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Underground > Comic Books >

Masters of British Comics

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08:12 / 26.10.05

Jumping off from this post mentioning an exhibition of Masters of American Comics. I got me thinking who would feature on an equivilent list for British comic creators. I've got some ideas myself, but I'd like to see who Fellow Barbelithers would pick...

Haus of Mystery

12:03 / 27.10.05

Okay. There's fucking tonnes, and I'm sure I'll post more up, but first and foremost:

Pat Mills

If one man can be said to have changed the face of modern British comics, then Mr Mills is that man. Alongside John Wagner he took the stagnating Boys adventure comics and hauled them kicking and screaming into the punk era. 'Battle' the war comic, and more importantly the notorious 'Action' (home of some of th best exploitation comics Britain's ever produced) were both helmed by Mills, and a good chunk of the best strips were produced by him ('Hookjaw' - killer shark extraordinaire from Action, 'Charley's War' and 'Johnny Red' from Battle for example). Brutal, morally complex stories that to all intents looked like the sanitised 'boys own' fare that had been clogging up the newsagents shelves.
From the ashes of these came (of course) 2000AD. No need to talk too much about why this is so great, but Mills pretty much invented the fucker from scratch. Dredd, Flesh, Nemesis, Bill Savage, Ro-Busters (then the ABC Warriors), Slaine...it's an impressive list. The characters were subversive anti-heroes, and Mills favourite trick was to present humans as the villains - nasty, sanctimonious xenophopic assholes. Can there be a greater Villain than Torquemada? Saddled with amazing Brit art talent (MvMahon, O'Neill, McCarthy, Gibbons, et al) it was prime 2000ad beefcake.
Although his later work has suffered, and structured stories has never been his strong point, his contribution to CRISIS, and creation of Marshall Law proved he still had the vitriol tht fuelled his best work. His fiery, irrepressible anarchic imagination is pretty much responsible for getting me into comics (a reprint of 'Nemesis Book III' blew my eleven year old mind apart), and without him, a wealth of amazing British talent would possibly never have made it. A true legend.

16:58 / 27.10.05

Alan Moore

for DR & Quinch alone

21:34 / 27.10.05

Bolland.
Gibbons.
O'Neil
Ellis
Morison
Emerson
Windsor-Smith

21:36 / 27.10.05

Great invocation of Mills, btw, makes me want to go out and buy loads of Titan 2000 AD reprint tpbs.

21:42 / 27.10.05

Glad to see list threads are back in fashion.

Furi, try to take after Mac and tell us why.

10:00 / 28.10.05

Bryan Talbot, for me. A writer who can draw and an artist who can write, all wrapped up in one tall, thin and slightly gaunt package. I like how he's forged his own style, avoiding a Marvel/DC house-style but still recognisably comics-dynamic. Luther Arkwright a treat, of course, but also The Tale of One Bad Rat and looking forward to the upcoming Alice in Sunderland.

lord nuneaton savage

10:36 / 28.10.05

Yeah, I definitely second Bryan Talbot. His art on Arkwright starts a bit crudely but it gets better as it goes along and there's something about it's crudeness that I find very British in itself. It's got something of a punk rock ethic I guess.

Plus, of course, the subject matter of Luther Arkwright (derived as it is from a Moorcock/New Worlds kinda basis) is British-ness itself. You can see it as part of a direct lineage from International Times' Cornelius strips.

I'll put in a (split) vote for David Britton and John Coulthart. Their work on Savoy's "Reverbstorm" is awesome. A real development in the way a graphic narrative can be told and again, very much a part of the New Worlds lineage.
Why more people don't go on about their work is beyond me, but I tend to get very boring if I get started on it so I'll shut up now. Maybe a thread for another time.

11:05 / 28.10.05

I've never read Reverbstorm. Wasn't it and the other Savoy books judged obscene?

lord nuneaton savage

11:42 / 28.10.05

"Reverbstorm" wasn't judged obscene, no. The only titles that were banned under the race relations act* were Meng & Ecker issues 1 and 2.

The novel "Lord Horror" was pulped but exonerated as was "Hardcore horror" issue 5, One of the most disturbing pieces of graphic (or indeed any kind of) art I've ever read.

