On the current time marks the 100th anniversary of Ken Reid’s starting up. Sadly he handed away in the 1980s nevertheless his amazing darkly comedian humour remains to be noteworthy liked nowadays in hardback collections of his critical works.
I’m fortunate to derive the brand new artwork for Ken’s closing Nervs strip from Rupture! No.162 (1969) and I blogged about it 12 years ago. Moderately than ship you procuring by the archives I believed I could perchance well post it (and the brand new article) here all over again nowadays…
A uncommon trendy sub-genre of British humour comics in the sixties were strips concerning miniature inhabitants of the human body. The Numskulls started the mini-trend in The Beezer in the early sixties. A actually merely drawn strip, it featured the inhabitants in various “departments” of a person’s head (brain, eyes, nostril, mouth, ears) steering or suggesting actions for him to blueprint discontinuance, dealing along with his problems etc. When Odhams launched their rival comedian Wham! in 1964, the Numskulls have an effect on became as soon as evident in the strip George’s Germs. Odhams taking the thought that a stage additional than DC Thomson the miniature “germs” inside of Georgie’s body generally stumbled on themselves in pitched fight towards invading ointment-microbes and the indulge in.
When Wham’s partner comedian Rupture! came along in 1966 the reputation of Georgie’s Germs impressed a identical strip; The Nervs. In total drawn by the radiant nevertheless generally lost sight of Graham Allen, The Nervs correct away grew to became one of the important funniest strips in the unusual comedian. While The Numskulls inhabited the bland and nameless “man” and George’s Germs inhabited the sympathetic George, The Nervs ran amok inside of the chubby body of the sunless-witted “Fatty”. A noteworthy crueler strip by far than its predecessors, inserting Fatty by all styles of ailments and slapstick eventualities, nevertheless positively the funniest of the three.
By gradual 1968, with Rupture! the sole supreme Odhams “silly”, Ken Reid’s strips Frankie Stein (Wham!) and Dare-A-Day-Davy (Pow!) had ended. Maybe no longer wishing to lose Ken to Fleetway (where Leo Baxendale became as soon as by then finding work) he became as soon as given the ingenious responsibilities on The Nervs. This became as soon as the wonderful car for Ken Reid’s grotesque “comedian scare” and he solely revitalized the strip, turning the Nervs into blue collar workers and Fatty into more of an idiotic buffoon.
The strip confirmed above exhibits Ken Reid’s fashioned artwork for his closing Nervs epic,(given to me years ago by an IPC neighborhood editor) which regarded in the closing danger of the first assortment of Rupture! sooner than the IPC revamp of the next week. The incoming IPC administration hated the vulgarity of The Nervs and allegedly an interior memo became as soon as circulated correct by the firm instructing that the strip be canceled and by no manner reprinted in their unusual wave of comics (Whizzer & Chips, Cor!! etc).
Ken Reid soon stumbled on unusual work at IPC, drawing Sub for the unusual Scorcher weekly and Faceache for Jet (amongst other issues), nevertheless I consistently felt that IPC’s more conservative attitude visibly diluted Ken’s IPC work, compared with his Odhams heyday. (Even so, he nonetheless produced some implausible work, including some mountainous creations for scare pin u.s.a.on the lend a hand of Shiver and Shake let’s assume.)
So the pages above repeat no longer handiest the high of The Nervs (and certainly the most grotesque kill for a children’s comics personality with Fatty swallowing raw sewage) they additionally tag the high of the instant nevertheless memorable speed of Odhams’ “Power Comics”. I’ve blown up about a of the panels so you might perchance well doubtless also seek for the detail of Ken Reid’s work. You’ll behold that he penciled in the lettering himself for letterer David Gould to apply over. You’ll additionally seek for about a of the “white out” where mistakes had been corrected.
Ken Reid generally signed his Odhams strips. Apparently, this closing work is no longer always truly signed. It be unlikely he’d bear forgotten. Maybe by then IPC’s unusual policy of returning artists to anonymity became as soon as in force. And even Ken became as soon as too saddened by the high of this mountainous period in his occupation to label it. Either design, the work nonetheless stands up as a mountainous example of Rupture! at its handiest, and Ken Reid at his funniest.
Existing: You will be ready to be taught all of Ken Reid’s Nervs strips, along along with his other Odhams work in the comely two-volume Power Pack of Ken Reid, readily available from this link:
https://www.kazoop-comics-store.com/Limited_time_offer_The_Power_Pack_of_Ken_Reid_Volumes_1_and_2_6_FREE_PRINTS/p5698590_18914104.aspx
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Encourage to Christmas comics with the next post!
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