Beau Peep Notice Board
Beau Peep Notice Board => Outpourings => Topic started by: Rob Baker on July 30, 2013, 06:38:43 PM
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This first edition of the Beano appeared on 30th July 1938 - 75 years old today. Stories included Big Eggo, the ostrich, Pansy Potter: The Strongman’s Daughter; and Lord Snooty and his Pals.
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk284/nomad2010/thebeano1-p0001_zpsd11bd5c3.jpg) (http://s283.photobucket.com/user/nomad2010/media/thebeano1-p0001_zpsd11bd5c3.jpg.html)
I've looked on Wikipedia but they can't confirm if Mr Kettle was a contributor to the first issue.
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Yes. He did Beryl the Peril. That, Beau Peep & Horace - the guy's a legend.
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Very funny, Mister Baker!
As Nigel said, I wrote Beryl the Peril in The Topper and various others....Desert Island Dick, Danny's Tranny and Ghastly Manor, to name but a few. It was a great way to learn the basics of strip-writing and helped me enormously when I made the step into freelance work. My starting wage at D.C. Thomson was £9.50 a week. I think they pay over a tenner these days.
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A grand old institution. I'm surprised at the longevity if I'm honest.
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Danny's Tranny? How very DARE you... >:(
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Pardon my ignorance, but is the Beano still going in print? I know the Dandy wrapped up (I was sorry to hear) and is now web-only. Does this mean the Dandy cartoonists are still employed? Feel free to PM me rather than broadcast this stuff.
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Malc, I think The Beano still comes out every month. It now tends to feature "celebrities" making guest appearances in established strips---Andy Murray and the likes. Recently, Charles and Camilla were in Dundee to open a new printworks and were then caricatured in The Bash Street Kids.
D.C Thomson are simply trying to keep these titles alive in order to maximise what merchandising opportunities are still available. At its peak, The Beano sold around two million copies a week. The current monthly edition sells less than ten thousand. In this computer age, kids' tastes have changed and the Beano/Dandy industry is now a largely nostalgic one.
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Malc, I posted this link in the Cartoonist Club Facebook Page (http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2013/07/30/beano-artist-brings-comic-capers-to-life-at-black-country-workshops/) the other day.
I thought you would have seen it... ..0
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As far as I'm aware, Roger, The Beano is still running weekly (confirmed by Wikipedia, so it must be true!). You may be confusing it with Beano Max, the monthly spin-off which has recently ceased production after six and a half years.
The Dandy launched an online version after the print one ended on its 75th birthday last year, but I understand it is now also terminal. I fear The Beano may not be far behind. Many of the current cartoonists are now struggling to stay full time, or even part time in the industry, sadly.
It's very sad for me. Like Roger, I started my working life as a DC Thomson sub-editor, aged 18, one week out of school, hired as the office junior on the Beano itself (I had no idea until that first day I was about to start a career in comics, and actually thought I was about to become a cub reporter on one of their newspapers, arriving with brand new trench-coat in readiness). Four days later, I wrote my first script, had it passed unaltered, on its way to being read by over a million people. Can't describe the kick that gave me. Another week later and I found myself with the responsibility of writing four weekly strips for the biggest-selling comic in the UK. 18 months later, I was asked to move out, to become part of a 2-man think tank charged with creating a brand new comic. This eventually turned out to be Nutty comic, and my very first task on day one was to come up with a superhero character we called Bananaman.
Four and a half years later, I quit, walking out on a Friday that was to be my last day as a sub-editor, only to return the following Monday with my first pencil sketch as a freelance cartoonist, and continuing to work for DC Thomson on and off for the next 30 years.
I vividly recall going for a 'slap up feed' (comic talk) to celebrate the Beano's 40th anniversary, just a few months after I started working there, and feeling like a right fraud, having only just stepped in the door of a four decade history. It's rather surreal for me to think that I've now been working for both the Beano and Dandy for more than half their lives, not to mention two thirds of my own.
I used to think it would be a grand exit to go out like the great Dudley D. Watkins, who died at his drawing board, half way through a Beano page. I never for one moment thought I'd actually outlive either of the Big Two comics. With one down, no bets are being taken!
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Did you use that trench-coat for any other purposes?
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MI6, Diane... can't say much more than that, sorry.
