The tour so far has taken in everything from Gillray and Hogarth, to Scooby Doo and on to Deadpool and beyond! It also features the best in London comic book stores as well as galleries that showcase the best in the cartoonist's art.
Adam writes…
In Panel 36 I'm swinging by TWO locations
already visited on this blog "tour" so far – Big Ben and The Cartoon
Museum for the excellent show Future Shock! 40 Years Of 2000AD. I'm in in search of Dan Dare…
The world is in grave danger. Evil stalks
us at every turn.
Worse yet… it's a real life situation.
We're not in the pages of a comic book. There are no superheroes to swoop down
and save the day.
The future of our very way of life is at
stake.
To whom can we turn?
Well how about the combined might of
Winston Churchill, the Communist Party of Great Britain, the National Union of
Teachers and the Church of England? That lot could surely put even The Avengers
to shame.
And what monstrous evil could unite such
disparate forces as those listed above?
Comics, gentle reader. Comics.
American comics. Lurid American comics. Violent
American comics. Shocking American comics.
You know the ones… the REALLY GOOD ones.
Back in 1953 all of the above organisations,
along with individual clergymen, magistrates and even representatives from the field
of psychology and concerned parents up and down the country, joined forces to have so-called "horror comics" from
America banned from British newsagent shelves – and thus from the clammy,
thrill-starved hands of horrid little boys* everywhere.
(* No offence, readers. I blog this as a
card-carrying Horrid Little Boy.)
One clergyman, the Reverend Marcus Morris,
had fired an early salvo in the campaign with an article in the Daily Sketch
newspaper in which he told of "a nearly 40 per cent increase [in
crimes committed] among children aged 10."
"I blame much of this," he
thundered, "on their 'comics'. As soon as a child becomes old enough to
read, he enters a new world of horror and vice, where there are no apparent
morals."
Crikey!
The Minister of Education, the impressive
Scot Florence Horsbrugh (the first woman to hold a cabinet post in a
Conservative administration), was of the opinion that the whole furore
"was being overplayed". And that might have been an end to it, had
the issue not ended up on the desk of the Prime Minister of the day…
Winston Churchill was elected Prime
Minister in the general election of 1951. In February 1954, he asked personally
to be appraised of "the sale of American type comics in this country and
the social effects which they might be having".
The Home Office prepared a memo in which
westerns and Tarzan comics are described as "harmless enough". But it
also included prose so damning that every adjective pops with all the vim of
the "Bam!" and "Pow!" flashes in an old Batman strip…
"Strong streak of sadistic
cruelty"… "abound in representations of scantily dressed women"…
"macabre supernatural scenes"… "frenzy of drug addicts"…
"unwholesome"…
Stating that the comics are "Unlikely
to be beneficial", it concludes: "the prevailing sense of values is
shoddy and distorted."
Why was the Prime Minister involved in the
first place? Why did such an issue get so high up the chain of command?
Legend has it that Churchill was advised by
a close aide that the "unwholesome" comics in question were being
published by Dundee-based firm D.C Thomson – a company that Churchill held in
contempt because he believed that their editorials were instrumental in his
losing the parliamentary seat of Dundee in 1922.
See my earlier post on DC Thomson HERE
See also my earlier posts featuring Churchill HERE (David Low) and HERE (Uber by Kieron Gillen & Canaan White)
The bill introduced by Home Secretary Gwilym Lloyd George (son of David) came into law in 1955 as The Children and Young
Person's (Harmful Publications) Bill. It set out to ban…
"...any book, magazine or other like
work which is of a kind likely to fall into the hands of children or young
persons and consists wholly or mainly of stories told in pictures (with or
without the addition of written matter), being stories portraying—
(a) the commission of crimes; or
(b) acts of violence or cruelty; or
(c) incidents of a repulsive or horrible
nature;
in such a way that the work as a whole would
tend to corrupt a child or young person into whose hands it might fall."
The aforementioned Rev Morris was, however,
absent from the populist campaign. He was busy having taken action of a
different kind: the publication of a wholesome, British comic alternative.
In April 1950 Eagle was launched, with Dan
Dare Pilot of the Future as its star…
In an early draft, Dan Dare was not a pilot
but a squadron padre – the chaplain or vicar attached to a military unit – named Lex Christian. The surname is a
clear indication of the direction that Morris and artist Frank Hampson were
taking: respectable British values of decency, fairness and
forgiveness would be our hero’s superpowers.
