Category: Comedy

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Star Comics All-Star Collection


By Lennie Herman, Sid Jacobson, Stan Kay, Bob Bolling, Warren Kremer, Howard Post & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4291-1

Once upon a time the American comicbook industry for younger readers was totally dominated by Gold Key with their TV and Disney licenses, and Harvey Comics who had switched from general genres to a wholesome, kid-friendly pantheon in the mid-1950s. They owned the pre-school sector until declining morals, television cartoon saturation and rising print costs finally forced them to bow out.

Gold Key suffered a slow erosion, gradually losing valuable major properties such as Popeye, Star Trek, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers cartoon stars and other treasures until parent company Western Publishing called it a day in 1984, whilst Harvey shut up shop in 1982 when company founder Alfred Harvey retired.

The latter’s vast archived artwork store was sold off and, with the properties and rights up for grabs, Marvel Comics (who had already secured those lost Star Trek and Hanna-Barbera rights) was frontrunner for licensing the family firm’s iconic characters, which included Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Sad Sack, Hot Stuff – the Little Devil, Wendy the Good Little Witch and many others.

When the bid failed, Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, knowing there was now a huge gap in the market, launched a cloned imprint of the Harvey stable (which would also encompass new TV and toy properties such as Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies and Fraggle Rock, Alf, Madballs, Care Bears, Thundercats, Ewoks and such like) to generate the next generation of worthy entry-level comics for entertainment-hungry young minds and concerned parents.

Marvel’s Star Comics line launched in 1985, edited by ex-Harvey head-honcho Sid Jacobson, with oddly familiar titles and an incontestably similar look and feel – achieved primarily by hiring unemployed Harvey stalwarts such as Jacobson, Lennie Herman, Warren Kremer, Howard Post and others. Millionaire prince and all-around good kid Royal Roy especially invoked the ire of the Harvey heirs who sued for copyright infringement of their astonishingly prolific Richie Rich who shone in more than 55 separate titles between his debut in 1953 and the bust of 1982.

Roy was cancelled after 6 issues – as were many Star series – in a brutal “Survival of the Funnest” publishing policy – and the suit was quietly dropped.

None of which affects the fact that those Eighties child stars were, in their own right, a superb agglomeration of all-ages fun, excitement and adventure happily recycled in this oversized digest collection from 2009.

This first volume collects that first wave of title introducing Planet Terry #1-2, Top Dog #1-3, Royal Roy #1-2 and Wally the Wizard #1-2 in a veritable nova of bubbly contagious thrills and frolics, opening with a star who was just a little lost boy in space…

Planet Terry was created by Lennie Herman (who passed away just before the big Star Comics launch) and the truly magnificent Warren Kremer – whose animation-based art style became the defining look of Harvey Comics during its happy heyday – and featured a young lad searching the universe for the parents he had never known.

Introduced in ‘The Search’ (Herman, Kremer & Vince Colletta), Planet Terry was something of a nuisance, periodically landing on alien worlds, pestering the inhabitants and asking “Has anyone seen my mother and father?” Found wandering in a life-pod which raised and educated him, the only clues Terry has to his past is a name bracelet and an empty picture frame…

However this time when he returns to the obnoxious planet Bznko Terry accidentally drives off a menace that bores folks to death with bad jokes and the inhabitants give him a junked lady robot as a reward. This proves to be a blessing in disguise as Robota inadvertently leads the lonely lad to ‘A Clue’ when they crash-land on a mining asteroid and meet aged Enoch Diggs who recognises the life-pod the infant Terry was found in…

‘Some Answers’ are forthcoming as the prospector reveals he once worked on a Confederation Cosmos Cruiser called the Space Warp where the captain’s wife was going to have a baby. Needing a sterile environment for the newborn infant, the crew placed him in the emergency life-boat, but his jubilant father accidentally triggered it whilst celebrating his son’s birth and the baby was rocketed into deep space.

Although they searched everywhere the heartbroken spacemen never located the pod and assumed Terry was lost forever…

Although Enoch can’t remember the names of Terry’s parents he suggests that another old crewman might and the re-energised searchers rush to another asteroid to find him, but instead encounter ‘The Malt Shop Menace’ and recruit another voyager when Robota saves the brutish monster Omnus who gratefully joins their decidedly odd family. Little do they know that a sinister conspiracy is at work to keep the whereabouts and secret of the Space Warp lost forever…

Issue #2 continues the quest as the family of outcasts encounter sabotage and opposition before landing their freshly repaired ship on the lost world of the Gorkels where the trio clumsily fulfil an ancient prophecy in ‘The Saga of Princess Ugly’ by Herman, Kremer & Jon D’Agostino.

In return for repairing Terry’s downed vessel, he, Robota and Omnus must rescue the kidnapped Princess battling hostile jungles, shape-shifting beasts, killer vines, a whirlpool and a volcano – all controlled by arch-villain Vermin the Vile in ‘Too Close (enough) for Comfort’ before saving the girl from ‘The Doom of the Domed City’ and discovering the final resting place of the elusive Space Warp…

Royal Roy debuted on his birthday in ‘The Mystery of the Missing Crown’ by Herman, Kremer & D’Agostino as the Prince of wealthy Ruritanian Cashalot discovers that the traditional, venerable Royal Highness Crown has gone missing on the day of his investiture. Whilst King Regal and Queen Regalia panic, super-cool bodyguard Ascot diligently investigates, and assorted resplendent relatives dither and interfere, Roy and his pet crocodile Gummy keep their heads by ‘Picking up the Scent’ and soon uncover a supernatural agency at work after ‘A Midnight Visit’ by ghostly ancestor William the Warhorse… Topping off the first issue was a snappy, snazzy short fun yarn starring the reptilian Gummy in ‘Crocadog’.

