As for Lefty, 16 year old school boy?? He looks like Denis Waterman after a feed of pints down the Winchester.

Still, looked like a great strip.

The manager in question was a small, rotund, balding chap called…Victor Boskovic.

Martin,

Thanks for turning me on to ‘Lefty’. It’s superb!

[Link]

I thought maybe I was getting my bottle throwing stories mixed up, but I checked some reprints I have and yep, his girlfriend also threw one at a player.

Two bottle throwing incidents! Also Lefty keeps kicking balls at opponents, getting them in the gut, the nads, whatever and he even smacks a ball at a supporter. Never got that in Tiger… God, Action was great!

I suppose this is what David was saying he hated about football… Lefty is the ANTI-RACE. But I love ‘em both…

The Hard Man’s manager remains a blank to me (though I do remember a flamboyant agent called Sol Myson, drawn in a style which I now recognise as being worryingly similar to anti-semetic cartoons of rich, grasping jews, i.e. big nose, waistcoat, rings, cigar.)

The Observer also confirms that Kevin Mouse was a medical student and that the team he and Hamish played for was Princes Park. Always felt that the artwork in that strip owed something to the marvelous Albert Uderzo of Asterix fame. Must ask David if he remembers who illustrated that…

No (immediate) memory of “Look out for Lefty” though it sounds delightful. The rough end of stuff was also dealt with (in slightly tamer fashion) by “Nipper” featuring the eponymous Nipper Lawrence (who failed to make the Top 10). It was a grim, coal-dust coloured, bit of ’social realism’ (well…by comics standards) that always left me feeling slightly uncomfortable.

You guys have started me off and I found this:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,6903,1093419,00.html

I can’t believe there’s no mention of Action’s “Look Out For Lefty”. It was great. He had Roy Race’s hair but was a tough kid living with his Grandad. The non-footballing side of the story was like Steptoe & Son. It was famously pulled after Lefty’s girlfriend (who could beat *me* up) lobbed a bottle at a player that fouled him.

Classic!

I do indeed remember all the Tharg lingo, sadly better than I remember many French expressions, despite doing it for 6 years in secondary school…

Most of my progs from the ‘Golden Age’ were donated (without my knowledge) to one of the very ‘Sales of Work’ I mention in the interview, so even I was not immune to the cruelty of a “Sure they’re only stupid comics” mother (I’ve forgiven her now…just).

Haven’t read 2000 AD in a long time, but have heard good things about the Rebellion era. Nice to see proper black and white comic art returning since some of the most memorable ‘Golden Age’ stuff was gloriously rendered in B&W. Simon Bisley’s influence cast a baleful shadow over much 90s ‘painterly’ stuff…and led to utterly gratuitous, show-off crap that did nothing to serve the story.

“Safest hands in Soccer”? Jeez…that Rick Stewart was such a square…

I still re-read progs 80 to about 500 over and over again - a golden age.

However since Rebellion bought the title things have improved a LOT. Here was a video game company of guys brought up on 2000ad and they brought the ‘love’ back. And they brought John Wagner back to Dredd. Still the odd dross, but pretty solid on the whole. And nice coloured line art along side B&W stuff, since that’s not considered a sin anymore.

Also check out the latest “Extreme” reprint edition out this week. Early 80’s Rogue Trooper stories from annuals and specials (couple of Alan Moore’s in there) wrapped in a stunning new Mike McMahon cover.

Anyone remember the Alan Class series? Creepy Worlds, Secrets of the Unknown etc

Billy’s Boots was good but he was no Safest Hands in Soccer ;)

5) The strip you refer to was originally “Hot Shot Hamish”, featuring Hamish Balfour, the possessor of the world’s most ferocious shot (cue defenders leaping out of their socks/boots to escape being hit), and his pal Wee Wally. They were later joined by the portly Kevin Mouse aka “Mighty Mouse”, a master of dribbling (who worked as a hospital orderly/nurse (?) and previously had his own strip). At that stage the strip changed its name, unsurprisingly enough, to “Hot Shot Hamish and Mighty Mouse”.

6) The previous owner of Billy’s Boots was Dead Shot Keen.

As for (7), Johnny “Hard Manâ€? Dexter actually featured in three strips: “The Hard Man”, “Dexter’s Dozen”, and (eventually) “Roy of the Rovers” itself. I’ll give you a bonus point if you remember the name of the flamboyant, Brian Clough-esque, manager he worked under in the first two strips!

Tough one…

1. A plotline where Roy Jnr, was kidnapped. Roy was obviously greatly distressed, not getting a lot of sleep, and looking generally haggard. Said haggardness graphically represented by stubble-suggesting scribbles on his face.

2. “Racey’s Rocket!”

3. Roy calling his wife “Pen”.

4. Thinking it’d be funny to have a Viz-type parody about a character called “Roy Racist”

5. The strip about the Scottish team with the short, round bespectacled striker (name, anyone?)

6. “The boots are making me run!”
Please put me out of my misery and tell me the name of the footy legend who previously owned Billy’s Boots

7. The Hard Man

Martin,

Glad you’re enjoying the Brit comic coverage…hopefully this interview will lead on to more.

You’re a braver man than me if you managed to make it through the 90s reading 2000 AD…or practically any mainstream comic for that matter. The 80s was, in hindsight, a real final feast before the famine…and I doubt anyone will ever look back on comics of the 90s with the kind of fondness we’re indulging in here.

I don’t know how conscious David is of his influence (given the relative low-profile of British stuff online) but I’ll pass on your best to him. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.

And sure, I love all my ‘cool’ fancy yank comics and graphic novels but 70’s and 80’s British stuff will always be where my heart is.

Still buying 2000ad at 35 (struggled through the rubbish 90’s incarnation) and sometimes miss that there’s nothing else along side it in the newsagents.

It was always great as a kid to get my regulars (Action and Bullet, then 2000ad and Marvel UK’s Star Wars) and if I had some extra pence pick up a Tiger, Roy, Speed, Eagle, Hotspur, Battle, Warlord etc etc or one of the funnies… Happy Days!

I hope David is aware that he and his contemporaries are responsible for me and lots of others going into the ‘graphic arts’. At an art college entrance interview when asked the artist that I most admired and most influenced me I replied Mike McMahon (Judge Dredd).

Can’t wait for the rest of this…