About 6 months ago, on a night (dear readers) very much like this,¹ I found myself sitting, sweatily, at a giant mahogany table in my parents' "Good Room".² Phone in hand. Preparing to talk to an 85-year-old Richard Matheson.

Look, I don't usually conduct telephone interviews in my parents' "Good Room", OK? It was very late, and I think I was worried about shouting at an 85-year-old in California (who might, after all, have been a bit deaf) and the effect that might have had on my sleeping toddler daughter and…I'm sure there was probably some other stuff too, but, anyway, there I was. Phone. Mahogany table. Sweaty head.

The reason for the call was to (hopefully) hoover up a few choice quotes for an SFX piece I was writing on The (Incredible) Shrinking Man. The reason for the sweaty head was a combination of fan-boy jitters, and an unsureness as to how Matheson would react to questions about the (absolutely unavoidable) sexual/gender subtexts of the novel.

The phone rang. A frail and barely audible voice answered. I blurted out my spiel. Who I was, what I was doing, how it had all been arranged.

Silence.

The kind of silence that feels hideously like one of those "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about" silences. Then:

"Can you hold on for a few minutes?"

I held on. For several minutes. Richard Matheson was speaking to another (unknown) man. Speaking to this other (unknown) man about the security of his property. About how there were gaps in this security. Gaps that were allowing things in.

Unknown Man: "…this here is an open area. It used to…uh…have barbed wire but it broke on the other side. So…I was wondering if you wanted that filled in?"

Matheson: "Will coyotes still get in?"

Unknown Man: "Well…if coyotes want to get in, they'll get in."

And on and on it went. I was both thrown and thrilled. Matheson was sounding just like Robert Neville. Or Scott Carey. The doomed "heroes" of his deeply paranoid (and deeply wonderful) pair of genre classics – I Am Legend (1954) and The Shrinking Man (1956). Novels absolutely dripping in angst about invasion, loss of integrity, loss of self. "I bet he'll love my question about The Shrinking Man, male diminishment, nascent feminism and the undermining of patriarchal structures!", I all-but-chuckled to myself.

Several minutes later still, after much unsuccessful (and desperate) fishing for answers I knew must be there, Richard Matheson signed off with the following:

"Don't emphasise any kind of subconscious desire on my part to make social commentary."

I assured him I wouldn't. And I didn't – in the piece at least. But I may have now.

Will coyotes still get in?

1. Except significantly warmer, and brighter, and less March-like, and well, not very much like this at all. [back]
2. One of those "fancy" (useless) supplemental sitting rooms that nobody ever goes near and serve only to potentially impress the kind of guests who never visit anyway. [back]

With the sad passing of Euro 2008 (and the resultant football famine) some of you may have slipped (wailing and gnashing your teeth) into a slough of despond. If so, then dry your eyes and take heart. I have news that may cheer thee.

After years spent idling on the sidelines (or wandering the football wilderness) a legend of the game is lacing up his boots once more. Toni Polster? Nein. Tony Grealish? Sadly no…but someone even more exciting (if such a thing were possible). Roy Race – the most gifted lefty ever to grace the game – is back in print (courtesy of Titan Books) and riding high on a British comic reprint wave.

The first volume of this improbable (but most welcome) revival – The Best of Roy of the Rovers: The 1980s – has already been released, and even now sits happily on my shelves. To tell us more about the present and future of this noble project I turned to David "My Pal at Titan" Leach (his official handle is "Graphic Novels Editor" or some such). Here follows a brief interview (me in bold).

Can you give us an idea of the process that lead to these reprints being given the green light?

Actually I can't. The Roy of the Rovers deal was green-lit before my time. I was just handed the entire Roy project on my first day at Titan and told to do my worst.

Was much of the original art available to you or were you relying on scans from the comics themselves?

Unfortunately we have no access to any original artwork, what little survives is in the hands of private collectors. (In fact I found a stack at a local comic mart going for as little as £35 a pop, all drawn by David Sque and I've got details if anyone's interested?)