‘The Grand Ball’, scripted by Stan Kay, occupied most of Roy’s attention in the second issue as the underage but still eligible Prince took a fancy to simple commoner Crystal Clear whilst ambitious and mean social climber Lorna Loot spent all her time and considerable cash unsuccessfully attempting to beguile the boy by turning herself into a modern-day Cinderella in ‘A Strange Stranger’…

‘Maneuvers!’ saw Roy fulfil his hereditary duties by joining the Cashalot army on dawn exercises, but as ruler-in-waiting of a rich and peaceful nation, the plucky lad wasn’t too surprised to find that the entire armed forces consisted of one reluctant prince and a keen but aging general…

Top Dog featured a far more contemporary and normal situation, depicting the lives of average American boy Joey Jordan and the mutt he brought home one day. ‘The Dog-Gone Beginning’ by Herman, Kremer & Jacqueline Roettcher, revealed how, whilst looking for a lost baseball, the kid had accidentally observed a dog reading the newspaper and talking to himself.  Exposed, the canny canine begged the boy to keep his secret or all the four-footed wonder could expect was a short and painful life being poked, prodded and probed by scientists…

When the lad promises to keep his secret Top Dog agrees to come live with Joey in ‘House About a Dog, Mom?’, and whilst the boy tries to teach the pooch to bark – one of the few languages he can’t speak! – his accommodating family gradually get used to the seemingly normal dog and his boy.

However when Mervin Megabucks – the richest and meanest kid in town – overhears the pair playing and conversing, the spoiled brat refuses to believe Joey is a ventriloquist. When the junior Jordan refuses to sell, Mervin steals Top Dog as the perfect addition to his palatial high-tech house.

Even torture won’t make the purloined pooch speak again however, and when Joey stages ‘The Big Breakout’ Mervin’s mega-robots prove no match for dogged determination and the plutocrat brat is left baffled, bamboozled and dog-less…

Issue #2 exposed ‘Spies!’ when the restless dog of a thousand talents appeared to harbour a dark side. Going out on nightly jaunts, the marvellous mutt seemingly led a double life as a security guard in a Defence Plant, triple-crossing everybody by photographing military secrets for a foreign power. Of course it was really a diminutive enemy agent in a dog suit but Vladimir‘s handlers hadn’t reckoned on a real dog looking – and speaking – just like their hairy operative and they accidentally gave their purloined plans to the chatty all-American canine…

After spectacularly trapping the sinister spies without revealing his own incredible intelligence, Top Dog was framed in #3 by Joey’s best friend Larry who was feeling rejected and neglected since the Brilliant Bow-wow moved in.

With a feral hound dubbed ‘The Mad Biter’ on the prowl and attacking people it was simple to send the perspicacious pup to the Pound, where he encounters lots of bad dogs who probably deserve to be ‘Caged’, but faithful Joey hasn’t given up and after bailing his canine comrade out, the pair convince  the guilt-ridden perjurer to see the light by treating him to an impromptu midnight ‘Ghost Story’…

Even with Larry recanting his lies the neighbourhood families don’t trust Top Dog, but that all changes once the maligned mutt tracks down the real Biter and engages him in ‘A Fight to the Finish’…

The final initial entry was written and illustrated by veteran Archie Comics artist Bob Bolling (probably most famous for creating and producing the first eight years’ worth of the award-winning Little Archie spin-off series), who concocted a fabulous medieval wonderland for Wally the Wizard to play in.

In #1’s ‘A Plague of Locust’ Merlin’s older, smarter brother Marlin is having trouble with his stubbornly inquisitive apprentice. Wally wants to know everything now, has no discipline and is full of foolish ideas and misconceptions. As a scientist, Marlin has no time for silly superstitions and when the lad accidentally releases a time-travelling demon from an age-old prison the mage refuses to believe him.

Gorg however swears faithfully to repay the favour before disappearing…

Despatched to deliver a potion to King Kodger, Wally also helps a dragon save his hatchling from a deep well, only just reaches the sovereign in time and has a feed on the Royal Barge where he again fails to impress the beauteous Princess Penelope…

Meanwhile in distant Bloodmire Castle wicked plotters Vastar the Vile, his sister Sybilious the Bilious and wicked warlock Erasmo are conspiring to conquer the kingdom by unleashing a gigantic metal locust to consume all in its path…

Even the noble knights led by invincible Sir Flauntaroy are helpless before the brazen beast and Wally realises only Marlin can save them. Unfortunately the boy gets lost on route but happily for everybody the dragon and demon which the sorcerer doesn’t believe in are ready to pay their debts to the apprentice…

Sid Jacobson, Howard Post & Jon D’Agostino took over for the second issue as Wally enters the annual apprentice’s games with Marlin now suddenly transformed into a traditional magic-making mage. In fact Marlin, as a three-time champion of ‘The Magic-a-Thon!’ is secretly regretful that Wally is too inexperienced to compete, a fact his disciple discerns and tries to fix…

Desperately cramming for a week and eventually with the coaching of his proud master, Wally sets off to compete but a lovelorn barbarian accidentally cleaves the kid’s crib notes in twain, leaving the lad able to create only half-spells and materialise semi-monsters…

Undaunted Wally continues and – even after a huge storm deprives him of the demi-directions and his back-up pouch of herbs and potions – perseveres, determined to win using nothing but his wits, guts and unflagging optimism…

This clutch of classic children’s tales also includes the enchanting covers and the original house-ads that introduced the characters to the Kids in America and nearly three decades later is still a fabulous hit of intoxicating wonder and entertainment which readers of all ages cannot fail to love…

With contemporary children’s comics all but extinct these days, it’s lucky we have such timeless classics to draw upon and draw kids in with, and compilations like this one belong on the shelves of every funnybook-loving parent and even those lonely couples with only a confirmed twinkle in their eyes…
© 1985 and 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Footrot Flats Book 7


By Murray Ball (Orin Books)
ISSN: 0156-6172

New Zealand’s greatest natural wonder and National Treasure is a comic strip. Footrot Flats is one of the funniest comic strips ever created, designed as a practical antidote to idealistic pastoral fantasy and bucolic self-deception and concocted in 1975 by cartoonist and comics artist Murray Ball after returning to his New Zealand homeland, from an extended work tour of the UK and other, lesser climes.

