Dear Peter,
Dead fab gear as the Beatles once said. Love your tribute page to Dicky Howett (and he ain’t even half dead!). I shall email your link onto him if you haven’t already. And many, many thanks for my ad. Fantastic and Terrific! I haven’t a clue how I finished up The Gold Rush.:0)
I know I did another version of it when I worked in the States for The Saturday Evening Post Magazine (created by the one-and-only Benjamin Franklin). They ran 7 kids’ mags and I created strips for each when I worked as their so-called Humor Editor. The strip was called Jack & Jill’s World Marathon and ran in the pages of the US Jack & Jill magazine that has been around for donkey’s years. I had it illustrated by a local guy (we were based in Indianapolis) called George Sears. Super artist. Worked with him on quite a few other projects. Nobody else drew like George just as nobody else drew like Dicky. I’m attaching an unpublished Dicky pic. Working with one publisher I suggested looking at the possibility of bringing Billy Bunter back. I got various artists to draw their versions. Here’s Dicky’s. Nifty or wot?!
Very best,
Tim
another email..:0)
Dear Peter,
Well, this just gets better and better...
I seem to remember scripting a puzzle or quiz page for a holiday special round ‘79 or ‘80 which Dicky drew (Monster Fun maybe? Or maybe it was a Whoopee summer special??). I find it hard to believe if he didn’t do any other work for IPC as was...The memory, you know, it’s not the pristine razor sharp tool it was once...Dicky and I did a zillion things for Marvel UK. They had a ton of weekly and monthly titles out back then. Very odd that our very British style was accepted in the muscular cape and underpants world of the super-hero. Hulk the Menace was one of our strips. This was about a ten year old boy who was a combination of the Incredible Hulk and Dennis the Menace. Another strip was about The Fantastic 400 who were the world’s largest super-hero group. We rejigged this for The Saturday Evening Post Magazine’s kids division in the US where it appeared as The Fitness 400, the world’s healthiest super-hero group. Never sell a good idea only once! Dicky also did many excellent tv gag cartoons down the years for mags like TV Times. He did a knockout tv strip in Denis Gifford’s Ally Sloper mag back in ‘78. (What a great guy Denis was). He also did a sewage works amount of material for very naughty magazines, which he should be ashamed of, but isn’t. I can talk!
TQ
Thanks Tim and nice to see a comment from Dicky has well below...Peter
Super Mum started in Whoopee!! Jan 1977.
I love hunt the worm...also hidden is a nosey bonk type character..
His characters have great up turned noses.nice sound effects and lots of witty commnets..
I've also attached a sketch from UKCAC '86 which didn't feature on my blog. All the fan attention was on '2000ad droids' or geezers from Marvel and DC, so Mr. Howett just sat there all lovely and obliging at a desk with his pens and a cup of coffee. All the best, John
Thanks John Gilheany for the picture..love to meet him myself..
These are all The Gold rush I have..
Doh! I don't have the last one.how does it end...its in number 86 Jackpot..
Dicky is just a great fun comic artist...
He also drew for Dr Who magazine in the past.
Tim Quinn is a fan..and wrote with Dicky. See him chatting here about his writing for comics..
http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Interviews/TimQuinn/TimQuinn.asp
I'm going to see Tim Qinn..:0)
Coming to a venue near you in 2009 and 2010:
ARGH!
The Ups and Downs of Life as a Comic Book Creator
I Was Spider-Man’s Editor
Celebrating 42,000 Years of Comic Books
Titanic Tim! ...Stan Lee
Tim Quinn is good for vibes! ...Brian May
Genius! ...Gyles Brandreth
Stories told in pictures have been around for a long time…from prehistoric cave wall drawings through the Bayeaux Tapestry. But it was those Masters of Mirth the Victorians who finally came up with the handy-dandy-sized comic book and a whole new astonishing art form was created. From the Penny Dreadful to today’s 250 penny dreadfullers, comic book scriptwriter, illustrator and editor Tim Quinn takes you on a highly nostalgic trip down memory lane to meet some of the great and not-so great comic characters of the last 150 years. Tim also takes you behind-the-scenes from his days working for The Beano, Sparky, Bunty, Playhour, Jack & Jill, Buster, The Topper, the Daily Mirror’s Jane and Garth, and America’s finest Marvel Comics to running his own comic book company alongside the elder daughter of Enid Blyton. He will guide you through the creation of a brand new comic book character and reveal to you his own secret identity as that Supreme Speedster, Jet Lagg. The audience is invited to attend wearing capes and masks.
For over 30 years Tim Quinn worked for the world’s most famous comic book companies as scriptwriter, editor and illustrator on everything from Beryl the Peril, Korky the Cat, Bunty, Desperate Dan, and the Bash Street Kids to Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk. With a lifelong love and encyclopedic knowledge of comic books he takes his audience on a hilarious and highly nostalgic trip through the last 150 years screening images of the best and the worst strip creations. Tim will also take his audience behind the editorial scenes at various comic book companies he worked for both in the UK and the US, including the mighty Marvel Comics showing just how comic book characters are created. Hear how Tim teamed up with legendary Queen guitarist Brian May to create a comic book without pictures..! See how the naughtiest comic strip ever seen was produced in the Marvel Comics basement..! Find out how the daughter of Enid Blyton teamed up with the editor of Spider-Man..! See the banned Spider-Man cover..! What happened when the Incredible Hulk met Dennis the Menace..? How Tim survived being editor of Barbie’s comic book..!
From comic books Tim Quinn became a producer with LWT’s documentary tv series The South Bank Show. One of his documentaries told the story of fifty years of Marvel Comics. Today comic books are more popular than ever before with blockbuster movies based on their characters topping ratings the world over. Tim is currently working on a new strip titled, The Exploits of Gordon Brown.
Suitable for boys and girls from 9-150! (No nudity, swearing or violence but please come anyway.)
See Mighty Quinn website for tour dates
For more information contact:
Jane at Quill Publications/Mighty Quinn Management.
http://www.mightyquinnmanagement.com
