Black Bob...What it looked like in the Weekly News..

philcom55 Post subject: Re: 'Arrgh it's 'im!' Vols 1 and 2.Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 8:06 pm
http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2893

Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:56 am
Posts: 811
Peter Gray wrote:
The Complete Black Bob is also on my list...

Just for Peter, here's a Black Bob episode exactly as it appeared in The Weekly News dated March 26th 1966:

Sadly there's no Dennis the Menace strip, but that week's issue does include an original Man from UNCLE text story and part of an interview with David (Illya Kuryakin) McCallum.

- Phil Rushton

Thanks Phil...great to finally see it..

Black Bob in India!!!

Dear Peter,

Apologies for the delay in sending the Scans. Lots of Travelling and Hectic Schedule made my Life very tough and that was the reason why i couldn't scan and send the copies earlier to you.

Now, in Hurry i could find only one magazine featuring This story in June 16th Edition of 1992 in the Children's Magazine Called "Poonthalir" (Which Literally means The Bud of the Flower). this is the 12th part of the Series which is called as Raja (King) in Tamil.

Kindly check it out and confirm that is this Black Bob or any other. If it is Black Bob, i will try to find the other parts of the story (if i have all) and scan it and send it to you by this week end.

A Little bit info on this magazine: Poonthalir is a Childrens Magazine which was originally started by the Paico Publishers in the Late 70's. And at that time they had a tie up with India Book House and other syndicated Houses to feature 2/3/4/5/6 page comics stories (A La Buster type) apart from features on science, literature and historical facts.

Poonthalir had a Glorious Run in the 80's which were considered to be the Golden age of Tamil Comics and Mr V.K Murthy was the associate editor of the Magazine and he had a Pen Name called Vaandu Maama (Uncle for the Kids) and Boy, what a talent he was.Often he will be the one man army apart from the syndicated strips.

Poonthalir was out of Publication in 1990 and later the management changed and They revamped the editorial and this time Mr V.K Murthy was the Editor and they had a healthy run till 1993, after which Mr V.K Murthy fell ill and Passed away. Later on the magazine dragged on till 1994-95 and closed shop.


By the way, One of my comics from India is currently living in UK and he also has a Blog. If you wish to contact him in local, you are also welcome as he is one champion of an researcher when it comes to Tamil Comics in general.

My Blog = www.tamilcomicsulagam.blogspot.com

Friend's Blog = www.muthufanblog.blogspot.com



It is Black Bob...these are great and thanks for the info..

Will do a post with your info shortly..

If you like to send some more in your own time I'll do a another post..

Thanks so much this is very interesting and makes my blog very good..

thanks Peter
did you take any photos of your travels...like to see a few..

Peter,

Happy that i could help you in any way. Just give me 2 Days time Maximum and will try and search all books to find out remaining parts of the story.

Am Sure that i have atleast 2 or 3 more parts of this particular series. Will try and get them scanned as soon as possible.

By the way, my travel was more like business oriented and hence didn't had much time to go out. Sorry on the photo's part.

Cureenty am working on a Post on Reg wootton and this one will be posted in 1 or 2 hours time. Based on Reg wootton's works in The Sunday Express (Sporting Sam), Knock Out / Valiant (Sporty - Featured in Tamil in India) and Buster (Tubby).

Bye for now.

King Viswa.


Thanks King Viswa just amazing to see...a very British subject appealing to another Counrty...its a bit like Andy Capp being accepted everywhere..

Black Bob with the missing panel!

UPDATE due to comments on this post The Dandy 7th June 1952 with Jack's drawing on the first page.



The Dandy 27th Feb 1960.



The Dandy 19th May 1979. Look at panel 5!!!
Its a real treat finding this...lovely brick work and how small and helpless the master Glenn looks.

As you can see there is a new panel in the reprint of 1979. Showing the master down the well. This version also has different text..more simpler than the 1960's. Also it is shown over the top of the drawing..which is a shame has some of the drawing is obscured.

Black Bob was first shown in The Weekly News before it was printed in The Dandy. A panel was taken out as the newspaper was larger than the Dandy...the panel missing didn't spoil the story.

I hope one day D.C Thomson will produce a complete Black Bob book from the original Weekly New all complete.
Jack Prout art deserves it.

Dennis the Menace and Black Bob in the Weekly News

From the 1966 Dennis the Menace book..which is a Weekly News Dennis the Menace not printed in the comic.