Instead we're making use of the Egmont bound comic archive and the incredible collection of Mark Towers, who runs the official Roy of the Rovers website and has one of the only complete collections of Roy in the world.

There seems to be a renewed interest in "classic" British comics – what with the recent Eagle, Commando, 2000 AD (etc) reprints. Did the success of these encourage Titan to reprint Roy?

Oh absolutely, there is certainly a demand for reprints of the 'classic' British comics of the 70′s & 80′s. There's a real nostalgia for the comics of my generation's youth and I think there's going to be some very excited Brit comic fans filling their shelves with Titan books in the coming years.

The Commando/Eagle publications seem aimed more at the impulse-buying/novelty gift market. With Roy, however, Titan seems to be catering for both the casual fan (with the "Best of.." publications) as well as the more serious collector/enthusiast (with the chronological volumes). Can you tell us a bit more about the decision to present the reprints in this way?

I think what Titan does well is to understand the market for books. With Roy it was decided that, as a franchise, it could support 3 different titles, each with its own unique style and branding. The Best of, The Archive and The Bumper.

The Archive will showcase Roy's entire football career in books marked as seasons starting with his debut 1959 season. It'll have a commentary as well as "making of" features – the book equivalent of a DVD bonus disc. The book will also have a dust jacket and is aimed more at the collector.

The Best of will showcase a couple of season's worth of action from the 70′s, 80′s & 90′s. Of the three books this will be the most 'magazine-like' with a flexi-cover and no new material bar an introduction. For the first book I managed to secure a foreword by Gary Lineker and for the 2nd 80′s book which I'm hoping to call Best of the 1980s: The Rematch! we've got Frank Skinner. W.H. Smiths are pushing it as a perfect Father's Day present.

And I'm hoping that's exactly the sort of person who buys it. Dads who remember Roy from their youth. I'm amazed at the number of 40 year old men I've mentioned Roy to who actually get misty eyed and excited at the prospect of a Roy book and these men aren't your traditional comic fans. It's easy to forget that Roy is an institution.

And finally, The Bumper Book of Roy, which will be our Christmas book. It's going to feature a selection of the best strips, articles, vintage quizzes and stories taken from the Roy and Tiger annuals dated from 1957 – 1972. I like to imagine that come Christmas morning, little boys and their dads are going to be lying on the floor surrounded by mounds of wrapping paper deeply engrossed in their preferred annuals.

Does the popularity of such titles suggest any resurgence in the British "adventure/sport comic" market or are reprints all we are likely to continue seeing for the foreseeable future? (In other words, is there any chance of a new RotR title?)

Not from us, no. Titan acquired the rights to reprint Roy's entire back catalogue which don't forget is 39 years long! That's going to be a lot of books so I'm going to be very busy and very old by the time it's all over.

Why (do you think) were decent British comic reprints so slow in appearing until comparatively recently? Was it solely a rights issue?

I suppose because no one, apart from Titan, knew that the demand existed. I think Titan lead the way with their reprint books and the wider publishing world is now frantic to join the club. It's probably the best time in history to be a comics fan, particularly a British comics fan.

But I don't think it has anything to do with rights issues. Companies who own these old characters are always eager to open them up to new markets and since many of them no longer produce comic strips it's up to specialist publishers like Titan to approach and make them offers they can't refuse.

The period covered in the first reprint, The Best of Roy of the Rovers: The 1980s, coincides with the tenure of this blog's old pal David Sque. Many Roy fans would feel that Sque's period in charge (of the art) was something of a "Golden Age" for the story. Do you agree, and, if so, why do you think that was the case?

It's the era everybody remembers and identifies with, and David Sque's version of Roy is the definitive version – right down to the girly mullet. David's artwork seems synonymous with Roy. I know it's what I see when I close my eyes.