The fantastical farm feature ran for a quarter of a century, appearing in newspapers on four continents until 1994 when Ball retired it, citing reasons as varied as the death of his own dog and the state of New Zealand politics. Such a success naturally spawned a multitude of merchandising material such as strip compendia, calendars and special editions released regularly from 1978 onwards.

Once Ball officially ceased the daily feature he began periodically releasing books of all-new material until 2000, with a net yield of 27 collections of the daily strip, 8 volumes of Sunday pages dubbed “Weekenders”, 5 pocket books and ancillary publications such as “school kits” aimed at younger fans and their harried parents.

There was a stage musical, a theme park and in 1986 a truly superb feature-length animated film. The Dog’s Tail Tale became New Zealand’s top-grossing film (and remained so until Peter Jackson started associating with Hobbits) – track it down on video or petition the BBC to show it again – it’s been decades, for Pete’s sake…

The well-travelled, extremely gifted and deeply dedicated Mr. Ball had originally moved to England in the early 1960s, becoming a cartoonist for Punch (producing Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero and All the King’s Comrades) as well as drawing numerous strips for DC Thompson and Fleetway and even concocting a regular political satire strip in Labour Weekly.

After marrying he returned to the Old Country and resettled in 1974 – but not to retire…

Ball was busier than ever once he’d bought a small-holding on the North Island to farm in his “spare time”, which inevitably led to the strip under review.

Taking the adage “write what you know” to startling, heartbreaking and occasionally stomach-turning heights, the peripatetic pencil-pusher broke most of the laws of relativity to make time for these captivatingly insane episodes concerning the highs and lows – and most frequently “absurds” – of the rural entrepreneur as experienced by the earthily metaphoric Wallace Footrot Cadwallader: a bloke never too-far removed from mud, mayhem, ferocity and frustration…

Wal is a big, bluff farmer. He likes his grub; loves his sport – Rugby, Football (the Anzac sort, not the kiddie version Yanks call Soccer) Cricket, Golf(ish) and even hang-gliding; each in its proper season and at no other, since he just wants the easiest time a farmer’s life can offer…

Wal owns a small sheep farm (the eponymous Footrot Flats) honestly described as “400 acres of swamp between Ureweras and the Sea”.

With his chief – and only – hand Cooch Windgrass (a latter-day Francis of Assisi), and a verbose and avuncular sheepdog, Wal enjoys being his own boss – as much as the farm cat, goats, chickens, livestock and his auntie will let him…

Other persons of perennial interest include Wal’s fierce and prickly little niece Janice – known to all as Pongo, the aforementioned Aunt Dolly (AKA the sternly staunch and starched Dolores Monrovia Godwit Footrot), smart-ass local lad Rangi Wiremu Waka Jones, Dolly’s pompous and pampered Corgi Prince Charles and Pew, a sadistic, inventive, obsessed and vengeful magpie who bears an unremitting grudge against Wal…

When not living in terror of the monumental moggy dubbed “Horse”, teasing the corpulent Corgi or panic-attacking himself in imagined competition with noble hunting hound Major, the Dog narrates and hosts the strip.

A cool, imaginative and overly sentimental know-all and blowhard, Dog is utterly devoted to his, for want of a better term, Master – unless there’s food about, or Jess the sheepdog bitch is in heat again. However, the biggest and most terrifying scene-stealer was that fulsome feline Horse; a monstrous and imperturbable tomcat who lords it over every living thing in the district …

One of the powerful and persistent clichés of life is that to make people laugh one truly needs to experience tragedy and, having only recently lost my own four-footed studio-mate and constant companion of 15 years, I can certainly empathise with the artist’s obvious manly distress as this otherwise magnificently hilarious collection is movingly dedicated to the uniquely charming real-world inspiration for the battered and bewhiskered juggernaut… which only makes the comedy capers contained within even more bittersweet and effective, beginning with the poem to his departed companion and the bluff, brisk photo tribute which opens proceedings…

Once again the funny businesses comes courtesy of the loquacious canine softie, taking time out from eking out his daily crusts (and oysters and biscuits and cake and lamb’s tails and scraps and chips and…) and alternately getting on with or annoying the sheep, cows, bull, goat, hogs, ducks, bugs, cats, horses and geese, as well as sucking up to the resolutely hostile wildlife and the decidedly odd humans his owner knows or is related to.

Dog – his given name is an embarrassing, closely and violently guarded secret – loves Wal but always tries to thwart him if the big bloke is trying to do unnecessarily necessary farm chores such as chopping down trees, burning out patches of scrub, culling livestock, or trying to mate with the pooch’s main rival Darlene “Cheeky” Hobson, hairdresser-in-residence of the nearest town. As is also the case with the adoring comradeship of proper blokes, Dog is never happier than when embarrassing his mate in front of others, which explains the pages extracted from Wal’s old albums, showing the man to be in various humiliating baby shots and schoolboy scrapes…

Following on is the epic adventure ‘The Invasion of the Murphy Dogs’ – barbaric hounds from a neighbouring farm only afraid of one thing…

This extra-large (262x166mm) landscape monochrome seventh volume again comes from Australian Publisher Orin Books and continues the policy of dividing the strips into approximately seasonal sequences, and after a few more all-original cartoons again opens with ‘Spring’ – the busiest season of the farmer’s year (apart from the other three) concentrates on Pew’s first attempts at avian home-making, Dog’s libido, horny farmers and hussy-hairdressers, loopy lambs, wild pigs, killer eels and cricket, as well as an extended sequence in which Wal and the Dog become involved in the local school’s curriculum and cuisine…

Once the long hot ‘Summer’ settles in, bringing fun with chicken-shearing, busy bees, a plague of carnivorous Wekas, thistles, Horse’s softer side(!) and his war with Pongo and Aunt Dolly, Hare infestations, river-rafting, Irish Murphy’s Pigs (far worse than his dogs), Cheeky’s picnic charm-offensive and the growing closeness of Rangi and Pongo…