Unlike its American counterparts, The Eagle
also featured longer reads and pieces on history and science. The Christian
ethos of the title is perhaps most clearly seen in one of the other works for
which Hampson is celebrated, The Road of Courage, a graphic retelling of the
life of Jesus which first appeared as the back page strip in the Eagle in 1960…
Legend has it that Lord Jellicoe, Leader of
the House of Lords (and former First Lord of the Admiralty) read The Eagle in
the Palace of Westminster library. Similarly Lord Mountbatten is said to have
placed a subscription for his nephew Prince Charles and once found cause to
ring the publisher to complain when an issue failed to arrive in the post.
My London Walks colleague Donald Rumbelow once told me
that it was one of the great privileges of his schooldays to be dispatched by
the head master to pick up the school's copy of the comic – not least because
he would then have the thrill of being the first to peruse its pages.
My own introduction to Dan Dare came in
1977 when he was revived from his state of suspended animation to star in the
newly launched comic 2000AD.
The Eagle had endured a miserable 1960s
with budget cuts and the loss of the great Hampson and had been subsumed into
rival Lion comic in 1969. But we hadn't yet heard the last of the great Dan
Dare.
2000AD celebrated its 2000th issue in 2016 and
looks forward to its 40th anniversary this month (February 2017). Back in '77, its
editor was Pat Mills. Mills had worked on Battle comic and had created the
legendary British classic Action comic, a publication noted for its sensational, violent thrills. Its publication created a panicked scandal unseen since the days of
the 50s detailed above.
Mills took the decision to add Dan Dare to
the mix of 2000AD with the idea being that Dan was still a much-loved comic
hero. His presence, it was hoped, would help the new title establish itself in the market place.
Italian artist Massimo Belardinelli was enlisted
to create the new Dan…
As you can see, by '77 he's less clean-cut, more of the 70s period (suspended animation has worked wonders on his barnet and mutton-chops) – but the trademark squiggly eyebrows are still in place.
Last week I dropped in on Future Shock –
the exhibition that celebrates 40 years of 2000AD at the great Cartoon Museum
and was delighted to see some original artwork from Belardinelli featuring the
London of 2077.
It was the original on display at the Cartoon Museum that inspired this Panel in the Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London blog…
Here's how the published version looks…
It was the original on display at the Cartoon Museum that inspired this Panel in the Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London blog…
Here's how the published version looks…
I'm particularly fond of the flying tour of
London drone to the right of Big Ben. I wonder if I'll be leading those as a
hologram 160 years from now? I like the "Scenic Walk Eezee" too!
And there's Big Ben. AGAIN. Big Ben is rapidly taking
over The Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London blog.
I've already covered the world's most
famous clock in Spiderman & Deadpool, Danger Mouse, Scooby Doo, The Fantastic Four, Uber, Disney AND Wonder Woman.
The aforementioned Frank Hampson also
gets in on the Big Ben act with his centre spread for the short-lived Marvel UK
in the 70's…
… which pictured the Palace of Westminster in 2006.
In the 70s as in the 50's, Dan Dare's nemesis was The Mekon…
… and a right rotter he looks, too.
In the context of Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster, The Mekon holds a place dear in the hearts of cartoon and cartoonist fans in this country thanks to The Guardian's Steve Bell who used Hampson's famous alien as his jumping-off point for his take on former Leader of the Opposition and former Home Secretary William Hague…
In fairness to Hague, unlike his 50s forerunner Lloyd George, never once in his tenure as Home Secretary did he seek to take our comics away from us!
I have every confidence that I'll be back to Big Ben before long on this blog. I will certainly return to the topic of The Cartoon Museum, not least because they've got The Inking Woman, an exhibition of British women cartoonists from April 2017.
Credits…
Frank Hampson's son runs an excellent website
dedicated to the work of his father, with some excellent original boards
available for sale. Visit the website here:
The Cartoon Museum's current show
celebrates the unprecedented 40 year history of 2000AD. Future Shock! 40 Years
of 200AD runs until 23rd April 2017. It's yet another triumph from the best little museum in London.
Admission is £7, £5 concession and £3 for students. Bargain. Their website is here www.cartoonmuseum.org
Admission is £7, £5 concession and £3 for students. Bargain. Their website is here www.cartoonmuseum.org
The exhibition is curated by Steve Marchant
(the Comic Creators Project curator) - I blogged about Steve in an earlier post explaining why I started this Cartoon & Comic Book Tour Of London blog in the first place. Catch up with that post HERE.
For further reading on the social history
of British comics I can highly recommend British Comics – A Cultural History by
James Chapman. Mr Chapman's book was the main source for the political
background in this blog. You can buy the book here.
This being a Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London blog you will, of course, require a map. I think you'll now how to find Big Ben, but here's how to get to the Cartoon Museum…
I've collated all the previous 35 Panels in this Cartoon & Comic Book Tour Of London blog in one place. I hope you enjoy them: cartoonandcomicbooklondon.blogspot.co.uk/
Next time on The Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London blog… Captain America and the Shard!
A London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.
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