This period of Roy's career was filled with high drama and action on and off the pitch. It was the era of Dallas and Roy mirrored this. His stories weren't just about football, the reader got involved with his home life, his struggles with running the club, him battling adversity and injury and lets not forget the terrorist car bombing or assassin's bullet (life was never dull for Roy, except for that dreadful summer when he played cricket!). There was also a continuity to the strip unlike anything ever seen before or since. Roy of the Rovers was a single continuous 39 year long adventure told in football seasons.

Also, I think David's artwork brought a highly believable reality to the strip. With a regular artist, the reader gets used to his style and it becomes second nature to them – and as a result they can get more involved in the stories, which in my opinion are paramount. If the story doesn't work, it doesn't matter how good the artwork is, it's going to be quickly forgotten. And Roy's popularity is down to great artwork and a great script.

Given that Titan have acquired rights to some of the Egmont back catalogue, can we expect any other titles to be reprinted in the near future? Can you give us an idea of the timetable for the various Roy releases?

Next up for Roy in 2008 will be the Bumper Book followed by the first Archive edition.

In 2009, Titan will be unleashing both The Best of Battle and The Best of Action. Followed by Special collected editions of Sgt Easy, Johnny Red and Rat Pack (and that’s not even mentioning classic newspaper strips).

Finally, who shot Roy again? I can't remember…

I always get this wrong. All know is it was one of the following, they all have an axe to grind with Roy and they've all publicly threatened him with violence!

So take your pick from -

Vic Guthrie – disgruntled fellow team mate.

Arthur Logan – furious father of Melchester's new striker, Kenny Logan.

Elton Blake – angry out of work actor.

Arnie Meckiff – Roy's wheeler dealer cousin.

Trevor Brinsden – Melchester Rover's Uber-fan.

For what it's worth. My money's on Colonel Peacock in the kitchen with the lead-pipe. But for the full answer you're just going to have to buy the book and find out yourself!

(Interview Ends)

As highlighted by David (and echoed over on Steve Holland's terrific Bear Alley) the "Soap Opera" qualities of early/mid 80s RotR are a large part of what makes this period so fondly remembered. Realising that liberal doses of tragedy and failure are just those elements that make sporting happy endings all the sweeter (and more welcome), Roy scribe Tom Tully loaded the 2 year run collected here with shocking twists and turns to beat the band. Melchester Rovers find themselves relegated, the Races' marriage hits the rocks, and (most dramatically of all) Roy follows J R Ewing's lead and gets himself shot. Of course, it all ends in David Sque's distinctive broad smiles, but the road to that cheery conclusion was a compellingly rocky one.

Something often remarked upon (by meself and others), is how the RotR world exists in a twilight zone straddling outright fantasy and "real world" reality. Thus, while all the teams in the league(s) Melchester compete in are entirely fictional (Burndean, Danefield, Walford etc), figures like Alf Ramsey (caretaker Rovers manager after Roy gets shot) and events like the Charles & Diana wedding are frequently referenced and depicted. This tendency toward curious crossovers was to reach its questionable zenith (or nadir?) with the the arrival (in Melchester colours) of Spandau Ballet, Emlyn Hughes and Bob Wilson.

One of the more (potentially) amusing moments in the Best of volume comes during a league match in which Alf Ramsey is in charge. Rovers win a corner and Ramsey waves Vic "Superbrat" Guthrie up from the back, indicating that he wants him to stand in front of the opposition 'keeper.

Cut to the ever loquacious Melchester crowd where one fan turns to his neighbour and says (something like), "That's just what Alf used to ask Jackie Charlton to do when he was managing England". At this point the neighbour might have (and should have) responded by asking "Who's Jackie Charlton?!" – provoking the following exchange:

"Y'know, the fella who played all them years for Leeds United"

"Who are Leeds United?"

At that point a look of existential terror would cross the original speaker's face as the Roy universe collapsed under the weight of incongruity and illogic.

But enough. While you waste your precious time reading these words you could be grabbing your coat, dashing to the nearest bookshop, and purchasing a copy of this fantabulous volume for yourself.

Go. Go now.