‘Autumn’ brings piglets, scrub-burning, the revenge of dispossessed magpies, amorous bovines, fun with artificial insemination, fence-lining and back country cattle, honey-harvesting, darts and rugby, a confused ram who’d rather pursue Dolly than associate with eager ewes and Horse’s crucial role in the war against the magpies…

As ‘Winter’ again closes in, offering floods, the mixed messy joy of lambing season, mud, mad goats, whitebait fishing and footy, Wal unwisely agrees to take a class of schoolkids and their puritanical, prudish and priggish teacher on an eye-opening nature-lesson around Footrot Flats. Touched by the painful experience, the bluff cove then volunteers to coach the school’s sports and, after much humiliation, spends the rest of the book discovering how hard – and, for observers, funny – farming in a plaster cast can be…

As you’d expect, the comedy content is utterly, absolutely top-rate and the extended role played throughout by the surly star Horse all the more poignant…

Ball is one of those gifted few who can actually imbue a few lines on paper with the power of Shakespeare’s tragedy and the manic hilarity of jester geniuses such as Tommy Cooper or the Marx Brothers. When combined with his sharp, incisive yet warmly human writing the result is sheer, irresistible magic.

In the early 1990s Titan Books published British editions of the first three volumes and German, Japanese, Chinese and American translations also exist, as well as the marvellous Australian compendia reviewed here – as ever the internet is your friend…

Dry, surreal and wonderfully self-deprecating, Footrot Flats always successfully wedded together sarcasm, satire, slapstick and strikingly apt surrealism in a perfect union of pathos and down to earth (and up to your eyebrows) fun that was and still is utterly addicting, exciting and just plain wonderful.

Plant the seeds for a lifetime of laughs by harvesting this or indeed any volume and you’ll soon see a bumper crop of fun irrespective of the weather or market forces…
© 1981-1982 Murray Ball. All Rights Reserved.

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More Brilliant Advice


By Annie Lawson (Deirdre McDonald/Bellew Publishing)
ISBN: 978-0-94779-224-4

British cartooning has been magnificently serviced over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas repeatedly tickling our funny bones whilst poking our pomposities and fascinations. However one glaring imbalance in that dishonourable tradition has only been comparatively recently addressed – the relative paucity of women gagsters…

Annie Lawson is a jobbing illustrator, animator and textiles designer/facilitator (specialising in rug-making): a sublimely inspired and dedicated creator who happily inhabits the fine-arty, wryly clever, socially aware end of the makes-you-laugh market. Since 1981 she has worked as a freelance cartoonist for Honey, The Guardian, The Observer, City Limits and others. As well as being the uniquely stylish in-house cartoonist for the ethical beauty products chain Lush and featuring heavily in their free newspaper Lush Times, she has also been the star of many gallery exhibitions and has multiple book compilations to her name.

Here her startlingly economical, pared-down and deceptively simplified strips explored what it meant to be a young intellectual feminist looking for love – or often merely a straight answer – in the eternal questing dance between men and women, mothers and daughters, BFFs, food, booze and fashions, as well as the more baffling, frustrating and intolerable aspects of less crucial aspects of modern living.

More Brilliant Advice was released in 1989, the sequel to an earlier incisive and uncompromising collection and, as well as exploring man-hunting, party etiquette, gender cues, partnership insecurities, clubbing, middle-class cash-poverty, shameful guilty pleasures, masculine weaknesses and squeamishness, also continually self-dissects and reappraises the role of the nominal self-loathing singleton dubbed ‘the Wet Lettuce’.

With frenetic energy and a scathing eye – jaundiced far too young – topics such as ‘I’ve Got to Find a way to Make a Living’, ‘Clubbing It’, ‘If You Find to your Horror that your Children are either Selfish or Raving Mad…’, ‘Drunkenness… a Bane?’, ‘Perfect Logic’, ‘My Overdraft’, ‘Irritating Foibles’ ‘Assertiveness Training’ and other perennial pithy imponderables are tackled in both abrasive, energised stick figure strips and a multitude of gloriously lavish colour pastel and paint full-pages.

Since the glass studio-door was finally shattered, many women have reenergised the field and this selection comprises a nice slice of a lesser known but still-pithily opinionated pen-smith and brush-monger whose contributions have been forgotten for far too long.

Happily still available from numerous online sources, More Bad Advice is certainly something you should take heed of…
© 1989 Annie Lawson. All rights reserved.

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Hellboy Junior


By Mike Mignola, Bill Wray, Stephen DeStefano, Dave Cooper, Hilary Barta, Pat McEown, Glenn Barr, Kevin Nowlan, Dave Stewart & John Costanza (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1569719886

Although probably best known for revitalising the sub-genre of horror-heroes via his superb Hellboy and B.P.R.D. tales, creator Mike Mignola conceals a dark and largely unsuspected secret: he has a very dry, outlandish and wicked sense of humour…

Since 1997, whenever nobody was looking, he and co-conspirator Bill Wray have concocted outrageous, uproarious and vulgarly hilarious spoof tales which might – but probably weren’t – untold yarns of the scarlet scallywag’s formative days in hell before being drawn to earth and reared as a champion of humanity against the Things of the Outer Darkness…

Moreover, they convinced those gullible fools at Dark Horse Comics to publish them, first in the Hellboy Junior Halloween Special and again in an eponymous 2-issue miniseries in 1999 which also included many scurrilous and hilarious spoofs, pastiches and pokes at a host of family-friendly favourites from parental favourite Harvey Comics: beloved icons such as Casper, Wendy the Good Little Witch, Stumbo the Giant, Baby Huey and Hot Stuff, the Little Devil…

With most of the material scripted by Wray, this appallingly rude, crude and unmissable compilation bolts all the material together and even springs for an all new feature, but begins with Bill & Mike’s painfully cruel ‘The Creation of Hellboy Jr.: a Short Origin Story’ before tucking into ‘Maggots, Maggots, Everywhere!’, an all-Wray buffet of gastric ghastliness wherein the stone-fisted imp, fed up with his meagre ration of icky bug-babies, goes looking for something better to eat. Perhaps he shouldn’t have taken restaurant advice from that sneaky Adolf Hitler, whose rancid soul Junior should have been tormenting anyway…