Dennis the Menace appeared in D C Thomson's magazine-cum-newspaper 'The Weekly News' for a total of 197 issues No 5134 (7/11/53) - No 5331 (17/8/57) sharing a page of the tabloid sized publication with Black Bob, Dennis having the top half of the page and the Dandy Wonder Dog having the bottom. Of the 197 strips published 184 were new efforts by regular Dennis artist Davey Law while the remaining 13 were made up of one Davey Law reprint strip from the pages of the Beano and 12 new strips by another artist. In due course 98 of the Davey Law strips were reprinted in the pages of the bi-annual Dennis the Menace books 8 in the 1962 edition, 32 in the 1964 edition, 33 in the 1966 edition and 25 in the 1970 edition. I'll get around to dating these anon.
thanks Kashgar for the info..

So there is many Dennis the Menace pages that Beano collectors have missed.


from comicsuk forum..
http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2575

Black Bob in Dandy comic - 1944-1955 21 text stories.
1956-1982 77 picture stories (52 original
25 reprint) All originally printed in The
Weekly News 1946-1967. Black Bob Book - 33 picture strips in total, 16 of which were later reprinted in the weekly Dandy. from Kashgar

Re the format of the Black Bob/ Dennis the Menace strips in the 'Weekly News'. They both took up half a tabloid size page and when they both appeared together between 1953-1957 they were both printed on the same page one on top of the other. When some of the Dennis strips from the 'Weekly News' were reprinted in the early Dennis the Menace books they were published exactly as they had appeared in the paper with the half-tabloid strips spread across two pages in the books. When the Black Bob strips were reprinted in the Dandy though their original format had to be changed to fit the standard Dandy page format and to do this a single illustration had to be dropped from the 'Weekly News' original each time and the remaining panels rejigged to fit the new page size. This was easier to achieve than you might at first think thanks to the fact that regular artist Jack Prout always prepared the Black Bob strip as a series of single illustrations on seperate pieces of card rather than as a strip complete on a single large page. from Kashgar.

A bit about Jack Prout...Kashgar answering my question..

Also to answer Peter's question Jack Prout joined Thomsons in 1937 and worked mainly for the women's magazines till the war when a number of artists, who were too old for active service, found themselves working in areas that they had not worked in before. In Jack Prout's case this turned out to be the juvenile publications dept where he was used on such diverse projects as completing the first picture series of 'The Shipwrecked Circus' and doing the occasional 'Big Eggo' front cover for the Beano and doing heading-block illustrations for text stories in the Dandy one of which happened to be 'Black Bob' in 1944.
As a picture strip artist he was most particularly associated with the 'Dandy' where, as well as his 'Black Bob' reprints, they published things like 'Tin Lizzie' and 'Tom-Tin and Buster Brass' to name but two. from Kashgar.

most of the Dudley Watkins adventure strips that appeared in Topper were first printed, minus the colour of course, in the Peoples Journal so you are talking about Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Oliver Twist. Kidnapped, Prester John, The Three Musketeeers etc and a large amount of the Peoples Journal run of the Wild Young Dirky strip. In fact only two items drawn by Watkins that featured in the Peoples Journal never made it into the Topper. Adaptations of the novels Geordie, which was reprinted in the girls comic Diana in 1967, and Huntingtower, which as far as I am aware has never been reprinted anywhere else. Kashgar.

http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1210
This link has so much good comic info on the adventure stories of The Dandy.

Wopuld be nice to see the Weekly News Black Bob in book one day...landscape...
Also many Dennis the Menace not seen by fans..

With the missing illustration..

If anyone can scan and send an example of the Weekly News paper with Black Bob and Dennis the Menace...it would be great to see and I'll make another blog post on it.
thejeep2000@yahoo.co.uk

Black Bob by Jack Prout

What a great artist Jack was.....lets have a closer look at this Black Bob strip from a 1961 Dandy comic.

The first frame shows a good white space....its very easy to fill up a picture with lots of hatching and detail..very hard to leave space...making it easier on the eye. The wording Black Bob stands out despite a dark black background and black letters...great face on Black Bob being cheeky and sticking his tongue out.

Frame two a nice mirror image of the man and Black Bob running out of view. The angle has changed in the picture. Also looking down on the image.

Frame three has wonderful brick work...no short cuts every brick is different. Lighter hatching and darker hatching by pen to different degrees. Nice wooden door effect.

Frame four has good distance with smaller bricks on the stable. This is very tricky to do. Also a good sky downward at an angle strokes. Darker bricks to show shadows.

Frame five nice use of action white lines to show the barrel rolling.

Frame six great wavy line wool effect on the ram.

Frame seven A different sky...Jack always making everything unique.

Frame eight shows lovely pen work on the corn...he really knew what each of these objects looked like...really has studyed it...not second guess..

Overall an amazing piece of work...very carefully done...no rushing...