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Hang on, can we just clarify something here. Are you saying, Tarks, that YOU invented Bananaman?
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Yes, he did.
I know loads of famous people.
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My next question is "How much money did you make when I bought a pair of Bananaman undies?"
(http://images.newlook.com/is/image/newlook/mens/underwear-socks-and-pyjamas/boxer-shorts/red-banana-man-boxers/263035199?$prod_details_hero$)
Of course we all know you write Beau Peep, Roger, and so naturally we hold you in high esteem here on the Beau Peep website. Then it transpires that Malc worked on the Danger Mouse cartoon. Now I find out that a guy going by the name "Tarquin Thunderthighs III" didn't just draw but actually invented ****ing BANANAMAN?
I'm beginning to feel like, of the people on this forum, I'm the one who was least involved in my glorious childhood memories. Next we'll I'll probably find out that the Peepmaster created Roger The Dodger, and that Diane is really the Rev. W Awdry in hiding. Vulture's probably Jennifer Aniston. Haven't seen much of her since you dumped her.
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Roger dumped Vulture? :-\
Jack, I hate to break this to you, but Peepsie is the Easter Bunny, and Mince was the big fat geezer in the red suit and white beard who climbed down your chimney and nicked half of your presents. Still doing it, I hear.
Just to keep the record straight, Bananaman was created under my Nom Day Ploom, and first appeared in Nutty comic in the February, 1980 - the same week as my 21st birthday. He was drawn back then by the late, great John K. Geering, and it was many years later, after John's untimely death, that I eventually got the opportunity to draw the character for The Dandy (Nutty having long disappeared). But yes, I wrote all of the early scripts, the first shortly after my 20th birthday, which I sketched out for John, and which he followed very closely, to my great delight. Eric, Bananaman's alter ego, is my middle name.
A couple of years later, whilst DC Thomson were considering their first foray into TV animation, with Dennis the Menace and Desperate Dan being the obvious candidates, the animation executives apparently caught sight of Bananaman whilst in Dundee for preliminary talks, and insisted that he was the one to bring to the small screen. And so they did.
I wasn't a great fan of the animation, if I'm honest. I wanted Malcolm's chums at Cosgrove Hall to do it, but had no say in the matter, and a cheaper route was taken, and it showed. Or so I thought. John Geering seemed happy enough with the early viewings however, and he knew far more about these things than me, so perhaps I was wrong. The televised cartoons enjoyed considerable success back then, having opted for the whole thing to be voiced by The Goodies. Other voice options included Brian Blessed (brought in initially when they thought Desperate Dan might be chosen), but my own favourite was Ian Lavender, who did a demo tape using his Private Pike voice for Little Eric, and a wonderfully deep version of the same for Bananaman, which I thought was perfect.
But I digress... no, I'm almost relieved to say I didn't earn a penny from your underpants, Jack.
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Of course we all know you write Beau Peep, Roger, and so naturally we hold you in high esteem here on the Beau Peep website. Then it transpires that Malc worked on the Danger Mouse cartoon. Now I find out that a guy going by the name "Tarquin Thunderthighs III" didn't just draw but actually invented ****ing BANANAMAN?
I'm with you, Jack. ****ing BANANAMAN'S Daddy !! This site rocks.
May some of your combined genius (genii?) dribble over us uncreative peasants and mark us with the scent of the great.
We are not worthy.
:o :o :o
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Not only did Tarquin create Bananaman, he also supports St. Johnstone. The man is too cool for words.
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Sadly, I don't know these cartoons - but TTIII does have proof that he was a cute little kid. :)
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Tarks, the animation may have been better if Cosgrove Hall had done it, but the scriptwriting would definitely have been better, especially if Brian Trueman had been involved. It was the writing wot made DM, the animation was rudimentary, at best, with many of the crew having taught themselves, from books!
I was one of the first "trained" animators to work on DM, and my animation course only existed as part of a graphic design course which set up its animation facility the year before I joined. On top of that, it had almost no equipment, so you can see those were very early days in British TV animation.