After that epic-monster-infested odyssey, Mignola illustrates a mordant and wry adaptation of a German folk tale in ‘The Devil Don’t Smoke’ before Stephen DeStefano outrageously illustrates the agonisingly hilarious ‘Huge Retarded Duck’ and Hilary Barta lends his stylish faux-Wally Wood pastichery to ‘The Ginger Beef Boy’, wherein a frustrated transvestite creates the son he yearned for from the ingredients of a Chinese meal…

Following a stunning pin-up by Kevin Nowlan, Dave Cooper draws ‘Hellboy Jr.’s Magical Mushroom Trip’ wherein the ever-hungry imp and his pet ant disastrously attempt to grow their own edible fungus only to end up in deep shiitake when their psychotropic crop brings them into conflict with the big boss. Fans of evil dictators might welcome the guest appearance by Idi Amin…

Implausibly based on a true story, Wray & Mignolas’s ‘Squid of Man’ details the Grim Reaper’s wager with a mad scientist endeavouring to birth a new Atlantean race from the freshly dead remnants of cephalopods, arthropods, crustaceans, fine twine and lightning, whilst ‘The Wolvertons’ details the life and loves of an Alaskan lumberjack, his multi-tentacular alien wife and their extraordinarily hybrid kids Brad and Tiffany. Wray and Pat McEown spared no effort in their passionate tribute to Basil Wolverton, cartoon king of the Grotesque, so read this story before eating…

Back in Hell, Jr. regretfully experienced ‘The House of Candy Pain’ (Wray, Barta, John Costanza & Dave Stewart), when he and fellow imp Donnie fled to Storyland and the Forbidden Forest of Festible Dwellings. They should have stuck with the shack made from steaks or Tofu Terrace, but no, they had to enter the Gingerbread House…

Following a Barta bonus pin-up, Wray does it all for the tragic tale of ‘Sparky Bear’; a cub torn from his natural environment and raised by humans as a fire-prevention spokesperson, whilst the Cooper-limned parable of ‘Somnambo the Sleeping Giant’ proves that even if your village is overrun with demons, sometimes the cure is worse than the affliction, an idea echoed in the tale of ‘Wheezy, the Sick Little Witch’ (art by DeStefano) a poorly tyke whose cute li’l animal friends could neither cure nor survive contact with…

After surviving a nasty fast-food experience in ‘Hitler’ and a mock ad for your very own Spear of Destiny, the all-new ‘Hellboy Jr. vs Hitler’ (Wray & Stewart) depicts how a the little devil couldn’t even escort the Fallen Führer to the depths of Lower Hell without screwing up and giving the mono-testicular reprobate another chance to resurrect his Reich and, after a painted Wray Halloween scene and saucy Hell’s hot-tub pin-up from Glenn Barr, the mirthful madness concludes with Mignola & Stewart’s ‘Hellboy Jr. Gets a Car’ wherein the Hadean Half-pint takes an illicit test drive in a roadster meant for a Duke of Hell. It does not end well…

This Chymeric chronicle also includes a ‘Hellboy Junior Sketchbook’ with working drawings, colour roughs and layouts by Wray, McEown & DeStefano, to top off a wildly exuberant burst of tongue-in-cheek, sardonic and surreal adult fun which is a jovially jocund and gut-bustingly gross gas for every lover of off-the-wall, near-the-knuckle fun.
Hellboy Jr. ™ and © Mike Mignola. All individual strips, art & stories © 1997, 1999, 2003 their individual creator or holder. All rights reserved.

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The World’s Greatest Middle Age Cartoons


By various, edited by Mark Bryant (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-508-9

Here’s another little dip into the vast library of cartoon comedy generated by Britain’s greatest natural resource (and still un-privatised so it belongs to us all for the moment): folks what make us laugh…

This selection comprises a nice slice of lesser known but still-pithily opinionated pen-smiths and brush-mongers, all turning a jaded and indeed long-suffering, probably myopic and squinty eye on the inescapable fate that awaits most of us. I’m assuming of course, that nobody here today has yet reached those lofty depths of “Middle Age”…

The cartoons re-presented here have been harvested from the pages of such literary colossi as Punch, The Spectator and Private Eye amongst many national and international sources and deftly display the wry, smug, elegant, frantic, resigned and obnoxious attractions of and reactions to the slow bit between adolescence and senescence which seems to revolve around cake, comfy chairs and utter bewilderment at how bad things have gotten…

In these pages you’ll first discover the heartbreak of exhausted skin, creaking bones and meandering waistlines, the joy of taking up hobbies and pastimes, the faithfulness of pets, gardening, vanity, self-delusion, impatience, futility, embarrassingly roving eyes and wandering hands, the brutal cruelty of fashion, an increasing familiarity with Doctors’ waiting rooms, unsuspected ailments, crisis after crisis, hair where it shouldn’t be and not where you’d like it, that first whiff of approaching death, grandchildren, personal “use-by dates”, how love never dies but increasingly needs a little help and especially how one can go off sarcasm…

As usual this particular book isn’t as much what I’m recommending (although if you can find a copy you won’t regret it) as the type of publication that I’m commemorating. Such life-affirming cartoons by Norman Thelwell, Gerard Hoffnung, Bill Stott, Sally Artz, Les Barton, Helen Cusack, Stidley Easel, Charles Rodriguez, Hector Breeze, Tony Husband, Clive Collins, Michael ffolkes, Donegan, David Haldane, Fleo, Grizelda Grizlingham, Bud Handelsman, Holte, Henry Martin, David Austin, Edward McLachlan, Cluff, David Myers, Ken Pyne, Viv Quillin, Bryan Reading, Heath and Roland Fiddy are sitting idly out of touch when they could be filling your bookshelves and giving your somnolent hearts a damned good, potentially invigorating laugh time and time again…
Selection © 1994 Exley Publications, Ltd. The copyright of each cartoon remains with each cartoonist or copyright holder.

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The Fanatics Guide to: Dogs


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, boss”) 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.

“Fiddy”, 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.