I'm afraid I don't know how to do links (must learn) but I would seriously advise anyone interested in the turbulent career of England's most utterly kick ass publishing company to check out their website. Just google "Savoy Books" and you'll find it quickly enough. All the history is there; their clashes with Constable James Anderton and the susequent raids, right up to the extraordinary amount of court cases and summons they've been involved in. It's a fascinating piece of missing British cultural history.

*Don't leap to any conclusions here. Check out the site and the products and make up your own mind.

12:01 / 28.10.05

Loads spring to mind, but after the aforementioned Mills, Talbot and Moore, definitely John Wagner; solid writing, and I remember reading the first episode of Al’s Baby and thinking it was classic Wagner – sets up the characters and premises in a short space and then gets on with the story. No decompression, no padding, just getting on with it.
And I hear that his scripts are about as long as this post, which makes it all the more impressive when you consider the end results. Which he’s been producing consistently for … what, the best part of thirty years ?
I doff my imaginary hat.

14:15 / 28.10.05

I'd go for Wagner as well - I love mills, love what he did and think that Nemesis is one of the greatest series ever, but Wagner did Strontium Dog, and for this alone I'll always hold a special place for him. SD was the first series I remember reading that had such depth and character development - not so much his earlier and quicker adventures, but more so the tales that featured his dad and the relationship with him, plus so many supporting characters from that series we fantastic. It was the first time that I started thinking about comics as on-going, rather than self-contained fun stories. Plus his stuff for Battle was brilliant. Also Wagner's Batman was spot on for the majority of his run - he never attempted to make a big noise, he let the character do his thing and kept the stories coming.

14:29 / 28.10.05

How about Charles H. Ross and his wife, Emilie de Tessier who invented the British tradition of comics around three decades before the US tradition of newspaper strips starting with Yellow Kid was inaugurated...

This husband and wife team created Ally Sloper, arguably the first comic character...

Tom Paine's Bones

17:23 / 30.10.05

Leo Baxendale.

His early Bash Street strips are still possibly one of the most subversive things ever to appear in a British children's comic, at least until Oink! came along.

20:12 / 30.10.05

Does Eddie Campbell count? A Scot who now lives in Australia...when I first picked up Alec: The King Canute Crowd (on Warren Ellis's recommendation) I thought it was pretty lame jerkoff autobio. Read it again last week and now I think it's brilliant, esp. along with How To Be An Artist (haven't read any other Alec books--are Graffitti Kitchen or Dance of Life Death a)easy to find and b)good?). I got the first volume of Bacchus the same day I bought King Canute and didn't like it either...again, read it recently and thought it was aces, especially the character designs. The cover painting is just shockingly beautiful and haunting. And From Hell...well, no more needs to be said. I don't know anyone in comics who has Campbell's storytelling chops, and his scratchy line style has grown on me to the point where I now compare all autobio comics to him in terms of verisimilitude and imagination. His recent Batman book was good clean fun as well. And he apparently LOVES drawing penises cause they're in everything he's done (except the aforementioned Batman book, unfortunately).

My only experience with Pat Mills was Marvel's extremely under-appreciated 2099 group of books, for which he wrote (with Tony Skinner) Punisher and took over Ravage from a floundering Stan Lee. To be honest, I thought both these books were wretched, but at the time (being like 11) I was mainly focusing my critique on the stilted dialogue, not really being actively aware of things like how they used or undermined sci-fi/superhero tropes, story construction, etc. etc. But both those books just felt like rehashes of whatever violent American superhero stuff was glutting the market back then. Thinking back now, they both had a couple good ideas in them...they definitely did some good work in terms of building and deepening the 2099 world. And of course, any book with such strong anti-corporate messages (tho published by pre- into mid-crash-and-burn Marvel) gets a few points just cause. Maybe I'll dig them out and give them a reread.

21:20 / 30.10.05

I'd argue that Campbel counts as a British creator, just as Gaiman does. And Baxendale would have to make my list.

I'd also have to include Raymond Briggs, Britain's greatest comic creator most often ignored by comics fans. Coming to create graphic novels from a career in children's illustrations - he created a truly devastating book in When the Wind Blows, the story of an elderly couple facing the aftermath of a nuclear strike. We see the old couple literally wasting away before our eyes, killed by a conflict and a weapon they don't even understand. If you haven't read When the Wind Blows, you really should...

A fall of geckos

21:48 / 30.10.05

Seconded.

