Beau Peep Notice Board
Beau Peep Notice Board => Outpourings => Topic started by: Roger Kettle on July 14, 2009, 09:24:39 PM
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Forty years ago, next month, I walked into "The Topper" office in Dundee to start my career as a sub-editor. I was eighteen, just out of school and had no idea what to expect. It was weird. Grown men were sitting around desks and writing scripts for things like "Beryl the Peril" and "Mickey the Monkey". It was weird and I loved it. I think it was about a month or so later when I had my first ever script accepted by the editor. It was for a comic strip called "Desert Island Dick", a surreal set-up about a castaway on a tiny island with an octopus called Olly as a companion. The stories were always about he would NEARLY get rescued but would be foiled at the last moment. That first scipt I wrote concerned a chemistry set that had been washed up on the beach. (Bizarre stuff like this was ALWAYS getting washed up!) Anyway, he concocted a potion, drank it, and turned himself invisible just as a ship was passing by. The crew, hearing the shouts for help but seeing nothing, assumed the island was haunted and sped away. Remember this was aimed at 8 year-olds! I kept that issue of "The Topper" for years as a reminder of my first ever published comic strip.
It was around that time I first met a certain Andrew Christine and, I suppose, the seed for Beau Peep was planted.
Forty years ago. As that round-headed American kid would say----Good Grief!
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I remember the Topper annuals. I think they were Topper annuals. Loved them.
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That was pretty brave to walk into a job right out of high school. Today people would expect you to go to uni for four years to get such a chance.
There was quite a lot of stuff you did before Beau Peep then - did you ever do any of the drawrings too?
My son was drawing cartoons on a whiteboard since he was about 4 - they were the adventures of two characters called Lunchbox and Squishyhead. I thought he might be a cartoonist - but he stopped about age 12. Now he wants to be an optomitrist. What a waste.
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I always got the Topper annual in my stocking at Christmas, well next to it. It didn't fit in to dad's fishing socks. Usually got The Broons/Oor Wullie too.
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...I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.
Me and Peepsie were singing that together not so very long ago, but I digress before I've even begun.
Happy Anniversary for next month, Roger! Lovely to read about all that, and an excellent first script if I'm any judge. I have the advantage over everyone else here in that not only can I picture the office you walked into that day from my own memory, but also the staff, assuming they hadn't changed that much in the eight years that followed until the day I repeated your walk at the same age, though entering the adjoining room, to become the office junior in 'The Beano'.
I loved it also, and the high of that first script being accepted will never leave me. I have to report though that I beat you to it. I was invited by the editor to 'have a go at a script' after four days in the job, four days which up until then were spent familiarising myself with the maze of a building that housed all of those famous comics, and reading old Beano files. I confess the invitation had me bricking it!
I drafted out a 'Pup Parade' (the Bash Street Kids dogs had their own one-page story) idea that afternoon, took it home with me, and wrote it out about four times until I was happy with it. I dropped it in the editor's tray in the morning and went to the pub with the lads from the office for lunch, where I sought the opinion of one of them (now the Beano Editor himself) about my first nervous attempt, showing him one of the copies I had made earlier, but which I'd rejected because my handwriting wasn't good enough (I left nowt to chance). He was very complimentary about it, but pointed out a flaw which would probably result in it being rejected. When I got back to the office, the script was lying on my desk with a red pencil tick beside the title. I was shaking visibly as I asked my colleague on the adjoining desk to mine (same guy from the pub) what this meant, in a very quiet whisper. He raised an eyebrow, smiled, and told me it was passed unchanged, and that I should put it in the tray for the runner to take it to the typists to have it typed out properly and sent to the artist for pencilling. I honestly can't quantify just how I felt at that moment, but I can summon it up like it was yesterday when I think about it. It was followed by several aftershocks, as the artist brought in the pencil sketch of the script for approval, then the inked page, and then when eventually it appeared in the comic itself.
A mere thirty-two years ago for me, Roger (started work, July 4th, 1977). I was there six years before freelancing tempted me to jump the fence, But those were very happy years indeed, and I fully realise how lucky I was to have them.
So - are you planning a party?
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Hi Roger - it has been a very nostalgic week or so for me too - I went to a secondary school reunion at the weekend - WELL over 40 years since I saw most of these people. Now you tell me it's 40 years since you (a mere child) came to Dundee :o. Do you remmber that you had to work on Christmas day? And you came to have Christmas dinner with my then husband (who shall remain nameless) and me? I decided for some unfathomable reason to have duck - I don't think it was very nice, but I was very very young (I had been a child bride).
Sorry I missed your birthday, by the way - I have been very busy and on holiday and stuff - cheers anyway! xx
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Wasn't it capon? Apart from that, I remember it well. My first Christmas away from home and I was working! They drove us hard in them days.
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Wasn't it capon? Apart from that, I remember it well. My first Christmas away from home and I was working! They drove us hard in them days.
Roger, for my first Christmas away from home at eighteen, I'd just got married and hubby came home from work with a 15lb turkey and a pound of sausages. I hadn't a clue what to do with it. We managed to get it cooked and three days later, when we'd had enough roast turkey, curried turkey, turkey sandwiches, we turned the damn thing over and found the white breast meat. We'd cooked it upside-down and still had another week's worth turkey to get through....!