Well having talked about the production of individual strips perhaps we could talk about the different formats the comic went through…because there was a period in the mid-80s when Roy of the Rovers (and some other comics) switched over from decent quality paper to a newsprint type of thing.

[Sighs] Yes…

The stuff I still have previous to that is in great nick, but the newsprint stuff is literally falling apart…

Yeah, that was one of the indications that the comics world was falling apart too! When that happened I used to have to draw my black outline, which was then printed blue – I was no longer responsible for the colour – and then on that blue sheet someone up there in London would block colour in. So it would be a tone, a colour tone: a block red shirt, block whatever….

So I was only responsible for the line work when it went to that stage…and it was printed on toilet paper. It was all done to save money and everything, and if you're ready for it I can tell you about the demise of the comics!

Em…let’s just save that for a little later. I’m very keen to hear your thoughts on it by the way. Anyway, changing tack slightly here David, I wanted to ask if there was any specific inspiration for the distinctive look you gave Roy himself? As a Liverpool fan I always suspected there was more than a touch of Kenny Dalglish about him…

Well, you're right in the respect that Kenny Dalglish was a factor, but it was really an amalgam of four things: 1) Roy as he used to be transmogrifying to my style, 2) The influence of Dalglish's looks, and…3) a little bit of Cliff Richard. You will see in some of the artwork that his nose is like Cliff Richard's.

[laughs] Why Cliff Richard?

I don't know, I was a fan at the time…oh and the fourth thing was that I used my own hairstyle for him, which was the style back then. So basically that's how he morphed into looking like he did. I don't know if you want to put this in…but when it changed to another artist – when they were all trying to cut corners and everything – I got loads of letters sent on to me by people complaining, "Why has Roy Race become an all-in wrestler?"

Oh yes, the "He-man" period…

Yeah, they couldn't believe it, because I tried to draw him as a real, normal character. Anyway, I'd had enough of Roy anyway by that time, and when you think about it I was doing front cover, center pages, back cover, all full colour! So I was working 75-80 hours a week at home (there was no traveling to and from work or anything else) so that was a lot of work.

Yeah, that's something I forgot to ask you actually. What kind of time frame was it from the moment you first saw the script to the moment you had the artwork ready to send of?

Well, as I said about 75/80 hours. That's five, and mostly six, long days. I had a big Victorian six-bedroom house, three cars, and kids at a private school to support. You know you create your lifestyle to match what you're earning and then you're on the treadmill to keep it going.

Moving on – towards the end of the 'toilet paper' period, a lot of …er…unexpected real life personalities ended up joining Melchester Rover…

[laughing] Ah yes, I remember quite a few people – I met all the people that I drew – like Emlyn Hughes. Lovely, lovely guy.

Well as a Liverpool fan he has a special place in my affections….

Magic, big beaming smile! And Wilson, the goalie, he's a lovely guy too. Bob Wilson? Then of course we went on to Spandau Ballet, and that was a bloody nightmare for me…so much drawing! I remember one, I think it was a cover wasn't it, which featured the whole band, all their instruments etc.

That’s right. I remember it very well.

Right! Actually, I've got taped somewhere a Frank Skinner interview with Martin Kemp of the Kemp brothers [talking about his stint on Roy]. Great fans they were, absolutely great fans. In fact, a few years before then I met…em…Hadley, what's his name, Hadley? The lead singer…

Tony Hadley, was it?

That's right, Tony Hadley. Anyway, he worked at IPC before they [Spandau Ballet] took off. He worked on Love Magazine [laughs] with an old college mate of mine – just an ordinary, nice guy you know. But they were big hits at the time, and I had to draw them all, but the two [Kemp] brothers played didn't they?

They certainly did.

At that time they were touring Ireland and staying in a castle somewhere. Don't know the details of that. But come what may they had to trundle into town and get the Roy of the Rovers magazine every Saturday morning! In whatever state of hangover, or whatever, they were in. They had to go and get it and they absolutely loved it. They were tremendous fans. And another great, great fan was Nick Berry from Heartbeat and, what was it, Eastenders?

