I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that Barrie
Appleby was not available to contribute to MONSTER FUN Annual 1980 and the
strips which would have been drawn by him were given to another artist (or
other artists) to illustrate. I can’t decide whether it was Joe McCaffrey or Reg
Parlett, or maybe both of them on different strips. Or perhaps it was Barrie Appleby all along, imitating Reg Parlett?
They
include both sets of Terror TV. The first one featured The Multi-Horror Swap Shock! show and
the other one – All Creatures Big and
Small. Here it is in full:
Two episodes of Teddy
Scare also fall within the category:
…
as do both episodes of Tom Thumbscrew:
…
as does Brainy and His Monster Maker. One of the two episodes is called
Brainy’s
Monster Maker. I can see traces of Barrie Appleby, Reg Parlett/Joe
McCaffrey and even Frank McDiarmid in this one, here it is in full:
So,
who do you think illustrated these?
The
Annual contains a fair share or reprints, including the second Badtime
Bedtime Book (Robinson Gruesome by Leo Baxendale)
from the second issue of Monster Fun
Comic weekly. The reprint is twice the size of the original BBB and is
printed in b/w:
Now
for the highlights, which, for me, are the strips from the hand of Mike Brown.
I believe he was responsible for three in this Annual, although none were
signed. A Christmas Phanto-Mime is first in line and the only one I
have some doubts about regarding artwork credits. I tend to think it is by Mike
Brown, but drawn a few years earlier when he was just starting to work on Badtime
Bedtime Books in MONSTER FUN COMIC. See for yourselves and let me know
what you think:
Alfie’s
Alphabet is a hilarious one-off:
And
finally, here is the indispensable new Badtime
Bedtime Story – Aladdin - a mad combination of the oriental tale, Star Wars and whatnot. There's even the artist's self-portrait on page two. Enjoy!
All Images 2015 © Egmont UK
Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with
permission.
I'd say it's definitely Reg Parlett's work in the first strip, Irmy. (Terror TV.)
ReplyDeleteI don't think that first Terror TV is a Parlett. I suspect it could be Rob Lee.
ReplyDeleteI think the Terror TV, Teddy Scare and the first Tom Thumbscrew are all Reg Parlett over Barrie’s pencils. The key for the Terror TV strip that it can’t be Rob Lee is the lettering “SURGERY” which is definitely Reg.
ReplyDeleteThe second Tom Thumbscrew looks more like Joe McCaffrey. Brainy may well be Barrie in a rush, or it’s someone who followed his pencils almost to the very stroke.
Did Reg ever do inks over other artists' pencils, though, Andy? I can't remember him ever ghosting other artists' strips in the annuals. I assumed he was busy enough with the weeklies, as his own strips tended to be ghosted in the annuals.
DeleteI thought the tell-tale signs of Rob Lee, who did lots of ghosting, were the hands - especially with the splayed fingers - and legs and feet, always evident in Kid Gloves, clearly based on Reg Parlett's, but much more exaggerated, and always clearly not Parlett.
The Pantomime is by Keith Reynolds (Tom Dick and Sally, The Teeny Toppers, School Belle)
ReplyDeleteI should've looked at more than the first page - I can see another hand in the other two.
ReplyDelete