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Nelson Mandela becomes comic hero, how many others are there

 
  

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sleazenation
20:54 / 28.10.05
One of those stories that strikes bored newspaper subs as quite interesting, Nelson Mandela's life hase been turned into a comic book. You can have a peek at it in this photofeature from the BBC.

Unfortunately, judging from the BBC sample, the art doesn't seem much better than that found on Liberality. Still, Mandela isn't the first living individual to see his life turned into a comic - Pope John Paul II featured in a comic from Marvel in 1982, and there have been other comics about him since then.



So, I guess the question is what other people have seen this happen to them in their own life times?
 
 
miss wonderstarr
21:28 / 28.10.05
The Beatles (Look-In comic); I think there might have been a New Kids on the Block strip in later years. I'm sure Look-In also had a comic book version of Noel Edmonds' biography.

JFK, Thatcher and Hitler have certainly appeared in comics, though these weren't perhaps the stories of their lives.

I'm sure there are a lot of educational, Look-and-Learn type examples of biography comic strips.
 
 
ghadis
21:50 / 28.10.05
Mandela + The Pope + Thatcher =

 
 
ghadis
21:52 / 28.10.05
sorry
 
 
Juan_Arteaga
21:54 / 28.10.05
Marvel presents: Mother Teresa of Calcuta, guest starring Ghostrider(or not).
 
 
ghadis
22:03 / 28.10.05
The Rock and Roll comics covered plenty of bands biographys (pretty badly) from The Beatles to the Dead Kennedys and more. Badly written and drawn but some of them are good fun.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
22:06 / 28.10.05
Grant Morrison turned part of his life story into the end of Animal Man.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
22:26 / 28.10.05









 
 
Juan_Arteaga
22:29 / 28.10.05
 
 
Tim Tempest
22:33 / 28.10.05
So, I guess the question is what other people have seen this happen to them in their own life times?

Superman, Batman, The Hulk, Spider-Man, Deadman...

...No, wait. He didn't turn into a superhero until AFTER he died...Pfffff....Like that makes any sense...
 
 
miss wonderstarr
22:39 / 28.10.05
I don't mean to quibble, but does it count if it's a comic of their character? I mean, was the Dean Martin comic about Dean as a person, or based on a semi-fictional character he played on TV?

Would we include the Look-In "Cannon and Ball" comic strip, which bears the real names of Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball and features their likenesses getting up to everyday japes, but in fact isn't about the real lives of the men behind those public personae (NB. Cannon and Ball were their stage names, rather than fictional characters).

Arthur Askey and Petula Clarke featured in comic strips (alongside many others in TV Fun, I think) but in those strips, as in their public appearances, they were playing their characters, under their real names.
 
 
sleazenation
22:49 / 28.10.05
When starting the topic I was thinking of strictly biographical comics, but the responses thus far have been really interesting, particularly the Batman/beatles comic - I really want to read that comic now...
 
 
ghadis
22:54 / 28.10.05
Going back to Sleazes original post i guess what he's looking for are the interesting cases when public figures have been made into comic book characters whithout it being a case of marketing or where they've had any obvious involment. That leaves out the obvious entertainment figures. There must be a Ghandi or a Tony Benn comic somewhere.
 
 
Tim Tempest
23:02 / 28.10.05
Now, to actually contribute to this thread: Stan Lee has made several appearances in comics, and he showed up on 'The Simpsons'.

This is the only picture I found. There's more out there, though.



Although, Sleaznation, it sounds to me like you want actual biographical depictions rather than feature these people in a fictional story, so I will keep hunting.
 
 
Tim Tempest
23:05 / 28.10.05
Sleaznation, it sounds to me like you want actual biographical...yadda...yadda...

Well, I guess that's obvious...Damn trans-continental latency...
 
 
Juan_Arteaga
23:46 / 28.10.05
I forgot, there are also plenty of comics about wrestlers.

 
 
Juan_Arteaga
23:48 / 28.10.05
And the most recent example:

 
 
Bed Head
23:49 / 28.10.05
If we’re talking about comics featuring pop stars 'in character', I remember the Adam Ant comic strip in Look-In as being pretty swish. Took the ‘dandy highwayman’ dressing-up element of Antmania and ran with that to create something cosmic and Jerry Corneliusesque.