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Vulch, I love roast turkey and on Boxing Day, I'm usually found with my arms round the carcass, growling at anyone who comes near. However, I think even I might have struggled with the scenario you describe.
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i remember d.i.d and his octopus dick had a shock of black hair, and micky the monkey wore red dugeree shorts , we had fantastic comics back then. wizzer and chips ,sparky,cor!, beezer and my favorate shiver'n' shake with the greatest strip ever
"sweeny toddler" please tell me sweeny was one of yours roger?
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Yes, go on , Roger - tell him it was one of yours. Sounds like the truth might be too hurtful.
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Um...no. Who did it, Tarks?
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Mostly Tam Paterson, I think.
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there was always a single sock in one of the panels with stink lines coming out, and factories in the background that made things like lumps for custard , brilliant. and while i am here does anyone remember a comic strip called faceache (the boy with a thousand faces ) the artwork was fantastic
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One of my favourites, robbie - drawn by the genius that was Ken Reid.
The genius that is Tom Paterson is still very much alive and kicking, and producing top quality work for the Beano. And the occasional sweaty sock I believe.
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Many years ago (about 1997, I think) I tried to get a show up called Desert Island Dick which was designed as a non-dialogue short form animation series.
My D.I.D was ginger-haired and his companion was a malevolent penguin, something like the baddie in the Wallace And Grommitt movie. I'm trying to find the artwork and promo blurb, but I saved it on disks and have to retrieve it.
If I remember rightly, it contained many eerie similarities in style and intent to Roger's outline. Each episode involved Dick dealing with some washed-up item or other but I do remember also that it had a supernatural theme - there was some weird stuff.
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octopus dick
I had to read that twice. Not a very flattering comparison I wouldn't have thought.
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octopus dick
I had to read that twice. Not a very flattering comparison I wouldn't have thought.
some people see only what they want to see
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I just saw this on Ebay Roger - is it one of yours?
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk284/nomad2010/beep%20peep/thetopper1972.jpg)
Congratulations for an amazing 40 years! Did you ever do any artwork, and what did Andrew do for the Topper?
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(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk284/nomad2010/beep%20peep/thetopper1972.jpg)
That cover is stupid.
When he swings that axe, he's going to spill the hot water from the kettle.
And where did the logs come from anyway? I don't see a second tree that's been cut down. And what happens when those logs are used up, which seems soon given that they are burning them to cook dinner.
And that octopus is sitting on a crate. With the weight of the man, the law of centres of gravity tells you the octopus would topple over.
What are cartoonists doing to today's youngsters?
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Rob, I certainly had nothing to do with that cover but there may have been some stuff inside that I wrote.
Andrew---who was originally a letterer---used to illustrate the readers' letters page and then was given a strip called Dopey Joe. The only thing I ever drew for Thomson's was a strip I created about a stoneage footballer by the name of "Klog". It ran in a couple of their publications and had, shall we say, a naive style. Believe it or not, it was later drawn by somebody called Tarquin Thunderthighs III. In order to copy my..er..unique style, he had to draw it left-handed and drunk.
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(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk284/nomad2010/beep%20peep/thetopper1972.jpg)
That cover is stupid.
When he swings that axe, he's going to spill the hot water from the kettle.
And where did the logs come from anyway? I don't see a second tree that's been cut down. And what happens when those logs are used up, which seems soon given that they are burning them to cook dinner.
And that octopus is sitting on a crate. With the weight of the man, the law of centres of gravity tells you the octopus would topple over.
What are cartoonists doing to today's youngsters?
Mince, Superman, Iron Man, Spiderman....... need I say more?
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(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk284/nomad2010/beep%20peep/thetopper1972.jpg)
That cover is stupid.
When he swings that axe, he's going to spill the hot water from the kettle.
And where did the logs come from anyway? I don't see a second tree that's been cut down. And what happens when those logs are used up, which seems soon given that they are burning them to cook dinner.
And that octopus is sitting on a crate. With the weight of the man, the law of centres of gravity tells you the octopus would topple over.
What are cartoonists doing to today's youngsters?
where did he get the tea,and the board to write on and why is the octopus not dead from being out of the water so long he has dried out?
Mince, Superman, Iron Man, Spiderman....... need I say more?
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Andrew---who was originally a letterer---used to illustrate the readers' letters page
I bought a couple of Toppers off Ebay the other day just to see what they were like (I used to get The Beano when I was a lad). I think Andrew's style is easliy recognised in this letters page even way back in May 1974 (issue 1110):
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk284/nomad2010/beep%20peep/topperletters-1.jpg)
The Editor was impressed with the 'Tall Story' letter. I wonder what the writer is doing now, and would he be embarrased to read it again, all these years later?
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk284/nomad2010/beep%20peep/topperletters-rkettle.jpg)
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UNBELIEVABLE! Rob, this is just amazing. I've never seen this before. This was just after I left The Topper and one of my colleagues must have stuck this in. They even got the name of my wee village right!
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they should put that story in a MOO-seum
robbie62 london
can i have the stringed animal puppet if this gets published