Buster changed in 1992! and lots of artists last stories or reduced work..

The last Vid Kid I'm pretty sure I'm right..anyway by Jan 25th Vid Kid was all reprints and Jack worked on the letter page and other small bits for Buster..

The 'last' X Ray Specs and it was all reprints..Mike Lacey might have retired But I'm not sure..He did draw three pages for Buster in 1991 with Sid's Snake.

The 'last' Ricky Rainbow and Jim Hanson was reduced from three pages to two..

The 'last' Double Trouble and went into reprints in Jan 25th 1992..Terry now only drew two pages and soon it was only one page later in the year..

So not so Great News for the New Year..

Lew Stringer lost a second page in Buster.no more Vampire Brats.reduced to one page with Tom Thug..sometimes Lew drew two pages on rare special occasions..
Chalky by Bob Hill continued though he had two pages before reduced to one..he was drawing the Bruise Brothers in 1991.
Other artists were also let go of..
see the link

http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=148&t=2739&hilit=1992+Buster+1992

Raven

Post subject: Re: What happened to Buster in 1992? a bad year for artists.. Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 1:33 pm

Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:58 pm Posts: 1905 Location: Highboro'

I think in the 90s we enter the era of the "efficiency review," Peter, when the new generation of publishers had the cost-cutting mindset: why pay writers and artists a page rate to create new strips, when we can just reprint old ones for free, and then: why are we filling these titles with expensive to produce comic strips when we can get the in-house staff to throw together 'feature' pages instead, for no extra cost. It wasn't reader-led but all to do with the growing commercially minded philosophy that grew out of the '80s, of wanting to make as much money as possible while spending as little as possible.

Raven

Post subject: Re: What happened to Buster in 1992? a bad year for artists.. Posted: Sat May 09, 2009 3:35 pm

Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:58 pm Posts: 1905 Location: Highboro'

Also, as I recall, around 1991 the Fleetway division that published the comics were taken over by Egmont, formerly Gutenberghus, who, despite their associations with Disney comics abroad, had no interest in carrying on with the UK comics line. Quite a few new comics - humour and apparently adventure- were in the planning/development stages at that time but I think Gutenberghus/Egmont put an immediate stop to it all, so it clearly wasn't going to continue much longer if they had no interest in investing in the comic line. I think the takeover in 1991 had a lot to do with the changes you notice from 1992, Peter.

So strange how the comic was bought by a someone who was interested in comics But didn't do much with it..I feel they underused the comic artists talent a lot of the remaining comic artists could and wished to draw more But replaced with reprints. What a waste of there talent.

I feel though to a lesser degree the Beano and Dandy should use there artists more..Laura H should for example be given another page other than one a week..just my views..etc..