It’s probably not really as good as all that, but I've spoken to other people who remember it, so I think that it did at least stand out against the usual Look-In popstar comic strips featuring the likes of Bucks Fizz/Madness/Haircut 100, which all seemed to be pretty mundane and parochial. Adam Ant was weird.

Also, strictly on-topic:



Not that I own or have ever seen a copy, but Frank Bellamy’s “High Command: The Stories of Sir Winston Churchill and General Montgomery” is *supposed* to be some of the most beautiful art he ever produced. So, obviously, it’s out of print. But, still.
 
 
The Falcon
23:54 / 28.10.05
Just searching some images, but the Fuhrer must've been on the cover of a ton of Golden Age books in various states of distress, at the hands of one or other flag-wearing super-type.

Here's one:




Also, his 'New Adventures..'

And appearances in the (not very good) Jenny Sparks: Secret History of the Authority, which also featured Princess Di.

Who also featured in Big Dave, along with her extended fam, but did not in X-statix, something which still rankles.
 
 
bio k9
02:04 / 29.10.05
There is (was?) a comic company called Celebrity Comics. They did lots of stuff like this:


Link to more @ Milehigh Comics
 
 
miss wonderstarr
08:04 / 29.10.05
Also, his 'New Adventures..'

And appearances in the (not very good) Jenny Sparks: Secret History of the Authority, which also featured Princess Di.


Don't count! They weren't alive at the time. However, Diana was alive when Big Dave came out (also featuring Fergie, the Queen, Charles, as you note).

And Morrison, with uncanny magik prescience, had Labour Party leader John Smith die of a heart attack in Zenith Phase IV some years before the real John Smith died of a heart attack.

If we were including the Simpsons, as a TV cartoon, then you've got all manner of guest appearances, including Tony Blair, Ringo Starr, Mulder and Scully.



Marvel Comics once had a Saturday Night Live issue with Belushi and Ackroyd alongside Spider-Man, but I can't find a picture of it.
 
 
The Falcon
11:44 / 29.10.05
Jay Leno was in some dreadful, dreadful back up strip with Spidey a couple years back. It was in loads of Marvel books.

Didn't notice the 'live' rule. Apologies.
 
 
The Falcon
11:45 / 29.10.05
Also, do readers of a certain age remember Richard Branson trawling Megatron and Grimlock out the English channel in the UK Transformers comic? That's a good one.
 
 
Just Add Water
13:12 / 29.10.05
There used to be a strip called "Inside Woody Allen"

"Inside Woody Allen" on wikipedia
 
 
miss wonderstarr
14:32 / 29.10.05
I don't follow football or read tabloids, but I think famous individuals from football regularly appear in newspaper strips like... "Scorer"? or "Striker"?
 
 
Juan_Arteaga
18:49 / 29.10.05
You know, Hitler is so pissing his pants in this picture.



What a wuss.
 
 
Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown
19:23 / 29.10.05
I find it hard to be afraid of a man who's power is that he has a cannon that fires paper airplanes.
 
 
madfigs #32, now with wasabi
20:18 / 29.10.05


I got a copy of this, 3D glasses still included, for 99 cents at Comic-Con. THAT is value, my friends.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
20:54 / 29.10.05
I'm being very pedantic, but including "Michael Jackson as Captain Eo" as an example of someone's real life featured in a comic is like listing Marvel's Star Wars adaptation on the grounds that it included "Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker".

Captain Eo wasn't about Michael Jackson, it was about a character played by Michael Jackson.
 
 
madfigs #32, now with wasabi
22:38 / 29.10.05
Yeah, but a comic about Michael Jackson's real life story would be kind of sad and creepy though.

On a more topical note, Jim Ottaviani has written a number of biographical comics about famous scientists, most of whom are dead but a few of the women covered in Dignifying Science are still kicking around.
 
 
DavidXBrunt
23:04 / 29.10.05
Inside Woody Allen was often very funny and the collection has pride of place in many a fans collection.

Lots of examples that don't really fulfil the criteria of the initial question but are in the spirit of how this thread has turned out.

