about that in relation to British comics, but I suppose if one artist had completed pencils before being told to work on something else, they would have to get another artist to do the inking. Was it a commonplace occurrence? Would a 'name' artist ink another's work, or would it be a member of staff who usually does page resizing/speech balloon modification on reprints-type jobs?

I don't think it was common place at the time for especially UK humorous cartoonists to ink in another's pencils, however given the exceptionally gruelling workload of producing well over 7 pages of Cheeky artwork a week(along with another 3 pages in Krazy Comic too) I think that understandable allowances could well have been made in order to lighten Franks workload.

The first page does look enormously like Franks work in the composition and character outline, but the shading is all wrong and so is the line thicknesses which does suggest that it was inked by someone else.

Of course I could be totally and utterly wrong and perhaps Frank decided to change brush thicknesses and shade Cheekys cheeks (something he never usually did) that week.

Or indeed it could well be an exceptionally good unnamed McDiarmid imitator with a thicker brush style...

[AndyB]

Actually, the line thicknesses are very much Frank's work. It's one of his distinguishing marks.

What shading do you mean? The shading in the car looks right.

[Niblet]

Yes, there are at least a further 4 ghost artists on the Cheeky strips - Jim Watson, Paul Ailey and another who I can't identify

Sorry, slip of the brain, not Paul Ailey, I meant Bob Hill.

[AndyB]

If you still need to be persuaded, see your own blog at http://cheekyweekly.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... tures.html - the Hey Presto strip is by Frank, and has the same perspiration and other characteristics of the ones you were disputing earlier

Hickory Dickory Doc interestingly appears to be an early Jim Watson, but I could be wrong.

[Niblet]

I'm in the process of looking through the run of Cheekys while preparing posts for the blog, and I can now see elements of Frank's work in some of the pages that I attributed to Tom, but to me there's still something 'un-Frank' about those pages.

In the Hey Presto strip, the note under the third panel on the second page is not in what I believe to be Frank's hand, which is shown in the Wednesday page example here http://cheekyweekly.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... heeky.html.

I've always assumed that artists don't necessarily letter the speech balloons, but they usually letter the between-panel comments and stuff like the notes in the phone box on the Wednesday page.

I am now thinking that RobFilth could be right when he suggested earlier in this thread that Frank may have supplied pencils for others to ink and letter.

(btw I agree about Jim Watson)

[Lew Stringer]

Something that crosses my mind is that due to the quantity of weekly work on Cheeky Frank may have had an assistant who helped with backgrounds, inking, etc? Just a thought.

[Niblet]

Yep, that's a possibility.