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Surely though, it's about the package? There's certainly a world of difference between then and now, but the animation "fitted" perfectly with everything else. Both were simply just quality entertainment. Being a child *ahem* of that time, I loved both DM and Bananaman, and they were compulsive viewing in the household. Old computer games, where the graphics were, em...basic, to say the least, still get played today because they had that "hook" that grabbed you. Similarly, both DM and Bananaman had a "hook". Was it animation? Script? Voices? Don't know. I just know they were fantastic, and I loved every minute of them.
PS. What about the animation technique of my other old fav...Rhubarb and Custard?
;D
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Aw Jeeeez.
Now I've got the Rhubarb and Custard theme tune in my head. >:(
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I went to the same art college as Bob Godfrey, who created Roobarb and Custard.
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I went to the same art college as Bob Godfrey, who created Roobarb and Custard.
Aw for f*** sake.
Am I the only pleb on this board? >:(
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I went to the same art college as Bob Godfrey, who created Roobarb and Custard.
Aw for f*** sake.
Am I the only pleb on this board? >:(
Anagram time: SYE
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I went to the same art college as Bob Godfrey, who created Roobarb and Custard.
Aw for f*** sake.
Am I the only pleb on this board? >:(
Anagram time: SYE
Thank dog I'm exdyxslic, I thought that said yes.
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Tarks, the animation may have been better if Cosgrove Hall had done it, but the scriptwriting would definitely have been better, especially if Brian Trueman had been involved. It was the writing wot made DM, the animation was rudimentary, at best, with many of the crew having taught themselves, from books!
I was one of the first "trained" animators to work on DM, and my animation course only existed as part of a graphic design course which set up its animation facility the year before I joined. On top of that, it had almost no equipment, so you can see those were very early days in British TV animation.
I can't recall anything Cosgrove Hall produced that was less than excellent, Malky - all the more remarkable given what you say.
I won't argue with you about the Bananaman scripting. It was a bone of contention at the time, with rumours that Thomsons were paying £1,000 a script to the animation company for some guy to 'write' the stuff, often cobbling together (badly) stories that I'd written for the comic, taking out any bits that would have been 'challenging' to animate. I'd have loved to have been given the chance to do the writing, and considering that the comic page rate for a script back then was about £4.50 (no, I'm not underplaying it), I'd have been very happy to do it for considerably less than a grand. Not a chance!
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Aw for f*** sake.
Am I the only pleb on this board? >:(
[/quote]
No
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Aw for f*** sake.
Am I the only pleb on this board? >:(
No
[/quote]
Woohoo.
Altogether now....Sweeeeeeeeet Caaaaaaaaaaaaroliiiiiiiiiiiiiiine doo doo doo ;D
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Sandy, you made my day!
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Admit it...it was the attention to detail in the "doo doo doo's", wasn't it? ;)
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I went to the same art college as Bob Godfrey, who created Roobarb and Custard.
Aw for f*** sake.
Am I the only pleb on this board? >:(
No. My only claim to fame is ...
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I went to the same art college as Bob Godfrey, who created Roobarb and Custard.
Aw for f*** sake.
Am I the only pleb on this board? >:(
No. My only claim to fame is ...
Go on...Go on...
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Sandy, Bob Godfrey used absolutely basic techniques in the old days. Roobarb and Custard animation was so rudimentary, he used the "boil" method, where matching the line and colour didn't matter, and after the pics were all held for a few frames only under camera, than played back in a stream, the animation looked like it "boiled" on screen. He used magic marker to colour in the characters, and worked so fast, (due to time constraints) he could spend NO time on finesse. It was a lot of fun and lent itself perfectly to kids TV.
I worked with him (as an unpaid intern) on the famous TRIO ads, where he was asked to recreate that method, but the directions he had to comply with from the ad agency meant he had to take a lot more time and trouble to fake what was originally a very simple process. Therefore the simply-rendered characters had to be cut out and mounted on see-through cel so that they could be used over painted backgrounds. Bob was paid a shedload of money to do it, he couldn't believe the budget, it went a great way to paying for his Covent Garden studio (a tall, narrow converted warehouse).
The guy who rented out the office underneath was the Guardian's Steve Bell, someone I was lucky enough to spend some time with. He was working on a spoof animation of Robert Maxwell at the time. I was given the great privilege of drawing some stuff for that. I'm not a huge fan of Steve's Guardian work I am sorry to say, but he is a great fella to talk to. He is, after all is said and done, Steve Bell.