Anyway, with the demise of Roy of the Rovers, he developed this passion, that I heard about, to do an animated feature of Roy, or an animated series…but that never got off the ground.

As far as Roy went, then, the Basran bus crash story – where there was a major clear out of the 'old guard' – was the last major story that you did, wasn't it? That was the end of your tenure on Roy…

Yes, but I moved on quickly to something that really appealed to me which was "Story of the Star", and I earned more money in half the time doing that than…so I had more time to spend with my family and it was much more rewarding artistically. I still enjoyed doing "Roy of the Rovers", don't get me wrong. It's a love/hate relationship. It's the same with me with Scorer now [Ed: The strip David does for the Daily Mirror]. When I'm pushed, there's nothing worse than to go in there, read through the script and then get out a blank sheet of card and look at it. You think, "I'm going to piss this off!" Right? "I'm not paid enough, I'm just going to piss it off!" Once the pencil starts flowing though, that feeling is gone. I don't think of money, or time, or anything else…I just get involved in it and then I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

I've enjoyed doing all my strip work, but it's been a little bit sad for me that I've gone back to Scorer because I've gone on to better things. People do enjoy Scorer, I suppose, but I don't flatter myself. People only read it because they’re passing through the paper, so they read it and move on. There are, of course, quite a few Scorer fans out there but it's not like they’re saying "Oh God, did you see Scorer yesterday? Fantastic!" If you think that, you're not in the real world! In fact, I only know two people in the whole world that read the Daily Mirror. One's an ex trade union leader! Nobody turns straight to Scorer, for Christ's sake! But they enjoy it when they get to it, I guess, because it's football and it's a religion.

Indeed.

Anyway, I had to, what is the expression, beat them or join them? I had to join the computer age which none of my artist friends have done [Ed: David only does the linework for Scorer. The backgrounds and colour are added in digitally]. I should point out that most of the computer artists are not artists, they are people who have got some talent and they know how to use the art packages. The problem with that is that the clients soon realised that, because they were all using the same package, all the artwork looked the same, like plasticine people, you know.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. It does tend to look very, very samey and there's a very distinctive (and not very attractive) look to the whole thing.

It was a big threat though in the beginning, you know, when it first took off because they all wanted to go that route. So anyway, post-Roy I went on to do something that I really, really wanted to do which was (as I've said) "Story of the Star". Now that was a mixture of photographs and my illustrations.

And the stories were all based on real life footballers…

Yes, and that's where my portraiture really came to the fore. Because I'd done Kenny Dalglish, most of the big names…Gary Lineker…all about how they started off at school in the first eleven, were spotted, and we followed them right the way through their career. It was lovely to do, and if you watch out on eBay, I'm going to put some of the artwork on there.

Oh, right, OK! Let me know!

I'll tell you all about it before I do it because you might have some ideas. I thought the only people who would be interested in that original artwork would be the guys themselves. Half of them are dead, or they’re on their uppers. They're stony broke and they've pissed it all away! [laughs]

Well, you'd be surprised. I know quite a few people, like my brother-in-law, for example, who’s big into comics, and he's always bemoaning the fact that there's so little British comic art available to buy. The situation with the American stuff, of course, is completely different…and the market is pretty saturated. You can buy practically anything you want as long as you've got the money…

Yeah.

…but original British comic art is extremely hard to find compared to its American equivalent.

It's just a brain wave that came to me some time back. I haven't got Roy artwork, which is a tragedy because it was all moved from London into a warehouse somewhere up in Birmingham, I think it is, and all my old artwork is up there…of course there's copyright with that…

But it still exists presumably?

Whether it still does or not, I don't know. I shouldn't think so the way people are. They'll have cleared it out because they need space and it's a waste of money having all that space occupied – they could rent it out, or sell it, or whatever. So it's probably disappeared. It could be still there somewhere in a warehouse, but I don't know.

Did you ever actually own the Roy artwork, or once it was handed over was that it?

