Comics UK

steelclaw wrote:
Are the artists who drew for the comics completey different to the artists who drew for "The Birthday book for boys?

I think it's a mix. Billy's Boots definitely looks like it's drawn by Tom Kerr who drew the strip in the early days of Scorcher - and might even be a reprint from that. And the 16 page Galaxus strip is surely a reprint from the weekly Buster, and so on. I expect it's a mix of reprints plus a few specially commissioned new strips, some by different artists as was often the case with annuals.

Fishboy looks like a different artist. The denizen of the deep's face looks different and he looks more adult than he did in the weekly strip. (Mind you, I think a few different artists probably drew the weekly Fishboy strip over the years - mainly John Stokes?)

Raven wrote:

steelclaw wrote:
Are the artists who drew for the comics completey different to the artists who drew for "The Birthday book for boys?

I think it's a mix. Billy's Boots definitely looks like it's drawn by Tom Kerr who drew the strip in the early days of Scorcher - and might even be a reprint from that. And the 16 page Galaxus strip is surely a reprint from the weekly Buster, and so on. I expect it's a mix of reprints plus a few specially commissioned new strips, some by different artists as was often the case with annuals.

Fishboy looks like a different artist. The denizen of the deep's face looks different and he looks more adult than he did in the weekly strip. (Mind you, I think a few different artists probably drew the weekly Fishboy strip over the years - mainly John Stokes?)

Does anyone know the artist for "Fishboy" strip from "The birthday book for boys" 1972.

All these posts are whetting my appetite for the annual. I can't wait until it is delivered.

It's one of my all-time favourite books! I remember finding it so exciting as a little boy, and was surely as wide-eyed and cheery as the boy on the (Ron Turner?) cover when I got it. I think it's the thing that set me off loving IPC adventure strips. It really is a lovely book.

Without rooting the book out I'm fairly sure the cover was done by Mike Western.

Kashgar wrote:Without rooting the book out I'm fairly sure the cover was done by Mike Western.

The cover is definitely by Mike Western. He also did the cover for The Birthday Book for Girls, a companion volume.

The material is a mixture of new and reprint, just like any other IPC annual of the period. It was published around April 1972.

I'm sure we covered all this before?

Lew Stringer wrote:
The cover is definitely by Mike Western. He also did the cover for The Birthday Book for Girls, a companion volume.

Ah, sorry. Glancing at the small jpeg: the hair, the wide eyes, etc. I thought it looked quite a bit like one of those Ron Turner kids, like Danny Drew.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure the cover of the Girls' Book was painted by the same artist who drew the covers of Princess Tina every week. Off hand I can't remember his name but it almost certainly wasn't Mike Western.

- Phil Rushton

philcom55 wrote:I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure the cover of the Girls' Book was painted by the same artist who drew the covers of Princess Tina every week. Off hand I can't remember his name but it almost certainly wasn't Mike Western.

- Phil Rushton

I'll take your word for it as I haven't seen work by the artist you mention. Looks like traces of Mike Western to me but now that you mention it the linework is softer:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Birthday-Book-Gir ... 0392578806

The BBf Boys one is definitely Mike Western's work though.

I always find it interesting that some people find it hard differentiating one artist from another.

I think that it was often the case that the regular weekly strips artist couldn't fit the extra work into their schedule so other artists were employed to do the work for the annual/special.

I remember as a kid being confused reading that Reg Bunn was attributed as being the main artist for The Spider when I'd seen the art in the 1968 Lion annual signed by David Squie (drawn in Bunn's style).

Still happens now. Dennis the Menace is drawn by Nigel Parkinson, Tom Paterson or Jimmy Hansen normally. But a couple of stories in the 2010 Dennis and Gnasher annual were drawn by Barrie Appleby.