What was inside Playhour pictures...? Playhour chat

[matrix]

[quote="suebutcher"]A Magic Roundabout from 1968. Is this Gordon Hutchings? It's hard to tell with the standardised characters, but Florence's expression and Mr Rusty's eyes in the last panel remind me of the Hutchings Sooty art.

Mr Rusty is the give away for me. And to confirm, here is a quote from Steve Holland over at Bear Alley. "Hutchings' returned to the cover of Playhour with 'The Magic Roundabout' in 1967"

Nice example Sue, he really was a great choice for nursery comic art.

[philcom55]

A number of early Magic Roundabout Annuals have artwork credited to 'Hutchings' (as well as at least one Babar Annual), but the style is curiously flat and a far cry from the glory days of Gregory Grasshopper, Gordon Guinea-Pig and Sooty in my opinion. Steve Holland mentions that the three Hutchings brothers started a studio in the mid 1960s so my guess is that they may have worked together on a lot of these later strips and illustrations, a bit like the Blasco brothers and the Grahame Johnstone sisters. Beyond the mid 1970s, however, Gordon's career seems to be something of a mystery. Steve speculates that he may have moved over to DC Thomson, but I've yet to see anything that looks like his style in their nursery titles.

[matrix]

The two examples below are early 'Magic Roundabout' covers the one with the group skipping is the first one.
The snow scene cover is more like his earlier style to me, and looking through the years they definitely changed as time went on.

[suebutcher]

I think the "Roundabout" snow cover is by Ferguson Dewar, going by Florence's pose in the second panel. Whoever drew it didn't know that trees are NEVER green in Magic Roundabout Land!

[suebutcher]

Changing the subject to Jack And Jill, Carol reckons that the cover of the 1963 annual was a swipe. The small comic panel is by Wallace Wood, from Mad's 1961 "Pogo Possum" parody,"Pogum".

[mozza]

Hi there,

I picked up some original Playhour artwork a couple of years back and I was wondering if any experts would be able to identify who was responsible.

It's of The Gingerbread Boy, taken from a Playhour annual (which one I don't know, but I'd love to find out!) I'm guessing, from the little research that I've done on the net, that it may have been repurposed from another comic, such as Bonnie?

Does anyone know who might have drawn it. It's an amazingly clean style. Some reports say that Gordon Hutchings did the Gingerbread Boy, but another Gingerbread Boy on eBay at the moment (which looks to be by the same artist) is attributed to John Donnelley:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GINGER-BREAD- ... Swo6lWF4cq

From what I've seen of John Donnelley's work, it doesn't look to be quite the same style. Could be getting completely confused by this though! It's such a shame these artists aren't better known or covered on the web.

Gingerbread Man

Thanks in advance for any help in identifying the artist

[philcom55]

The stylised technique does look like some of the later Pinky Puff pages I've got, which makes me think it could be by one of the Hutchings brothers.

[mozza]

Thanks! It does look similar in style.

I wonder if it was Anthony Hutchings? I've just found a link showing his fantastic work on the Nurseryland Annual 1970 and the boy's face looks almost identical to the girl's (nose/head shape).

http://www.magicjelly.com.au/blog/2012/ ... ives-1970/