The final pages of When the Wind Blows, with Joe searching for the words to the Lords Prayer are heartbreaking.

yawn - thing's buddy

09:11 / 31.10.05

Steve Yeowell because, with clear black lines, he links the past with the present.

zenith phase 3 could be the best bw comic ever.

Just so 'British' . . . .

finally: yeowell's artistic skills really boosted gm's appeal too.

18:10 / 04.11.05

Leo Baxendale... Of course, of course. Really trying hard to clear the dust off the memories here, but wasn't he responsible for something called 'Willy The Kid' in god knows, back whenever, which seemed to be a (successful!) attempt to fuse Edward Gorey with the Bash Street Kids, or to put it another way, to be some sort of depository for all the material that he wasn't allowed to get away with in The Beano. (All this with hindsight, pretty clearly.) There were two annuals, as I recall, dealing with vampire babies, creepy urban junkyards and so on, Willy the Kid being a sort of proto-John Constantine via Dennis the Menace's parents...

I'll admit that I'm struggling a bit here, though - Sleaze?

13:46 / 16.11.05

Eddie Campbell should definitely be on a best of british list - one of the few creators tnat Moore has said was better than him (he said it about 20 years ago in a Uk fanzine i think, in relation to one aspect of writing). I have been re-reading his early and later ALEC work recently (which i first read 20 years ago also in ESCAPE magazine) and marvelling at the subtle technique of storytelling.

Also the rather complicated use of tense in his work( I mean past perfect tense or future perfect tense or which ever it is - all that grammar stuff) that he uses in stuff like ALEC and HOW TO BE AN ARTIST ("You will look back and see.."). I contrasted it in my mind with the 'normal' use of the past tense in autobiography that Harvey Pekar often uses ("When I was about ten.") and realised that is brought a certain feeling to the books that would not otherwise have been there. Subtle thinking to do all that. Pretty unique writing... and I love his artwork too.

Also another Scot deserves a mention - Dudley D Watkins of Our Wullie/The Broons from the 1930's to the 1960's. Wonderful artwork, so evocative in such tiny panels. And despite the cuteness/sentimentality of it, the two strips did capture something of working class Scottish life. Actually it think he was not Scottish, just situated in Dundee, but thats ok...

yawn - thing's buddy

13:55 / 16.11.05

true: dudley d was a manc.

an aside: his son was my doctor. everybody knew said doc as 'oor wullie'. (cos they wrongly thocht that daddy watkins based oor wullie on his son)

When I was a kid I kinda wished he would sit on a bucket when conducting check-ups etc.

An amazing artiast tho. as above says: really captures certain fundamentals of scottish working class life.

14:06 / 16.11.05

Dudley D Watkins indeed - there are whole swathes of British comics (and their creators) that are rapidly being forgotten because they don't flow into the US tradition as readily as, say, the creators of 2000AD

To wit Posy Simmonds - who started out in newspaper advertising illustration back when getting photographs in newspapers was expensive... (ah the lost arts of illustration and engraving that were once so previlent in these isles - pick up books from 1890s and you'll find some fantastically detailed work drawn from photographic refences...)

But, yes Posy Simmonds. I've heard people knock her for writing comics about english middleclass mores, manners and morality but really - how many other people are creating comics on this subject in this form? Simmonds is writing comics about people who don't particularly read comics in a form that is reaching people who might not necessarily buy comics - She has evolved a form akin to but independant of Chris Ware - serializing their graphic novel a page or two at a time in national or regional newwspapers...

14:22 / 16.11.05

I have to admit i ws a bit put off by Simmonds very posh white southern Englishness at first reaction - but when i read her stuff i really enjoyed it - as said there is very little else of its type. Anyway upper middle class lifestyle is a valid a subject as any other - ask Woody Allen!

But Watkins is deep in my heart - my grannie bought me the annuals in my childhood in late 70s/early 80's - reprints of Watkins work by that time. I can STILL vividly recall a bunch of brussell sprouts he drew in one strip! Its amazing to be able to have that effect when the drawings are so tiny and the subject is so mundane...

14:35 / 16.11.05

I'd add Hunt Emerson to the list. Ok so his work may be a little too "adult" for some, but his art is magnificent. Up there with Sergio Aragones or Geoff Darrow for detailed backgrounds. Check out Casanova's Last Stand or his back page cartoons in Fortean Times.

