Comics UK

Put in a bit of a joke bid for 90 Buddy comics and was gobsmacked to win them!

Now that I have got them, I am more than happy to own them. A lot of my fave characters are in the comic. General Jumbo and Billy The Cat to name but two. But the real prize has been the art. I have identifed no less than Bill Lacey (recognised the style, but needed Google to confirm his name), Mike Dorey, Tony O'Donnell (nice work on Pat Jennings!), Terry Patrick, McLoughlin and Girrault (more famous for The Bootneck Boy in Battle)

When the comic was originally published, I would not have bought it (street cred and all that jazz!) but now, I am truly enthusiastic to have it in my collection.

It makes me realise that marketing a comic is not the easiest job in the world. Here is a comic that had all the ingredients that I wanted, but the presentation made me think that it was aimed at a more junior market. So, it never went on my want to buy list! Now, 20 plus years later, I am reading it and enjoying the recycling of characters that the more mature members of this forum will remember with unadulterated joy.

As an idea of why I am enjoying Buddy so much, try this list of characters:

The Iron Fish.
Limp Along Leslie.
Q-Bikes.
Bushwhacker.
The Wilde Boys.
General Jumbo.
Billy The Cat.

Need I say more?

I just won an auction of Buddy 1 - 9 and then went to bid on a bigger lot by the same seller. Only to have my PC do a go slow at the crucial moment. That will teach me for being a sniper. I've been kicking myself ever since. It could have been the same auction.

I was surprised at the lack of interest as I've been watching for Buddy comics for a while and this is the first large lot on ebay that I've seen.

6629996366 wasn't the lot that you were looking at was it? I was surprised to get it for the princely sum of ?2.70!

I have already read the 1st 10 and have promised Cap'n Storm that I will get him scans of Young Starhawk!

No, it was a different auction, the one I missed was 6631675662. Your's was even better, what a great score. I'll have to keep looking I never even saw that auction.

Yep, I liked Buddy when it came out even though I was already into my teens my then. I also liked Spike which followed soon after. Maybe I will finallt complete my collections of both one day and get the issues I missed at the time.

Earl.

Finished reading them all now! I was astonished to find so few original stories in there as many of them seem to be recycled characters/storylines.

Originals seemed to be Hammer, Bushwhacker, Tad Turner, Young Starhawk, Jasper Sly, Tom Smith's Schooldays (with a style reminiscent of Rian Hughes' Big Dave) and School For Soccer.

Recycled were The Mice Of Tobruk (I know I have read it somewhere else and it draws very heavily on Jag's Mouse Patrol), Tuffy, General Jumbo, The Iron Fish, Jonah, Limp Along Leslie, The Fighting Frasers (but worth it for Dennis McLoughlin's art), Rory Of The Eagles and Circus Island.

Looks like they had dug out all the adventure stories from the back catalogue and wrapped them up in one comic! Still worth reading and I can't think of a better way of passing a weekend! Well worth the grand total of ?11 that it cost me!

Thanks for the kind words on my Pat Jennings Bio - strip in Buddy, that was a long time ago! I joined the Temple Art Agency and enjoyed a 15- 16 month busy spell working for Scoop - Hoodoo Utd, then Buddy - General Jumbo, Sports Biographies and School for Soccer before I jumped ship to draw "Where Angels Fear To Tread" by Grant Morrison for PSSST Magazine. I ended up drawing a Video Comic then a spell of unemployment till I returned to DCT without an Agent in late 1982.

colcool007 wrote: Originals seemed to be Hammer, Bushwhacker, Tad Turner, Young Starhawk, Jasper Sly, Tom Smith's Schooldays (with a style reminiscent of Rian Hughes' Big Dave) and School For Soccer.

Recycled were The Mice Of Tobruk (I know I have read it somewhere else and it draws very heavily on Jag's Mouse Patrol), Tuffy, General Jumbo, The Iron Fish, Jonah, Limp Along Leslie, The Fighting Frasers (but worth it for Dennis McLoughlin's art), Rory Of The Eagles and Circus Island.

Looks like they had dug out all the adventure stories from the back catalogue and wrapped them up in one comic! Still worth reading and I can't think of a better way of passing a weekend! Well worth the grand total of ?11 that it cost me!

