REMINISCING REPOST: THE END OF THE WORLD!

Images copyright REBELLION

As it's 2000 A.D.'s 40th Anniversary, I thought I'd celebrate a

little Anniversary of my own.  Namely, the 31st Anniversary (as near

as dammit) of the appearance of the first strip I ever lettered for the mag.

It seems like only yesterday in memory, but I was still a young man around

my mid-20s when I lettered this tale in the Walsingham Guest House

in Southsea in January 1986.  (Although I may have started it in the

Wansbeck Hotel in London the day before.)  Ah, happy days.

So - "Extra!  Extra!  Read all about it!" below.

******   

Not counting paid jobs I'd done since still at school, my very first
'big-time' professional freelance lettering job was for IPC MAGAZINES
in 2000 A.D. - a strip called 'EXTRA! EXTRA!', which appeared in Prog
407, cover-dated March 2nd, 1985.  (It wasn't my first published IPC job
however - that was a CAPTAIN KID - The PINT-SIZED PIRATE page
in WHIZZER & CHIPS, which I lettered one night in the 2000 A.D.
office before going home to my bedsit in Southsea.)

The strip was written by PETE MILLIGAN and drawn by the late

JOSE CASANOVAS, who sadly died in 2009.  To be honest, I'm sur-
prised it turned out as well as it did.  I didn't have the right 'patch-paper'
so the lettering came out a little scratchy-looking and was also a tad too
large.  I remember STEVE MacMANUS being quite pleased with it
'though, especially the newspaper headlines.

And thus began my full-time, fifteen year career working for the

'big boys' - not only IPC but also MARVEL COMICS (the British and

American divisions).  Anyway, I thought that some of you might enjoy

seeing where it all began.  (Is it just me, or does anyone else think that

Casanovas' art is slightly reminiscent of RON TURNER's?)

   

I'd like to think that I improved over the coming months once I

'found' my style, but, all in all, it wasn't too bad a beginning for someone

starting out in the world of comics.  Technology can be a wonderful thing,

but I can't help but feel that some of the art has gone from lettering now

that anyone with a keyboard and access to computer fonts can do what

once used to lie only within the province of calligraphic artists.

     

Posted in: Cartoons