Comics UK

Freddie Davies used to do a sort of `skit` where he played both Customer (with hat pulled over ears, holding cage with bird and lisping) and the pet shop man, and he would complain about his "Duff Budgie". A full two years before Monty Pythons `Dead Parrot` sketch!

Now that's something I want to see on YouTube! He's just set up his own site http://www.freddiedavies.com/ which has a video section (thou' it's empty at the mo') so it might pop up there.

Whatever next? Did Mike and Bernie Winters team up with Morecombe and Wise to do their version of the Four Yorkshire men pre At Last the 1948 Show?

No! They teamed up with "Hope and Keen" in a re-make of "The Four Horsemen Of the Crapopolis" (1968).

Freddie's `Budgie Shop` sketch was screened on no end of variety shows! Even with `mass tape wiping` of such shows in late 60s early 70s there's a possibility it survives on one surviving clip at least!

Blimey! This thread started out as a review of the early to mid Sparky years; and has ended up as a discussion of Freddie (Parrot Face) Davies act! Has someone put hallucinogenics in me Bovril?

Just to bring this strand back to its title a few bits of info that were actually asked for in the 'I-Spy' strand.
In the Sparky in 1969 the Jungle Ark strip was drawn by Andy Tew and the return of the Klanky strip was the work of Terry Patrick. No idea who drew the short-lived comic strip (21 weeks) Cap'n Hood.
Speaking of early Sparky artists though I've just been mentioning George Radcliffe's work in the Victor and George did also chip in with several nicely drawn adventure strips in Sparky's first two years beginning with 'Watch' the story of a Newfoundland dog in coastal Northumberland (my home turf) in Victorian times in Nos 16-36 with this being followed by 'Rory - the Horse of Many Masters' and 'Boy in the Forest of Fear'. Really nice style mostly seen in the girl's titles over at AP/Fleetway though.

Kashgar! Great data that! Could you possible find out which artist drew the concluding "The Lonely Lad Of Blue Lagoon" strip circa April to July 27 1968 please?

I ask as I have never seen such beutiful underground drawn scenes as done in the late April to June part of the story. Alan.

Kashgar in my Sparky 1965-73 thread has informed me that Andy Tew drew "The Jungle Ark".

didn't ALBERT HOLROYD ['brassneck' in 'DANDY'] draw 'the Lonely lad of blue lagoon'?

Was 'Boy in the Forest of Fear' as good as its title?

(And who, indeed, would win in a scrap between this Forest of Fear in Sparky and The Haunted Wood in Knockout? I'm betting on the latter.)

here's 'Lonely Lad of the Blue Lagoon, Alan;






-----nice, evocative stuff.

The artist on the example shown is Bill Holroyd. BTW the whole of this strip was a reprint from the New Hotspur earlier in the decade.

What a great drawing..it really feels like a gloomy strange cave..

I always have a problem identifying the christian names of the two HOLROYD artists!

Those final three months of the "Lonely Lad" story were superb! Of course I never knew it was a Hotspur reprint! I only read about two Hotspurs and didn't take to them!

I might be wrong, but didn't "Lonely Lad" appear twice in the Sparky? I remember that at first, he wasn't quite alone; there was an old man on the island with him and the toucan. Then, at the end of one episode, the boy came home from an adventure and found the old man seemingly asleep, but he was in fact dead. Oddly enough, that bit seems to have stuck in my mind. As I said, ISTR the strip running twice in the Sparky - I had no idea it was a reprint from the Hotspur - and in one of its incarnations the artwork used a lot of shading that made the pictures look almost like photographs; at least, that's how I remember it from over forty years ago.

Kremmen. The "Lonely Lad" strip ran continiously for just over a year! early June 67 to late July 68. You might be thinking of the adaption of "The Coral Island" which Sparky ran August to Dec 68. That had three persons stranded"

Ken (the Lonely lad) did have company at times! A round the world yachtsman (who promised to tell authorities where Ken was) some modern day Pirates, and then later , Kalka, a native outcast (because he murdered another tribesman) who `terrorised` Ken and later drowned in quicksands.