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I find it amazing Malc, that the "boil" could be done so quickly. I always assumed that it must have took an absolute age, or been an incredible pain in the backside, to create what is for me, an absolute iconic cartoon style. I can't think of any other cartoon of that time that I remember so vividly. It always seemed so..."lively" on screen.
I seem to remember the TRIO ads as being a lot less "boiley" (if that's a word) than Roobarb, but the fact that I do remember them (Susie, hippy guitarist and bongo drummer?), says a lot about the actual advert and the quality of it overall. I always wondered how well adverts aid...I guess I've got a hint now, but I just hope not all of them pay as well, i.e. the fat twat from Gocompare. >:(
I'm afraid I've never bought a copy of The Guardian, so I've never really seen any of Steve Bell's stuff. Now if he had maybe worked with the Sunday Sport...
;)
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On ad agency rates: My favourite story is of my buddy on Count Duckula in about 1987. He was the lucky one to take the phone call from an ad agency in London. They wanted to use a Count Duckula image but needed it to be "real", i.e. drawn by a Duckula animator. He said he would do it, and took the return number, etc (no emails in them days).
He asked me "how much do you reckon I should charge? I thought about fifty quid?"
"Fifty? It's London rates, mate - gotta be a hundred, or a hundred and fifty"
Right up until the last, after he'd drawn, coloured and sent down the pic, he still hadn't made up his mind on the rate, so in the end the ad agency phoned HIM. He said he was a bit unsure, and had garnered the courage to blurt out "a hundred and fifty?" when they said "look, would a thousand pounds do?"
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Suppose it beats Glasgow rates of 3 ginger bottles and a pie supper. :P
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Let me chance my arm and pick some brains a bit more then. Where/how did manga(?) animation develop? I know it's a Japanese thing, but that's about it. It seemed very popular when I was a nipper, and still remember "Battle of the Planets" with great fondness. In fact, why do cartoons have such longevity? It can't just be the bright, eye catching colours surely...that would be fine when you're a child, but not an adult. ???
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I went to the same art college as Bob Godfrey, who created Roobarb and Custard.
Aw for f*** sake.
Am I the only pleb on this board? >:(
No. My only claim to fame is ...
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You're Hitler's missing testicle? WOW!!!!
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Don't be daft...he's Captain Hook's right hand man. You can clearly see the name-tag. ..0
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Me daft? Captain Hook didn't have a right hand.
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Correction... :-[
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Correction... :-[
Na na naaa na na naaaaa.
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One night of filming for just about 3 minutes in the film. I can be seen for 1 second. But it was a fun thing to do anyway.
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Did you get to keep the Nazi uniform? And if so, how often do you still wear it? What was it like working with Hitler?
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Did you get to keep the Nazi uniform? And if so, how often do you still wear it? What was it like working with Hitler?
Please say you got to keep it. Wearing it about the home would make the window cleaner think twice about coming to collect his money. :o
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Apart from the boots, the uniform had previously been work by Ian Holm in some other movie. No, I could not keep it but do have the memories of that evening.
I have a German Shepherd Dog to keep uninvited people away - She has a very loud bark, sharp teeth and a tail that clears all items from low tables at a single swipe.
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Apart from the boots, the uniform had previously been work by Ian Holm in some other movie. No, I could not keep it but do have the memories of that evening.
I have a German Shepherd Dog to keep uninvited people away - She has a very loud bark, sharp teeth and a tail that clears all items from low tables at a single swipe.
Come on...you're pushing the believability factor a bit now. That uniform would have drowned Bilbo. ;D
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They Photoshopped the uniform smaller and attached it via Flash targa flux files.
You just don't understand CGI do you?
I hope
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They Photoshopped the uniform smaller and attached it via Flash targa flux files.
You just don't understand CGI do you?
I hope
My son is doing 3D computer animation at University.
Me? I just admire the pretty colours and the moving pictures. :(
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So, does the German shepherd now wear the Nazi uniform? I'm confused.
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Yes.
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Sandy: It had his name in the uniform, And I was thinner then.
Malc: This was in 1988 or 89.
Tarks: No. She has a lovely fur coat of her own.
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Wow. No wonder the German version of Blind Date didn't catch on. ;D