Comics UK

Peter Gray wrote:Sooty is now been bought out and used by the magician Richard Cadell ...who Mathew Corbett has called a Corbett...because of his love for the character...
Harry C did 25 years
Mathew C did 25 years..
Richard is touring the country at the moment...stage shows..

Glad Richard has the character back...and is using it..

Yes, that's right, recently prompting hints of a Sooty revival. We just have to hope that, with British children's TV in the state it is, with less and less funding and original programming, that one of Richard's proposals for a new TV series will get the green light.

Until then, he's sure to keep all the characters going, and doing well, on stage.

Peter Gray wrote:Jack Edward Oliver told me that people were still buying Buster right up to the end and didn't see why it needed to close it was still selling despite all of it reprints..

So the company ended it nmot the readers..

I do think these changes were company-led rather than reader-led in the bigger picture of things, though the style of the old comics probably would have had to change in time - Oink was an interesting new approach that did well - but obviously all the reprints were a bad thing for the industry and talent, because it meant little work for present artists, and not much for potential future artists to hope for.

Also, as times and styles change, the old stuff probably would have passed its 'sell by date' at some point. So it was a shortsighted move.

J. Edward Oliver was of course the heroic last man standing on the stricken Buster.
His final "How it all ends" page that was the sole original content in the final Buster has got to be one of the biggest lump-in-the-throat moments of British comics..

Interesting to see this thread now as I've just finished loading up the contents of all of the 1992 issues over on the Page by Page at my site.

1992 was the year I started reading Buster - was even able to pinpoint an approximate time (around April) by looking back on these complete issues that have long since bitten the dust from the originals my Dad bought me!

It's only having more of an overview now that I realised just how much of the comic was derived from reprints in one form or another. Just a handful of new strips going into the comic with everything else coming from the archives - looking at it like that it's a wonder Buster lived another 8 years on this diet.

The key thing (I think anyway) is that as new readers (i.e. me!) came along we had no idea this stuff was written and drawn in the 1980s and it didn't look particularly dated so we still enjoyed it.

As an 8 year old I presumed the likes of Trevor Metcalf, Mike Lacy and co sat down each week to draw Junior Rotter, The Winners and all the other strips I read week in, week out.

It would be another 4-5 years before Buster really felt a bit dated, with strips like Double Trouble not seeming as good in comparison with the likes of Tom Thug who was still producing new stuff.

But it still worked....and it still came as a surprise in December 1999 when my Dad bought home that copy of Buster and said "It's the final one!"

Could someone please up load some scans of the final Buster, I've only ever seen the cover cheers.

More pages from the last Buster comic..


a reprint from this



As you can see the colouring is so much better in the original...more tones...etc..
Just no contest!!!

Nice one cheers Peter.

Somewhat amusingly (or not as the case may be) this thread is about Buster going downhill in 1992, and the strip you've printed of Sweeny Toddler from the last Buster was first used in Buster in July 1992!

The IVOR LOTT AND TONY BROKE and the X-RAY SPECS ending made me laugh out loud! something childrens comics rarely make me do! Sad story we got going on here cheers for putting the pics up Peter

2 more pages of reprints from the last issue..

Jack actually said please let me draw a page I'll do it for nothing for the last Buster... just shows the love Jack had for Buster comic..
Lew Stringer said he would have loved to have drawn for the last Buster as well for free..
Hope I'm quoting you right Lew..

It was such an amazing comic...nearly 40 years!!!

Bumped!

for anyone who is buying the Buster special Classic..
and what happened..

Lew how did you feel losing a page in 1992 and in 1995 losing Buster comic work all together?

Also a new comic Oh-No!! with Tom Paterson involved didn't come off at this time..

I like the name 'Oh-No!!' - wonder what the rest of the comic would have been like?

Peter Gray wrote:Bumped!

for anyone who is buying the Buster special Classic..
and what happened..

Lew how did you feel losing a page in 1992 and in 1995 losing Buster comic work all together?

Just as anyone would feel in losing income, pretty gutted, particularly as I didn't have much work on at the time. It would have been nice to have had more notice on the Tom Thug strip but it was a case of "Make the page you're working on the last. Budget has been cut again." No fault of the editor's by the way who would have been happy to fill the comic with new material.

I should have seen it coming though, as more and more reprint had been creeping into the comic for a few years by then. Did the increasing reprints save the comic from oblivion? No. Reprints never do. (See Whizzer & Chips, new Eagle, Sonic, etc). But the accountants keep doing it all the same. Then when the comic folds they claim kids aren't interested in comics anymore, which is clearly nonsense if they knew how well comics sell in Europe, Japan and Brazil.

Incidentally, regarding that Specky Hector page, I did everything on that: script, art, lettering, even paste-up and colour overlays, then mailed the pages in to the editor "camera ready". Even the images from old comics were from scans I'd done myself. The budget on Buster was so low at the time that the comic was produced by the editor at home, so any help was appreciated. I understand Jack Oliver laid out the letters pages too himself, and any other such work required.

(The Specky Hector page there looks a bit odd in places because it was a reprint from the 30th or 35th anniversary issue and some text has been removed.)

Lew

Bumped..

Seeing Jack's last page for Buster he really should have been producing new stuff..though he did a great job on the letter page..

Without the decline in 1992..would Buster still be around today 50 years young?