As noted there was a company that existed solely to make biographical comics of people, I have a copy of their 'Life of Sam Fox' which is very funny and also, bizarely, American.

The artwork on Life of Churchill in The Eagle is astonishingly good. It's truly beautiful in places and I feel privilaged to have seen it. And I know what a wanker I sound for typing that.

There's a Modesty Blaise comic 'Top Traitor' which features Micheal York which I won't describe but urge you to check out.

Hitler had his own strip in The Beano (or was it The Dandy) which was called Addy and Hermy and featured Der Fuhrer getting up to all sorts of japes along with with Mrs Goerings little boy. He got twatted by Desperate Dan a time or two too. Oh and Benito Musolini wouldn't have felt left out as The Dandy (or was it The Beano) ran a contemporaneous strip called Musso the Wop. I assume there must also have been appearances by Emperor Hirohito too at some point.

Sean Connery, Billie Connelly, Gregor Fisher and other cotable Scots have appeared in The Broons and Oor Wullie over the years.

The Beano celebrated its 60th(I think0 anniversary by having it's readers vote for who they wanted the strip characters to meet. I seem to recall it ended up with The Spice Girls teaming up with Beryl The Peril and Ronan Keating being called ugly by Plug. The Spices also appeared in Desperate Dan when it was rumoured he was being written out of The Dandy.

Look-In often ran biographies of people in comic form, I remember reading the Kylie one over and over again. I still love Kylie.

Other character comics produced by D.C. include Bob Hope and Jay Silverheels.

Jolly Jack and Scintillating Stan often had walk ons in Marvel comics and Cheerful Chris and Dashing Dave followed that tradition in their 'Super Special New Formula X-Men now with added Wolverine' days.

Alan Grant penned a story a year or two ago in which John Wagner faced off against Judge Dredd. John was reportedly not amused but the Cam Kennedy art was great and the likeness striking (though the best cartoon of John Wagner is on his business card. Carlos Ezquerra drew a wonderful image of John holding Dredds helmet as if he were Hamlet with Yorricks skull. Lovely image.)

And finally, this is a bit of a cheat but 2000 A.D. used to semi regularly run fun strips starring Tharg the Mighty which had Droids that bore more than a passing resemblence to creators at 2k. Of note would be the story about the death of the Alan Grantesque droid when the real one left his post as assistant editor.

The tradition was revived with a story that featured the new owners when 2K was bought by the Kingsley Brothers. The most prominent of Thargs droids, Burt, was based on Richard Burton (no not the actor, or the explorer, the piss poor essistant editor responsible for some terrible decisions that almost killed the comic).

Oh, and the droid who appeared the most often, the Frame robot was based on Tom Frame the letterer of much of 2ks output. He appears on the cover of the upcoming Winter Special along with several of the new generation of script and art droids.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
07:59 / 30.10.05
That's true, the Prog 500 inside-Tharg's-brain strip featured cartoon versions of Moore, Gibbons, Bolland, Gibson et al, and was apparently censored because the creators used it as a platform for their gripes.

I'm surprised Look-In was around long enough to do a Kylie biography. When did it fold, and what period of Kylie's life did it cover?
 
 
DavidXBrunt
09:38 / 30.10.05
From memory the Kylie Biography ended with a caption something like 'From girl next door to star of a hit T.V. show and pop superstar...and she's not yet 21!'.

Look-In lasted as far as the early 90's I believe. The Beeb started a belated rival magazine with comic strip adventures of the Boswell family and the war time exploits of the denizens of Cafe Rene. It was as poor as you'd imagine and the one issue I bought had a sneering feature about how stupid Americans were for watching a prime time cartoon about a yellow skinned family with four fingers, and a mother with towering blue hair.
 
 
sleazenation
09:45 / 30.10.05
Kylie has been a pop princess for the last two decades hasn't she - starting around 1985...
 
 
DavidXBrunt
10:27 / 30.10.05
Definatley. The issue of Look-In would have been published around '88.

The Beatles comic reminds me of the issue of 2000 A.D. featuring Invasion! In it Bill Savage and his Mad Dogs fight the mighty Volg invaders in the docks of Liverpool with assistance from John, Paul, George, and Ringo. George Harrison had a specially made Gun that looked like a guitar.
 
  

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