Wednesday, September 15, 2010

'widescreen' comics: original-format BEEZER and TOPPER



'The Gobbles' (which I remember as being surprisingly similar to Reg Parlett's 'The Crows' in Valiant ). As I've still got that issue to hand here's Leo's other page from the same copy of The Beezer, including a 'Banana Bunch' story which actually takes its theme for that week from the vultures' cactus home.

loved the way that Beezer and Topper used to make sure you got your fourpenceworth by filling up every spare corner of their oversized pages with different marginal features like this (though the adventure stories made full use of the extra space). They may have only had twelve pages to play with but I can clearly remember feeling that the contents of a Beezer (preferably combined with a bag of sweets) could be relied upon to keep me happy for hours on end! Especially if the package included a free gift as well!!

- Thanks Phil Rushton







Three Eggs in a Basket: artwork by RON SMITH/ 'TOPPER, 1966 Thanks to Spy see link for more gems from The Beezer and Topper..


To be honest I'd completely forgotten that Baxendale had drawn the first ten episodes of this strip. Here's the introductory installment from January 11th 1964 (no.417) which, though quite tame by his standards, is particularly intriguing in that it may well be the last new series he worked on for DC Thomson before jumping ship to create Wham! just a few months later: Thanks to Phil Rushton= philcom55


http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3748&start=30
Well worth going to this link..Its always a pleasure to see Leo Baxendale comic characters which are new to me.

Spy my internet friend has started this at comicsuk forum..
It celebrates the joy of The Beezer and Topper when it was in a large format..to reading this large comic you had to lie them on the floor..hopeless on a windy day:). The colours and some of the visuals and drawing were so much better in this format. I loved seeing top comic artists like Leo Baxendale, Dudley D Watkins, George Martin, Ken Hunter, Ron Smith, Bill Ritchie etc.. in this format. You can see the panels really clearly and admire there penmanship up close and lovely colouring.