When Eric eats a banana...

I'm pretty certain I read the Nutty comic from the very first issue, (circa 1980 - I'd be five),  and it was the first comic I got on a regular basis. Every Sunday, the 'paper man' came round delivering periodicals and selling confectionery out of his car. My brother's comic of choice was Buster, which, on balance, was probably the better publication but my choice, the Nutty, had something Buster did not...

Bananaman : Has the strength of twenty big men.

Bananaman was unarguably the best thing within its pages and obviously popular, because the strip soon went from a single colour page on the back cover, to two pages taking up both covers, and eventually, to three pages taking up the front cover and the centre spread. Three page long weekly humour strips were pretty much unheard of back then.

The tone of Steve Bright's scripts combined with the late John Geering's artwork left a pretty hefty impression on me and inevitably bled into my own early attempts to create comics. In fact, Bananaman was probably more of an influence on my drawing style and reading habits than anything else since. If not for Bananaman you might not even be reading this blog right now because I might not have got into all this stuff.

Over time, I began noticing a few subtle, (and not so subtle), alterations being made to the strip. For instance, Bananaman's costume originally looked something more like this...

Bananaman's original, less well known, costume.

That wasn't the only change. He picked up a sidekick in the form of Crow, (obviously a terrible pun on Robin, but he was at least an actual, literal crow), the headdress wearing chief of police was replaced by stereotypical Irishman, Chief O' Reilly, and young Eric, (Bananaman's alter-ego),  got a less severe hairstyle than the skinhead do he'd originally been depicted with.

Then, in 1983, the reason for all the changes became apparent when this showed up...


There was a lot of things to like about the cartoon. That theme tune, the Goodies doing the voices, but it just wasn't anywhere near as good as the original comic strip, not as irreverent. Case in point, you wouldn't get anything quite like this going on in the cartoon...

No, I don't know how they got away with it either.

© DC Thomson & Co.

They also changed Eric's surname from 'Wimp' to 'Twinge'. This was a change too far for me. Thankfully, he remained a Wimp within the pages of the comic.

When the Nutty folded in 1985, Bananaman survived and continued to appear in the Dandy. Of course, the Dandy itself would cease to be in 2012, but shortly before that happened, he also began to appear in the Beano, which is where he remains to this day. It seems you just can't keep a good banana down, (or something).

So, there I was, in March this year, looking around online for stuff to use as reference for those drawings at the top of this blog post, when the news hits...

There's going to be Bananaman The Movie! 

...and today, I'm in the process of putting together said blog entry, when the teaser poster appears...

Poster spotted at Down The Tubes

Gadzooks!  Looks as if I may have to go to the pictures next year. I hope his name's still Wimp.

Anyone fancy a banana?

Hallowscream! Spooktacular Sixth Issue Guidelines

We at Back From The Depths are once again looking for contributors for our freaky free, annual pdf horror comic, HALLOWSCREAM.

Well, Mister Freakyblobthing, it's like this...

Submissions should be horror orientated and must be weird or spooky to make the final cut.

We are mainly looking for completed comic strips between 1-7 pages in length. Anything already completed is far more likely to make it into the comic.

Script submissions should also preferably be around 1-7 pages in length.

Eerie illustrations and artwork along with interesting horror/comic articles, scary short stories, petrifying poems or anything just plain creepy will also be considered.

To get an idea of the sort of stuff we're after, you can download previous issues of Hallowscream here.

If you're looking to illustrate something, get in contact and we'll give you details of available scripts to see if anything suits your fancy.

We'll also consider material previously published elsewhere, as long as the contributors own the copyright.

Completed artwork can be either colour or black and white, and should preferably be A4 (21cm x 29.7cm) 300 dpi jpeg or png.

Submissions can be sent to merjeagles@yahoo.co.uk or ghastlymcnasty@backfromthedepths.co.uk

As this is a non-profit, small press publication, contributors will not be paid but they will retain copyright on any material submitted.

We will accept submissions from the undead, (we're all for equal opportunities here), but if you keep eating people we're afraid we'd rather not associate with you because a) it's not very nice and b) it's probably highly illegal and we don't want any further hassle from the authorities after that unfortunate incident with the werewolf.

Non-arty folk or people who just want to submit a sketch can still contribute doodles by taking part in the "Guess the face of The Reaper" competition. We'll also accept entries to this competition from proper artists what can draw really good and that. Click the image below for details at a larger size.

Simply post a link to your artwork in the comments, (or anywhere else you see the pic), or send your entry to the merjeagles@yahoo.co.uk address.

DEADLINES :

Scripts, articles and text submissions : Sunday 27th July

Artwork : Sunday 5th October

Completed strips : Sunday 19th October.

The finished issue will be available online as a free pdf by October 31st, with a physical copy becoming available via Lulu.com, shortly afterwards. You can also keep up to date with Hallowscream news via the Facebook Page

You're welcome.

Happy Birthday Scream! (Guess The Face of The Reaper!)

It's 30 years since Scream! comic first appeared in the shops, so to celebrate...

Click the image to see it full size. This is, of course, an homage to the Guess Ghastly's Face competition.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Spongebob is actually far holeyer.

What?

Who ya gonna call?

Egon Spengler of Ghostbusters, as portrayed by the late Harold Ramis, drawn for the Weekly Themed Art Blog. 

Winston Zeddemore & Slimer were originally drawn as a submission for, the now defunct, Dangerous Ink Magazine, to accompany an interview with Ernie Hudson. They didn't use the artwork.

A book lack...

Temple APA Issue Fifteen

"T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, but there was a freaky looking snowman type thing hanging around outside..."

Temple APA Issue Fifteen is now available to download as a totally free pdf file, containing contributions from the likes of Dave Hailwood, Simon Mackie, Tony Suleri, Malcolm Kirk, (who also provides the cover), and newcomer to these pages, Ben Peter Johnson.

You can download from Dropbox, MediaFire or view online at Issuu.
PDF file size is 15.07 MB.

The Temple APA is a showcase for amateur and professional creators who are active in the UK comics scene. If you'd like to contribute or just want more information, check out the Temple blog or like us on Facebook...

Temple APA blog
Temple APA Facebook page

Also, for the next couple of days only, issue one of the 100% Biodegradable comic anthology mentioned within the pages of this issue, (and featuring some familiar names), is available to download for free.

Head over to www.facebook.com/biodegradablecomic to find out how to grab a copy. Go on. Quick!

Have a very Christmassy Christmas, everybody and a hangoverless New Year!