Oh and just for the facts that when I met him years ago at a UKCAC not only did I get a sketch but he also signed and sketched my copy of Casanova too. Oh and my boss used to baby-sit for him (he's a Brummie native I believe, which has nothing to do with my nomination, honest)

yawn - thing's buddy

14:48 / 16.11.05

yeah bought gemma bovery the other day.

enjoying it.

great art. great layouts.

middle-class as fuck.

like

me.

(you cunts)

00:14 / 17.11.05

Hunt Emerson for his artwork, yes, i agree with that. Also he's a significant figure from the mid 70s underground scene who is still doing work now. Also just a nice man, or he was to me anyway.

Also Glenn Dakin's more poetic stuff... WRONG FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS compilation is, emm, "Excellent" (sorry, joke from the Morrison thread)

He may not have done much work actually, or be that well known - but what about Chris Reynolds of Mauretania comics from the 80's, and recently doing more stuff again?

The 'odd' feeling on those books of his are very special. No time to go into it any more clearly than that right now...

Haus of Mystery

19:10 / 17.11.05

Yawn, would like to second your 'Phase III' big-up. So old, and new at the same time. To be honest i don't think there's been a better british comic than Phase III, but I'm a bit pished and sentimental.

Mike McMahon - un-sung master of Brit-art. Made Dredd what he is. Forget Bolland. As lovely as his art is, he's a pin-up/cover artist. McMahon nailed Dredd. Go check 'Fink Angel' or the beginning of 'Block Mania' - it's right there. And his 'Slaine' work? Simply beautiful. Drawn on tracing paper, hence the incompleteness of all the blacks. 'Sky Chariots' is some of my all time favourite comic art. Some of Mills' best writing too. Much better than all the sub-Frazetta shit of later horrid painted era. And 'The Howler' - a classic Wagner Dredd villain (he SHOUTS! A LOT!), and yeat another stylistic leap for McMahon. The man's humble as fuck and a total genius. I'd give my right head to draw like him.

20:12 / 17.11.05

Ohh yes - Glenn Dakin - Temptation has recently been republished and I heartily recommend it to everyone - - its a series of one page comic strips very much in the krazy kat mould, but infectiously entertaining and unpredictable. Its about a man in the middle of the desert and a devil who is forever attempting to get him to sign away his soul...

I defy anyone to read three pages without invoulentarily turning the page to read the next one.

As for Chris Reynolds - is Mauretania currently in print? I've never read it and would like to track it down...

07:04 / 18.11.05

just want to second the luther awkright books as classic brit sci-fi, hard to beleve it is the same man as did that terrible strip in Sounds (punk / metal weekly music paper)back in the 80s, very much in the moorcock tradition but genuinely bringing something new and interesting to the mix

as for the bash street kids, and lord snooty / gasworks gang, they were class war politics in a weekly strip and if i remember rightly the creator was also a writer of anarcho-syndicalist theory, even some of the Kids trademark clothes incorporated syndicalist ideas (didn't Pug wear a pirate symbol? someone else in red and black stripes? or was that dennis the menace?) that whole genre of kids comics at the time was fiecely anti-authoritarian

but, at the end of the day, alan moore, greatest living englishman. 'nuff said.

Haus of Mystery

07:34 / 18.11.05

Them's fightin' words my friend....

yawn - thing's buddy

09:52 / 18.11.05

Chris Reynolds!

forgot - amazing artist.

actually i interviewed him last year and still haven't tanscribed the fucker! should do.

Mauretania is out of print tho, sleaze, sorry to say, but The Dial by Reynolds is in print and is excellent.

kinglybooks.com or summat.

also - yeah mcmahon - incredible artist. slaine stuff is probably the best of his work I'd say. one criticism. His judge child looked like a middle aged man . . . oh, and he always drew people with massive feet.

all the same, a legend.

Haus of Mystery

10:25 / 18.11.05

As someone with masive feet, yawn, I'm calling you outside.

McMahon was drawing from photo's...

10:28 / 18.11.05

Kingly are all sold out...

Cowboy Scientist

22:35 / 20.11.05

Paul Grist hasn't been mentioned yet. Hurm.

06:28 / 21.11.05

Grist is indeed brilliant, as is Roger Langridge, whose Fred the Clown strip veer from painfully funny to just painful - brilliantly detailed cartoonist...

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