Once upon a time magazine full-page paintings of Town Mouse and Country Mouse by Phillip Mendoza

klakadak-ploobadoof	Post subject: Re: Treasure: Wee Willie Winkie visits Fleetway Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:29 am
Joined: Sun Mar 30, 2008 7:26 pm Posts: 203	I received my joblot of Once Upon a Time magazines and I think they are brilliant. I am particularly fascinated by those full-page paintings of Town Mouse and Country Mouse by Mendoza. They have some sort of serene magic about them… Have they ever been put in a book as they so much deserve? _________________ Check out my blog about comics from other peoples' childhood: http://kazoop.blogspot.com

klakadak-ploobadoof

Post subject: Re: Treasure: Wee Willie Winkie visits Fleetway Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2013 1:18 pm

Joined: Sun Mar 30, 2008 7:26 pm Posts: 203

Intrigued by the discussion on this tread and the images shown here, particularly by Phil, I bought that large joblot of Treasure on eBay some time ago and am now slowly going through them discovering artists I wasn’t familiar with until now. I like Mendoza, especially his illustrations of Through the Looking Glass and Wind in the Willows. philcom55  Post subject: Re: Treasure: Wee Willie Winkie visits Fleetway Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:04 am  Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:56 am Posts: 2878 As far as I can tell Blaing's dates sound right (though I must admit I've never heard of the second series of Once Upon a Timementioned by Matrix). When Phillip Mendoza was headhunted by Leonard Matthews in 1951 he was already in his fifties, having enjoyed a long and successful career in various aspects of commercial art. Along with the Stephen Francis (aka 'Hank Janson') he'd even found time to produce one of the most sought-after of all British comics - the legendary Mighty Atom. Like Quinto, Mendoza's earliest assignments for AP appeared in their newly-launched picture libraries - including a number of obligatory Robin Hood shorts. With the creation of the glossy new nursery title Playhour in 1954, however, he quickly established himself as a superb visualizer of colourful picture stories aimed specifically at very young children. The first of these strips included 'The Seven Dwarfs' and 'Children of the Forest', but it was in the depiction of anthropomorphic animals such as Gulliver Guinea-Pig and Katie Countrymouse that he really excelled. Like his human namesake, Gulliver Guinea-Pig was an intrepid explorer who travelled to increasingly fantastic destinations such as 'Fairy Tale Land', the World inside the TV Screen and (as below) a version of the Moon that was very different to the one on which Neil Armstrong eventually set foot just eight years later: (To be continued...) - Phil Rushton         klakadak-ploobadoof  Post subject: Re: Treasure: Wee Willie Winkie visits Fleetway Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 9:48 am  Joined: Sun Mar 30, 2008 7:26 pm Posts: 203 Beautiful, I look forward to seeing and reading more, Phil. I searhced the web for details about the run of Once Upon A Time and found a link to an expired eBay auction for a near complete set. The description said the total number came to 167 issues, the last one dated 27th April, 1972, so blaing‘s info is nearly accurate (thanks, Bruce!). This thread is responsible for my most recent purchases – 2 Once Once Upon A Time annuals on eBay this morning and a joblot of 118 weeklies in a private deal. From what I‘ve seen here so far, I have a feeling I will get an urge to complete the set. Just when I was beginnig to think my collection has reached saturation point... _________________ Check out my blog about comics from other peoples' childhood: http://kazoop.blogspot.com          Peter Gray  Post subject: Re: Treasure: Wee Willie Winkie visits Fleetway Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 5:50 pm  Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2006 11:07 pm Posts: 3672 Location: Surrey Guildford What a delightful story...love the cheese being parachuted down to the mice on earth... _________________ www.petergrayanimals.co.uk Buy Animal Cards for £2  Also A4 Mounted Print starting at £15 and A3 starting at £30 limited to 50..using Pay Pal.  Peter Gray's comics blog http://www.petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogspot.com           philcom55  Post subject: Re: Treasure: Wee Willie Winkie visits Fleetway Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 7:41 pm  Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:56 am Posts: 2878 On the whole I don't think you'll be disappointed with your copies of Once Upon A Time Irmantas - though Mendoza's late-period artwork might not be quite what you expected on the basis of his work on Gulliver Guinea Pig and in Treasure. Also, looking at my own copies, it occurs to me that the proportion of actual comic strips is a little lower than I suggested. Sorry if I misled you in that respect. I've plenty more to say about Mendoza's artwork in Once Upon A Time but, meanwhile, here are some more examples of the lovely, sensitive nursery strips he produced for Fleetway during the early 1960s - this time featuring his other major children's character Katie Country Mouse (and not forgetting her somewhat posher cousin Matilda Town Mouse!). - Phil Rushton http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5412&start=45 Don't miss this forum post at comicsuk forum it is brilliant and shows how good nursery comics can be!!! Thanks to Phil Rushton and klakadak-ploobadoof

Brian Walker draws great readers wordsearchs for Whizzer and chips 1982

Heres a tricky one to do...you have to work out these past stars of Whizzer and chips to do this word search...it was part of Merry Memories Booklet...each year in the pullout over the weeks had different characters..like Belle Tent...Lucky Dick..Wear em out Wilf..etc..

Readers sent in there word searches and Brian illustrated it...so a good challenge as the picture has to be worked out first..I love readers being involed in the comic...maybe The Beano could do this?

As my scanner is still not working I'd thought the camera would work just as well..

Reg Parlett's Creepy Comix original art..

In pencil its called "Little Sis"

Frankie Stein was originally standing up straight arms crossed But Reg redrew it leaning in which is better..also love the quick turn of the boy.

4x as big as the comic and drawn in two halves.

So pleased with it...£35 and worth every penny...

very HAPPY!!!

Paul Rose busy UK comic pictures mostly Ken Reid characters..

