Category: Best of British

Published by Egmont
ISBN: 978-1-4052-3085-2

Here’s another great activity book for three year olds (and over) that’s a huge bunch of fun and–as the subject is also that rarest of animals: a British kids franchise with his own newsstand comic–well worth a mention in my never-ending crusade to teach kids to love comics, books and reading.

In case you haven’t seen the stop-motion adventures of Shaun the Sheep let’s recap: He first appeared in the Wallace and Gromit film A Close Shave in 1997 (he’s the one that got shorn – get it? – in the knit-o-matic machine). After a guest-shot on the 2002 series Cracking Contraptions he finally graduated to his own show on the BBC in early 2007.

Shaun is a sheep of singular intellect yet he lives on a farm where he has worryingly surreal adventures which pay mute tribute to those timeless silent classics of slapstick comedy. They are extremely entertaining for both adults and kids alike.

This attention-riveting tome is a Sticker Activity Book, which means that there are full colour peel-off adhesive images which can be placed in relevant – or not – places to great effect. The body of the book is a series of black and white pages stuffed with colouring puzzles, spot-the-difference tests, mazes, join-the-dots, finish-the-picture scenes, tracing games, word-searches, hidden-object quests, counting games, comparison quizzes and even a fold-out race-track. I’m nearly three hundred and fifty-two and even I found this to be a dazzling display of captivating teasers. And some of the kids who get this book will want to graduate to the comic afterward…

In a world where books are increasingly alien to people, the combination of great characters, compelling stories and pictures, plus every darn trick in the book, is a welcome tactic in getting kids reading. Forget video games, buy that child a book!

© and ™ Aardman Animations, Ltd 2008. All Rights Reserved. Based on a character created by Nick Park.

By George Studdy, with an introduction by Mary Cadogan (Hawk Books)
ISBN: 0-94824-52-1

The history of popular culture is studded with anthropomorphic animals that have achieved legendary, almost talismanic status. Mickey Mouse, Tiger Tim, Garfield, Smokey (the) Bear, Bonzo…

If that latter causes a puzzled frown that’s a shame because for a while this playful, charming dog-of-dubious-pedigree was a British animorph that rivalled Disney’s mouse and duck combined. Only the artistic integrity and creative drive of his creator George Earnest Studdy prevented the mutt from attaining the global domination (and subsequent tawdry commercialisation) of the Disney duo.

Studdy was born in 1878 in Devon of a military family, but a childhood injury prevented him from following that path, and his prodigious artistic talent moved him to an unsatisfactory position as an engineer before he eventually found his niche as an illustrator and animator.

His first artistic success was a series of Boer War pictures of the Royal Artillery, followed by cartoons and illustrations for such comics as Big Budget, Funny Pips, Jester and Wonder and others, plus papers and magazines including The Graphic, The Humorist, Little Folks, London Magazine, Punch, Windsor Magazine, The Tatler, The Bystander, Illustrated London News, The Field and especially The Sketch. A superb general stylist he was most widely known for his animals although he was an early proponent of science fiction themes as well. He worked extensively in the budding field of advertising.

Deemed unfit to fight in the Great War, he pioneered animation propaganda films that are still acclaimed for their quality and effectiveness. He first began producing pictures of a homely, engaging dog for The Sketch in the early 1920s, which were immensely popular. Eventually “the Studdy dog” became a permanent fixture and was christened Bonzo in the November 8th issue of 1922. The luxuriously painted or drawn single panels became a full gag-strip with the talking dog and his long-suffering lady-friend Chee-Kee captivating young and old alike with their playful yet slyly mature antics.

Bonzo was a merchandising miracle of his time, featuring in games, puzzles, toys of all types, figurines, china and dinnerware, cups, cruets and host of other household objects and all manner of advertising campaigns. He even had his own neon sign in Piccadilly Circus.

Although Studdy voluntarily moved on from his creation to create many other pictorial marvels and to serve his country again in WWII as a draughtsman for the Royal Navy, the dog continued under other hands in strips syndicated worldwide by King Features and in a series of wonderful books and annuals. These began in 1935 and continued until 1952, with translations into many foreign editions. For a spectacular view of these you should see the superb websites at http://www.studdying-with-bonzo.co.uk/books.htm and http://www.bonzo.me.uk/ as well as this magical and far too short commemorative edition produced by Mike Higgs under his much-missed Hawk Books imprint.

Funny, charming, brilliantly illustrated, overwhelmingly successful and still as entertaining today as it always were, Bonzo is long overdue for an extensive repackaging job. Until such a happy event this little gem should act as a tantalising taster.

© 1990 the Estate of George Studdy. All Rights Reserved.