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Plastic Man Archives volume 1


By Jack Cole (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-468-8

Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of American Comics’ Golden Age, crafting landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero genres. His incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. As the Golden Age faded, Cole could see the writing on the wall and famously jumped into gag and glamour cartooning, becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began running in Playboy with the fifth issue. Ever-restless, Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and, in May 1958, achieved his life-long ambition by launching a syndicated newspaper strip, the domestic comedy Betsy and Me.

On August 13th 1958 at the moment of his biggest break he took his own life.

The unexplained reasons for his death are not as important as the triumphs of Cole’s artistic life and this captivating paperback (reprinting a rare hardback compilation from 2004) provides a fascinating insight into a transitional moment in his artistic development.

Without doubt – and despite great successes with other heroic characters as well as in the crime and horror genres – Cole’s greatest creation was the zany, malleable Plastic Man who quickly grew from a minor B-character into one of the most memorable and popular heroes of the Golden Age and seemed to be the perfect fantastic embodiment of the sheer energy, verve and creativity of that era when anything went and comics-makers were prepared to try out every outlandish idea…

This premier deluxe hardback collection reprints the first twenty episodes of the Stretchable Sleuth’s astounding exploits from anthology title Police Comics covering the period August 1941- June 1943, culled from a time when nobody really knew the rules, creators, publishers and readers were prepared to try literally anything and by sheer Darwinian processes the cream of the crop always rose to the top…

After a fulsome Foreword by legendary comics genius Will Eisner and the appreciative Introduction ‘Plastic Man and Jack Cole’, the magic begins with the first of twenty stories, most of which originally appeared without individual titles.

The debut and origin of Plastic Man happened in the middle of Police Comics #1, a brief but beguiling six-pager which introduced mobster Eel O’Brian, shot during a factory robbery, soaked by a vat of acid and instantly, callously, abandoned by his partners in crime. Crawling away, Eel was found by a monk who nursed him back to health and proved to the hardened thug that the world was not just filled with brutes and vicious chisellers all after a fast buck.

His entire outlook altered and somehow gifted with incredible malleability (he surmises it was the chemical bath mingling with his bullet wounds), Eel decides to put his new powers to use cleaning up the scum he used to run with. Creating the identity of Plastic Man he thrashes his own gang and begins his stormy association with the New York City cops…

Police #2 saw Plas apply for a job with the cops and only to be told he could join up if he accomplished the impossible task of capturing the notorious and slippery Eel O’Brian, currently the Most Wanted crook in eight states… Ever wily, the Rubber-Band Man bided his time and won the position anyway by cracking an international dope racket (that’s illegal narcotics, kids) reaching from Canada to Chinatown, whilst in #3 he fully capitalised on his underworld reputation and connections to bust up a Pinball Racket led by a cunning crook with ears inside the Police Department itself.

‘Madame Brawn’s Crime School for Delinquent Girls’ pitted the Silly Putty Paladin against a brutal babe intent on taking over the City’s mobs, and despite getting a thorough trouncing she and her gang of gal gorillas returned in the next issue, having turned her burly hand to a spot of piracy.

Police Comics #5 (December 1942) also marked a major turning point for Plastic Man as with that issue he took the cover-spot away from fellow adventurer and failed superstar Firebrand, a position he would hold until costumed heroes faded from popularity at the end of the 1940s.

In issue #6 Plas’ burgeoning popularity was graphically reflected in a spooky mystery involving murderous disembodied hands, in #7 – as Eel – he infiltrated and dismantled the massed forces of the ‘United Crooks of America!’ whilst #8 found the hero seriously outmatched but still triumphant when he battled a colossal, city-crushing giant ‘Eight Ball!’ and its decidedly deranged inventor, and #9 reached an early peak of macabre malevolence as Plastic Man foiled a traitorous little mutant dubbed Hairy Arms in ‘Satan’s Son Sells Out to the Japs!’, a darkly bizarre thriller which saw the regular story-length jump from six to nine pages.

The carnival of cartoon grotesques continued in #10 as hayseed wannabe-cop Omar McGootch accidentally involved the Malleable Mystery-man in a Nazi plot to steal a new secret weapon, whilst #11 found Plastic Man in mortal combat with the spirit of a 17th century London alchemist whose brain was unearthed and accidentally transplanted into a wounded spitfire pilot, suddenly gaining incredible mystic powers in the process…

In Police #11 a desperate blackmailer joined forces with a criminal astrologer who predicted perpetual failure unless Plastic Man was killed, before Cole introduced his second most memorable character in #13’s ‘The Man Who Can’t be Harmed’…

Woozy Winks was an indolent slob who accidentally saved a wizard’s life and was gifted in return with a gift of invulnerability: all the forces of nature would henceforth protect him from injury or death. Flipping a coin the oaf decided to get rich quick with his power. Unable to stop him Plas was forced to appeal to his sentimentality and better nature and, once Woozy repented, was compelled to keep him around in case he strayed again…

Unlike Omar, Woozy Winks – equal parts Artful Dodger and Mr. Micawber, with the verbal skills and intellect of Lou Costello’s screen persona – would prove to be a perfect foil for Plastic Man: the lazy, venal, ethically fluid reprobate with sticky fingers who got all the best lines, possessed an inexplicable charm and had a habit of finding trouble. It was the perfect marriage of inconvenience…

As the page count jumped to 13, they were soon on the trail of Eel O’Brian himself in issue #14, but during the chase Woozy stumbled onto a slavery racket which soon foundered against his insane luck and Plastic Man’s ingenuity. In a hilarious twist Plas then let Woozy arrest him, but then escaped from under the smug cops’ very noses…

When war scientists investigated Plastic Man and Woozy’s uncanny abilities in #15 it led to murder, a hot pursuit to Mexico City and almost a new Ice Age, whilst in #16 disgruntled Native Americans organised a ‘Revolt against the USA’ and a movie cast succumbed one by one to a murderous madman in #17 before the hilarious #18 revealed what happened after ‘Plastic Man is Drafted’…

The blockbusting dilemma of all branches of the Armed Services fighting to recruit him was only solved when the President seconded Plas to the FBI, and his first case – with Woozy in tow – found the Stretchable Sleuth investigating ‘The Forest of Fear!’ in a 15 page terror-tale involving a cabal of killers and an army of animated oaks.

