By Roland Fiddy (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-272-9
The field of British cartooning has been tremendously well-served over the centuries with masters of form, line, wash and most importantly ideas perpetually tickling our funny bones whilst poking our pomposities and fascinations.
As is so often the case many of these masters of merriment and mirth are being not-so-slowly forgotten in their own lands whilst still revered and adored everywhere else. One of our most prolific and best was a infinitely sharp tool named Roland Fiddy whose fifty year career encompassed comics, newspaper strips and dedicated gag-books such as the one I’m re-scrutinizing here; one of a “Cartoonists Dozen†(that’s eleven, with another “almost finished, just drying, in the post and trust me, well worth waiting that little bit longer for, bossâ€) assaulting such commonplace perennial Pandora’s Boxes of modern society as Sex, Computers, Dads, Diets, Money, Cats, Husbands, the Bed and more.
His brash, efficient and amorphously loose drawing line winnowed out extraneous detail and always zeroed straight in to the punch-line with a keen and accurate eye for shared experience and a masterfully observational sense of the absurd, whether producing one-off gags for magazines such as Punch, cartoons and strips for comics or even the far tougher discipline of daily features; winning him nearly two dozen international humour awards from places as disparate as Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and many others. His work was particularly well received in the USA, making him an international icon and ambassador of “Britishness†as valuable as Giles or Thelwell.
“Fiddyâ€, as he signed his work, was born in Plymouth in 1931 and educated at Devonport High School, Plymouth College of Art and Bristol’s West of England College of Art: a dedicated course of study interrupted for three years compulsory National Service which saw him join the RAF.
He had been teaching art for two years before he sold his first professional cartoon to digest men’s magazine Lilliput in July 1949. He quickly graduated to Punch, selling constantly to intellectual powerhouse editor Malcolm Muggeridge. By 1952 he was also a regular contributor of gags to populist papers the News Chronicle, Daily Mail and Daily Mirror.
His first continuity work was for the post-war British comics industry, creating Sir Percy Vere for Clifford Makins, editor of the prestigious Eagle after it was bought by Odhams from original publisher Hulton Press. He followed up the period poltroonery with an army strip entitled Private Proon for Boy’s World before settling back into his comfort zone with a weekly page of one-off gags for Ranger.
The Fun with Fiddy feature was one of the few (others included the legendary Trigan Empire) which survived the high-end comic’s inevitable absorption into Look and Learn.
In 1976 he began a decade-long stint drawing the rather anodyne Tramps (scripted by practising Christian Iain Reid) which featured jovial hoboes Percival and Cedric; an inexplicably well-regarded strip which ran seven days a week. I mention the religious aspect in case you ever see Tramps in the Kingdom: a 1979 collection of the 110-odd, faith-based episodes. To my knowledge the remaining 3000 or more everyday, secularly funny instalments haven’t ever been collected.
In 1985 Fiddy created Paying Guest for the Sunday Express (another 10 year spree) and in 1986 Him Indoors for The People. The home-grown strip market was changing and contracting however and increasingly Fiddy chose to sell gags as an international freelancer and create cartoon books.
Within these pages, available as both English or American editions and going into at least three reprintings, is a wealth of wryly good natured if obviously long-suffering observation of canine co-dependence divided into separate themes – or perhaps breeds – such as ‘Dogs are Diverse’, ‘Dogs are Domesticated’, ‘Dogs are Doted On’, ‘Dogs are Devoted’, ‘Dogs can be Difficult’, ‘Dogs Discovering that Dimensions can be Deceptive’, ‘Dogs Can be Despondent’, ‘Dogs are Dependable’, ‘Dogs Can be Devious’, ‘Some Dogs Dramatize’, ‘Some Dogs are Dangerous’ and more…
Fiddy built a solid body of irresistible, seductive and always astonishingly funny work which enjoyed universal appeal and delighted readers of all ages, appearing in innumerable magazines, comics and papers where his instantly recognisable style always stood out for its enchanting impact and laconic wit.
Other than the Fanatic’s Guide books his most impressive and characteristic collection is probably The Best of Fiddy.
Roland John Fiddy died in 1999 and we all miss him still.
© 1991 Roland Fiddy.