By Thelwell (Eyre Methuen)
ISBN: 978-0-41329-340-4

Norman Thelwell is one of our most beloved cartoonists – even though he sadly passed away in 2004. I was going to astound you with my knowledge here but frankly his work has always been its own best advocate, and if you want to know more about this brilliant creator – and see more of his work – you should crank up your search-engine of choice. I specifically recommend the official website (www.thelwell.org.uk/biography/biography.html) as well as Steve Holland’s excellent Bear Alley .

Thelwell’s superbly gentle cartooning combined Bigfoot abstractions with a keen and accurate eye for background detail, not just on the riding and countryside themes that made him a household name, but on all the myriad subjects he turned his canny eye and subtle brushstrokes to. His pictures are an immaculate condensation of everything warm yet charged and resonant about being Post-War, Baby-Booming British, without ever being parochial or provincial. His work has international implications and scope, neatly achieving that by presenting us to the world. There are 32 books of his work and any aficionado of humour could do much worse than own them all.

From 1950 when his gag-panel Chicko first began in the Eagle, and especially two years later with his first sale to Punch, he built a solid body of irresistible, seductive and always funny work. He appeared in innumerable magazines, comics and papers ranging from Men Only to Everybody’s Weekly. In 1957 Angels on Horseback, his first collection of published cartoons was released, and in 1961 he made the rare reverse trip by releasing a book of all-new cartoons that was subsequently serialised in the Sunday Express.

A Leg at Each Corner was a huge success and other books followed. Eventually this led to the strip collected in the book reviewed here. Thelwell’s short obnoxious muses originated in the field next door to his home, where roamed two shaggy ponies…

“Small and round and fat and of very uncertain temper” – apparently owned by “Two little girls about three feet high who could have done with losing a few ounces themselves….”

“As the children got near, the ponies would swing round and present their ample hindquarters and give a few lightning kicks which the children would side-step calmly as if they were avoiding the kitchen table, and they had the head-collars on those animals before they knew what was happening. I was astonished at how meekly they were led away; but they were planning vengeance – you could tell by their eyes.”

Penelope and her formidable steed Kipper ran – or at least reluctantly trotted – (sorry, I have no will-power or shame) through the pages of the Sunday Express where Thelwell toiled from 1962 to 1971. This wonderful book is readily available, as is the sequel Penelope Rides Again, and I trust that anyone with an ounce of decency and taste will treat themselves to the work of this master as soon as humanly possible.

© 1972 Norman Thelwell and Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd.

By Brian Howard Heaton (Grub Street)
ISBN: 978-0-95881-760-1

Here I go again bemoaning the gradual loss of the cheap ‘n’ cheerful cartoon paperbacks that were so ubiquitous in the past but are now fast fading as the much more important sounding Graphic Novels and Trade Collections carve a niche in our psyches and on our bookshelves. And here’s another disturbing thought – how many people these days even have bookshelves and any sort of tome to put on them?

None of which matters a jot or tittle as I call to your attention a relatively late entry in the field from Brian Howard Heaton subtitled “89 ways to pee in public without being spotted”. This sort of themed gag-book was the last commercial gasp in a tradition of pictorial entertainments that began with Punch, and evolved into a saucy standby of British life.

Heaton is a competent artist in the modern style and the gags range from contrived to fiendishly clever, all delivered with easy charm and utterly without text – never an easy job in cartooning. If you find this book or anything similar give it a try; this sort of thing use to be bread ‘n’ butter in our game, and you really will mess them if they disappear forever.

© 1992 Brian Howard Heaton. All Rights Reserved.

By various (Grafton Books)
ISBN: 978-0-24613-242-0

Punch began in 1841; a magazine dedicated to satire and humour, and swiftly became a national – and international – institution. It ran more or less non-stop until 2002 before finally closing its jolly doors, featuring sharp, witty writers such as W. M. Thackeray, P.G. Wodehouse, P.J. O’Rourke and Alan Coren among so very many others. Many of these writers’ efforts were illustrated by brilliant draughtsmen and artists. It was a social force, an astute historian and its contents could even influence governments.

Punch probably invented, and certainly perfected, the gag and strip cartoon. The list of brilliant cartoonists who graced its pages is something I couldn’t live long enough to relate. Name a cartoonist; if he or she were any good they will have been published in Punch.

With such a wealth of material, it’s truly surprising how very few collections have been generated from its pages. The one under the glass here is from 1987, selected by Editor William Hewison and features mostly British gag-men doing their bit in the War on Crime. The cartoons range from the comfortably familiar to the just plain weird, and if humour is in the eye of the beholder, the wealth of ability and talent is certainly less open to debate.

This book isn’t really what I’m recommending here, it’s the type of book. These gags and many like them by the likes of such luminaries as David Langdon, Heath, Brockbank, Graham, Honeysett, Bill Tidy, Stark, Thelwell, Larry, ffolkes, Sally Artz, Mahood, McLachlan, Raymond Lowry and all the wonderful rest are sitting idle when they could be filling bookshelves and making us all a little happier…

© 1987 Punch Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.