This initial deluxe outing ends with #20 and the ‘Woozy Winks Detective Agency’ as, with Plastic Man temporarily laid up wounded, the rotund rascal took centre stage to solve a robbery in a frantic, madcap and surreal extravaganza reminiscent of the screwball antics of the movie Hellzapoppin’ and the anarchic shtick of the Marx Brothers…

Exciting, innovative, thrilling, funny, scary and still visually intoxicating over seven decades later, Jack Cole’s Plastic Man is a truly unique creation that has only grown in stature and appeal. This is a pure comics experience that no fans should deny themselves.
© 1941, 1942, 1943, 1998 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Crazy World of Housework


By Bill Stott (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-314-6

I’m feeling glum today so it’s probably time to roll out another cartoon compendium and give my blue genes a bit of a workout. To remedy matters I’ve selected another collection of dry, droll and stunningly accurate observations by one of our best and most neglected gagsters, Bill Stott.

One more prolific but criminally nigh-forgotten staple of British cartooning, Stott’s manic fluid style, aggressively evocative drawing and trenchantly acerbic concoctions (which could here be summarised as “there’s a problem here, and it’s you…”) were a mainstay of Punch, Private Eye, The Times and many other papers and publications since he began commercial work in 1976.

In his other life he was – and remains – a degree-level painting and drawing tutor. Moreover he’s still in the game – such as it is in these days of magazine and newspaper cartoon paucity – and you can check out his latest stuff or even commission an original simply by visiting billstott.co.uk.

There might even be copies of this brilliant chronicle of chuckles on sale there…

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas repeatedly poking our funny bones whilst pricking our pomposities and fascinations, and nothing is more revealing of our darkest drives and social structure than the division of labour necessitated by keeping the cave clean and the provider fed…

Within the pages of the Crazy World of Housework (released in both English and American editions) we see the utter uselessness if not downright genetic incompatibility of grime-attracting children, the adult male’s genetic inability to iron, see dirt or follow instructions on cleaning products, the thin line between sanity and sanitary, the plight of stay-at-home husbands, what does not constitute a suitable gift for a housewife, how “house-proud” goeth before a fall, the wickedness of advertising promises, the burden of snobbery, the cruel seductive lure of gadgets, the mixed joys of pet ownership and just how close to breaking-point all ironers, washers and dusters really are every day…

These kinds of cartoon collection are perennial library/charity shop and jumble sale fare and if you ever see a Stott package (others in this particular series include The Crazy World of Cats, Cricket, Hospitals, Gardening, Marriage and Rugby) in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a brilliant laugh with another true master of mirth.
© 1992 Bill Stott. All rights reserved.

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Footrot Flats book 6


By Murray Ball (Orin Books)
ISSN: 0156-6172

Footrot Flats is one of the funniest comic strips ever created and seems to have been designed as an antidote to idealistic pastoral fantasy and bucolic self-deception. Created in 1975 by cartoonist and comics artist Murray Ball after returning to his New Zealand homeland, the fantastical farm feature ran for a quarter of a century, with the first of a multitude of strip compendia, calendars and special editions released in 1978.

It appeared in newspapers on four continents until 1994 when Ball retired it, citing reasons as varied as the death of his own dog and the state of New Zealand politics.

Thereafter he only periodically released books of all-new material until 2000, with a net yield of 27 collections of the daily strip, 8 volumes of Sunday pages dubbed the “Weekenders”, 5 pocket books and ancillary publications such as comedy calendars and “school kits” aimed at younger fans and their harried parents.

There was a stage musical, a theme park and in 1986 a truly superb feature-length animated film. The Dog’s Tail Tale became New Zealand’s top-grossing film (and probably remained so until Peter Jackson started fiddling about with Hobbits) – track it down on video or petition the BBC to show it again – it’s been 15 years, dammit…

The well-travelled and extremely gifted Mr. Ball had originally moved to England in the early 1960s, becoming a cartoonist for Punch (producing Stanley the Palaeolithic Hero and All the King’s Comrades) as well as drawing numerous strips for DC Thompson and Fleetway and concocting a regular political satire strip in Labour Weekly.

After marrying he returned to the Old Country and resettled in 1974 – but not to retire…

Ball was busier than ever once he’d bought a small-holding on the North Island to farm in his “spare time”, which inevitably led to the strip under review.

Taking the adage “write what you know” to startling, heartbreaking and occasionally stomach-turning heights, the peripatetic pencil-pusher built a nine day week to make room for these captivatingly insane episodes concerning the highs and lows – and most definitely “weirds” – of the rural entrepreneur as experienced by the earthily metaphoric Wallace Footrot Cadwallader: a bloke never far removed from mud and frustration…

Wal is a big, bluff farmer. He likes his grub; loves his sport – Rugby, Football (the Anzac sort, not the kiddie version Yanks call Soccer) Cricket and even Golf(ish); each in its proper season and at no other time since he just wants the easiest time a farmer’s life can offer…

Wal owns a small sheep farm (the eponymous Footrot Flats) honestly regarded as “400 acres of swamp between Ureweras and the Sea”.