A rough list of strips featured in Buddy that were at least inspired by strips or stories in earlier Thomson titles -
Tom Smith's Schooldays (Wizard - Smith of the Lower Third)
Limp-along Leslie (Wizard/Hotspur)
Billy The Cat (Beano)
The Iron Fish (Beano)
The Q Bikes (Beano)
Sky Shark (Topper)
The Wonder Horse (Beano 'The Horse that Jack Built')
Red Rory of the Eagles (Beano)
Circus Island (Adventure/Beano 'Shipwrecked Circus')
Bushwhacker (Beezer)
Wingfoot - the desert wild boy (Beano 'Longlegs - the desert wild boy')
The Wolf of Kabul (Wizard/Hotspur)
Can't really include 'The Fighting Frasers' as this only took the title of the original 'Topper' series or 'The Mice of Tobruk' which, despite it's similarities with 'The Mouse Patrol' in Fleetways 'Jag', was a strip devised specifically for 'Buddy'
There were also featured in 'Buddy' some strips that were simply reprints from elsewhere including 'Jonah' (Beano) and 'The Winged Warriors of Flame Island' (Wizard).

Kashgar wrote:

colcool007 wrote: Originals seemed to be Hammer, Bushwhacker, Tad Turner, Young Starhawk, Jasper Sly, Tom Smith's Schooldays (with a style reminiscent of Rian Hughes' Big Dave) and School For Soccer.

Recycled were The Mice Of Tobruk (I know I have read it somewhere else and it draws very heavily on Jag's Mouse Patrol), Tuffy, General Jumbo, The Iron Fish, Jonah, Limp Along Leslie, The Fighting Frasers (but worth it for Dennis McLoughlin's art), Rory Of The Eagles and Circus Island.

Looks like they had dug out all the adventure stories from the back catalogue and wrapped them up in one comic! Still worth reading and I can't think of a better way of passing a weekend! Well worth the grand total of ?11 that it cost me!

A rough list of strips featured in Buddy that were at least inspired by strips or stories in earlier Thomson titles -
Tom Smith's Schooldays (Wizard - Smith of the Lower Third)
Limp-along Leslie (Wizard/Hotspur)
Billy The Cat (Beano)
The Iron Fish (Beano)
The Q Bikes (Beano)
Sky Shark (Topper)
The Wonder Horse (Beano 'The Horse that Jack Built')
Red Rory of the Eagles (Beano)
Circus Island (Adventure/Beano 'Shipwrecked Circus')
Bushwhacker (Beezer)
Wingfoot - the desert wild boy (Beano 'Longlegs - the desert wild boy')
The Wolf of Kabul (Wizard/Hotspur)
Can't really include 'The Fighting Frasers' as this only took the title of the original 'Topper' series or 'The Mice of Tobruk' which, despite it's similarities with 'The Mouse Patrol' in Fleetways 'Jag', was a strip devised specifically for 'Buddy'
There were also featured in 'Buddy' some strips that were simply reprints from elsewhere including 'Jonah' (Beano) and 'The Winged Warriors of Flame Island' (Wizard).

Was not the Mice Of Tobruk originally printed in Bullet? I know that I had read the story arc before but I can't put my finger on the original.

What amazes me is not the re-incarnation of characters, but the direct re-print that DCT carried out on several occasions. I can forgive the re-interpretation that occurred as it often meant that the re-issue of a story added to its' character. UJJ and Deathless Men being two examples. But the direct reprint of an old story strikes me as just a little bit sneaky and cost-cutting that may have added to the swiftness of the demise of DCT's ascendancy in the boys comics market.

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Was not the Mice Of Tobruk originally printed in Bullet? I know that I had read the story arc before but I can't put my finger on the original.

What amazes me is not the re-incarnation of characters, but the direct re-print that DCT carried out on several occasions. I can forgive the re-interpretation that occurred as it often meant that the re-issue of a story added to its' character. UJJ and Deathless Men being two examples. But the direct reprint of an old story strikes me as just a little bit sneaky and cost-cutting that may have added to the swiftness of the demise of DCT's ascendancy in the boys comics market.[/quote]

Stap me vitals! Sods law dictates that the one title you fail to check out is the one that will hold the vital bit of info that you need. Sloppy research on my part. You are quite right about 'The Mice of Tobruk' it is a redrawn version of a strip that had appeared earlier in 'Bullet' Nos70(11/6/77)-85(24/9/77).
As to Thomsons reprint policy they had always, even from the early days in the boys story papers, been prone to reprint material that they thought had stood the test of time at a later date. I suppose the thinking was that the average boy would grow out of a story or picture paper title in a few years and therefore wouldn't be aware that a strip they had read was being reprinted five to ten years later and of course neither would the generation of boys that were then reading it.
Personally I never liked 'Buddy' that much but that was probably because when it was published I was already an adult and collecting it mostly for research purposes. But it is a valid point that some of the later boys titles including 'Buddy' did expand the storylines of some of the 'old school' characters in interesting ways.