Paul Rose

March · 

My take on KEN REID: Jonah is over the moon that JASPER THE GRASPER and FRANKIE STEIN have won a prize-But they are not.

Its good fun and nice how they merge into one another...
Find Paul Rose on facebook..lots of other top artwork also to see other comic types..

The New Beandy this Saturday!!

Just found out  that the Beano is to have the Dandy joining its pages...the new comic will combine there names together..
Beandy
Dennis will go to the Wild West to live there so Desperate Dan will also be on the cover.
Owen Goal and Ball Boy will also join the same team drawn by Nigel Parkinson
Rasher and Harry's hippo will also be drawn by Lew Stringer
Bash Street kids are going to Boarding school to meet Winker Watson..
Many other surpises!
It will be very different don't miss this...Korky and Biffo are neighbours..
Beandy out on Saturday!

Go to the DC Thomson pages now to see more..

April fool!!

* KAZOOP !!: A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: SCREAM INN

* KAZOOP !!: A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: SCREAM INN: Scream Inn was clearly one of the highlights in Shiver and Shake . The strip that represented horror comedy at its very best was il...

Well worth looking...Shiver and Shake comic in great detail..

Jesus Blasco working in nursery comics with wonderful adaptions of classic books thanks to Phil Rushton

To my mind, however, this version seems a bit rushed and cramped: definitely below his usual standard - besides which it has an off-putting slickness which makes Alice look as though she's strayed from the pages of Embleton's 'Oh Wicked Wanda' strip inPenthouse!

By contrast I'd rate Jesus Blasco's interpretation amongst the best work he ever produced. I don't know if he did all the colouring himself but your mention of the background colours 'crashing together' in startling ways is spot on. Here's a truly spectacular sequence in which the whole scene seems to be viewed through a kaleidoscope:





...And Alice's encounter with a 'magic' mushroom is positively hallucinogenic (this was, after all, just three years after the 'Summer of Love'!).



Finally, an electrifying sequence from 'The Enchanted Lion' where Blasco experiments with avoiding the use of solid black altogether in two panels - thereby producing an utterly stunning effect that seems to jump right out of the page!





- Phil Rushton

Scrumptuous' is a perfect description of Blasco's Alice! As for the curious variations in her age, I suspect that Jesus might have used a photographic model for some (but not by any means all) of his renditions, which could well explain any apparent discontinuity. The second panel in the page below, for example, looks to me as though it was based on a photograph - either of a real girl or a doll - which makes it stand out quite oddly from the dynamism of the surrounding panels. (It's also interesting to compare this page with the rather more leisurely treatment of the same scene that appeared in Tiny Tots).



...And here's an even more obvious piece of photo-realism that Blasco used in his slightly-less-scrumptuous adaptation of 'Gulliver's Travels' shortly afterwards:



- Phil Rushton

Regarding Sue's earlier observation that Jesus Blasco seemed to have trouble keeping Alice's apparent age stable from one panel to the next I couldn't help noticing that he had similar problems with Tom the chimney sweep in his adaptation of The Water Babies. This rather weird inconsistency is particularly noticeable in the following five page sequence - though it's pretty breathtaking in every other respect.











...As Alice herself said - "curiouser and curiouser!"  

- Phil Rushton

That's great Matrix!  I've got other episodes from the same story but not that particular one.

On Jesus Blasco, he was fortunate enough to be helped out at one time or another by three brothers and a sister. At least two of them proved to be excellent artists in their own right so that during the 1950s Jesus, Alejandro and Adriano individually drew stories for the British market that would be difficult to tell apart if it weren't for their different signatures. Shortly after this, however, they seem to have started working together solely under Jesus' byline with Alejandro and Andriano providing meticulous finishes for their brother's layouts - thereby producing three times as many pages as any one artist could ever hope to. Here they can be seen working together in a photo taken from the Spanish website Deskartes Mil:



http://deskartesmil.blogspot.co.uk/2010 ... asa-v.html

- Phil Rushton

Thanks Phil..

from comicsuk forum

http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5412&start=30

Gordon Hutchings lovely cute animals he drew for Playhour, Jack and Jill etc..

http://www.illustrationartgallery.com/acatalog/Gordon_Hutchings_Art.html

There's some great original art work here to see just click on link..

* KAZOOP !!: MORE FRANKIE STEIN BY ROBERT NIXON

* KAZOOP !!: MORE FRANKIE STEIN BY ROBERT NIXON: Robert Nixon did so many excellent Frankie Stein sets in SHIVER AND SHAKE that I found it difficult to decide which ones to include in...

It really great seeing these...it shows that though Ken Reid of course did some great stuff with this character so did Robert Nixon..

Also like Kazoop review of the character Frankie Stein he has done...and his review of shiver and shake is of course excellent..

Thanks for being patient...

Scanned this at the college...

As I've said before my scanner isn't working and I don't have enough money yet to replace it...also very busy setting up my new business as a pet artist learning at the Queen Elizabeth Foundation in Leatherhead. Its been very good But a lot of work. Will be having a new website promoting my pet portrait business.
www.peterspetportraits.co.uk which is not ready to see...also I'm going to pay someone to do it for me...so money is tight for now..
 So my blog will be more of a showcase of the best on the web and on comicsuk forum for now...

See the first  The Twitopians

Comic: Buster

Artists: Stan MacMurty (Mac) 

http://comics.brucelaing.id.au/twitopian/#comment-335

I love seeing the first strip of a new character..the how it all began feature in Big comic was great....

Lew Stringer Comics: A feast of fun

Lew Stringer Comics: A feast of fun:     Welcome to my new blog, lewstringercomics

Will be great seeing Lew's Oink comic work and in Buster plus today..
looking forward to it..welcome back Lew!!!!!!!!