With his chief – and only – hand Cooch Windgrass (a latter-day Francis of Assisi), and an avuncular sheepdog, Wal enjoys being his own boss – as much as the cat, goat, chickens, livestock and his auntie will let him…

Other persons of perennial interest include Wal’s fierce and prickly little niece Janice – known to all as Pongo, the aforementioned Aunt Dolly (AKA the sternly staunch and starched Dolores Monrovia Godwit Footrot), smart-ass local lad Rangi Wiremu Waka Jones, Dolly’s pompous and pampered Corgi Prince Charles and Pew, a sadistic, inventive, obsessed and vengeful magpie who bears an unremitting grudge against Farmer Cadwallader …

When not living in terror of the farm cat, teasing the corpulent Corgi or panic-attacking himself in imagined competition with noble hunting hound Major, Dog narrates and hosts the strip: a cool, imaginative and overly sentimental know-all and blowhard, utterly devoted to his, for want of a better term, Master – unless there’s food about, or Jess (the sheepdog bitch from down the road) is in heat again. However, the biggest and most terrifying scene-stealer is that fulsome feline Horse; a monstrous and invulnerable tomcat who lords it over every living thing in the district …

The comedy is as always, absolutely top-rate and Ball is one of those gifted few who can actually imbue a few lines on paper with the power of Shakespeare’s tragedy and the manic hilarity of manic geniuses like the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy. When combined with his sharp, incisive writing the result is pure irresistible magic.

In the early 1990s Titan Books published British editions of the first three volumes and German, Japanese, Chinese and American translations also exist, as well as the marvellous Australian compendia reviewed here – as ever the internet is your friend…

Once again the funny businesses comes courtesy of the loquacious canine softie, taking time out from eking out his daily crusts (and oysters and biscuits and cake and lamb’s tails and scraps and chips and…) and alternately getting on with or annoying the sheep, cows, bull, goat, hogs, ducks, bugs, cats, horses and geese, as well as sucking up to the resolutely hostile wildlife and the decidedly odd humans his owner knows or is related to.

Dog – his given name is an embarrassing, closely and violently guarded secret – loves Wal but always tries to thwart him if the big bloke is trying to do unnecessarily necessary farm chores such as chopping down trees, burning out patches of scrub, culling livestock, or trying to mate with the pooch’s main rival Darlene “Cheeky” Hobson, hairdresser-in-residence of the nearest town.

This extra-large (262x166mm) landscape monochrome sixth volume again comes from Australian Publisher Orin Books and continues the policy of dividing the strips into approximately seasonal sequences, and after a disturbingly anatomical exploratory self-examination by Mr. Ball, a featuring on ‘This Years Docking…’, Dog’s traditionally extraordinary ‘Introduction’ and selection of cartoon “snapshots” from ace photographer Rangi Jones, ‘Spring’ at last busts out all over…

The busiest season of the farmer’s year – apart from the other three – deals with the over-abundance of every unwelcome weed and bush, the shedding of winter coats, the year’s first crop of Dog’s progeny, dopey calves, horny bulls, horny farmers and hairdressers, piglets, chicks and the general proliferation of life in its myriad forms before the long hot ‘Summer’ settles in, bringing fun with bees, the new enterprise of honey-harvesting, eels and how not to catch them, gently cooling typhoon winds, Christmas (Southern Hemisphere, remember?), reminiscences with aging and unwilling stud ram Cecil and particularly instructive incidents with Horse – such as when the mighty moggy catches the biggest bird he’s ever seen and Wal has to pay for a new hang-glider…

‘Autumn’ brings mushrooms, harvests, haymaking and rugby, plus blackberries, a war with goats, stock sales, inconsolable cows and ewes, golf on horseback (one that whinnies not growls) and how not to worm pets whilst ‘Winter’ again offers floods, lambing season plus, mud, footy, and the canine drama of Dog getting ill.

How do they manage without him? They don’t…

Since these cartoons are culled from 1981-1982 there’s also some few Antipodean observations on the Royal Wedding of the other, two-legged, Prince Charles along with casual – and unnerving – nudity, fun with bullocks and a distressingly obvious love-hate relationship brewing between Rangi and Pongo…

Dry, surreal and wonderfully self-deprecating, Footrot Flats always grafted together sarcasm, satire, slapstick and strikingly apt surrealism in a perfect union of pathos and down to earth (and up to your armpits) humour that was and still is utterly addicting, exciting and just plain wonderful.

If you feel the need to fill your lungs with overly fresh air, your boots with squelchiness and commune with the real countryside why not give the Dog a go?
© 1981-1982 Murray Ball. All Rights Reserved.

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The Crazy World of Gardening


By Bill Stott (Exley)
ISBN: 978-1-85015-355-9

As it’s a Bank Holiday here in Britain and probably raining somewhere, I’ve taken the opportunity to re-examine the so-very-English obsession with domestic horticulture through the medium of cartoon books and in particular a collection of dry, droll and often painfully accurate observations by one of my favourite unsung gagsters, Bill Stott.

Another prolific but criminally nigh-forgotten staple of British cartooning, Stott’s manic loose line, stunningly evocative drawing and mordantly acerbic conceptions (which basically boil down to “no matter how strange, if it can happen it will happen to you, but only if somebody is watching…”) were a mainstay of Punch, Private Eye, The Times and many other papers and publications since 1976.

In his other life he was – and still is – a degree-level college painting and drawing tutor. Moreover he’s still in the game – such as it is in these days of magazine and newspaper cartoon paucity – and you can check out his latest stuff or even commission an original simply by visiting billstott.co.uk.

There might even be copies of this superb little rib-tickler on sale there…

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly clever ideas repeatedly poking our funny bones whilst pricking our pomposities and fascinations, and nothing says more about us than our dark compulsion to mow lawns and torture plants in flood or gale or drought and all points between…

Within the pages of the Crazy World of Gardening (released in both English and American editions as a hardcover and paperback) the wise reader will learn the horror and delight of motor mowers, why men and women mustn’t garden together, how every living thing that sprouts or flies or crawls hates and despises humanity, the wit, wisdom and worth of gnomes, anti-slug tactics, how hosepipes are not our friends, the root cause of garden distress, hedge-warfare, the misery of pond-life, greenhouse etiquette and such various and assorted plant lore as will keep the aforementioned wise ones safely inside whilst letting nature and the seasons – such as they now are – just get on with it…

These kinds of cartoon collection are perennial library/charity shop and jumble sale fare and if you ever see a Stott package (others in this particular series include The Crazy World of Cats, Cricket, Hospitals, Housework, Marriage and Rugby) in such a place, do yourself a favour, help out a good cause and have a brilliant laugh with another true master of mirth.
1987 Bill Stott. All rights reserved.