I actually did own it, although I didn't know it. Because the artwork is, in fact, mine so I could have gone and reclaimed it. But I wasn't interested, it was history…or that's how I felt at the time when I could have done it.

But you still have some of the "Story of a Star" stuff…

Yeah, I've got loads of that, and some other artwork too, but basically IPC magazines hold first rights and I couldn't sell it to be reprinted anywhere else. So that's why it's useless to sell on. I really, really got pissed off with the Christmas annuals where our stuff was reprinted and we got sod all for it. Mentioning that reminds me that there was a strike, oh I can't remember when – it was when I was buying my bloody house I think – and the day I was due to complete, Barry [Tomlinson] rang me up and said, "Sorry to have to tell you this Dave, but as from 12 o'clock today, Roy of the Rovers has ceased publication."

They were pushing for a rise, you see, and unions being what they were back then – it was a them and us attitude – it was all very fraught. I think IPC magazines offered two and a half percent and the union wanted eighteen percent. Quite a void! [laughs] But I think they eventually settled on twelve percent. Now IPC, in their wisdom, issued an ultimatum that said, "OK, we agree to twelve percent, but only to NUJ (National Union of Journalists) members."

So what did everyone do? We joined the union![laughs] Just for the sake of getting the increase of course. Now they said that there would be terms to be agreed for further printing of artwork – you know, second printing of artwork etc., etc. So we thought, "Thank Christ for that!", because all these years these poor artists have starved while their work has been reproduced and whatnot, and it just wasn't fair. So, I get the first huge cheque – because it was a lot of money in those days, it was something like 750 quid a week – and by the time it came through we'd been waiting and waiting because we'd had to skip some money due to the strike. So, I get the cheque and say "Thank Christ! Darling, I'm just going down to the bank, Ok?" and I get to the bank and I have got to countersign it on the back. So they'd agreed to pay us for first rights – for first publication, which is Roy of the Rovers magazine – but in small print underneath it says: "Signing this", which we had to countersign, "Signing this signs away all rights". Bastards! But that was the way of the world then…and it still is, of course, in business.

Ok, so I guess we should tackle the collapse of the British comics industry now! When did you first feel like the writing was on the wall, and what’s your take on the reasons for the collapse?

Well, my synopsis for that is, number one, that the number-crunchers came in from America, and this happened in every field of business in England. Their religion said that one paper couldn’t support another, Ok? So Barry [Tomlinson] had, as I said earlier, six publications going¹. They treated it as a group and if one was failing they would allow it to carry on with low distribution figures because they had other successful ones supporting it. These people came in, and they've done it with all sorts of businesses, and they said, "Lame duck, cut it off. It's not paying its way, cut it off." So that's one trend that spelled the end.

Two, my boys were a good barometer because they grew up very proud of their dad, you know, and told all their friends at school, "My dad does Roy of the Rovers" etc. But, having said that, they only bought the odd comic and weren't that interested because they were getting into the computer age. Stephen, my eldest son, was of the opinion – why should he spend his money on comics that were, in his mind, old hat? They were old hat because he had living pictures and would actually create levels in Doom etc., he would create rooms and dungeons and all sorts of things. He had his own version that he would play with his friends that he created. So where's the attraction in comics if you've got that sort of thing opening up in front of you?

I suppose comics could seem static, possibly, in comparison, I don't know…

We've got a nostalgia for them, we have a value on them. They just felt: "No, I'm not interested in that!".

Well, my brother is 25 and I don't know if he's ever even opened a comic in his entire life. So there you go!

Well that's what I mean. It's all about influences and what's popular around you. So that was number two. The big death knell though, which not a lot of people know about, again relates to number-crunching and all the rest of it. Now the local distributor of newspapers and magazines etc., was a company called Thunder and Clayton in Bournemouth. Now then, the principle before was a newsagent would put in an order for newspapers, magazines, whatever. Ok? So for the sake of argument, they would put in an order for 30 copies of Roy of the Rovers. Come the following week – it was called sale or return – Thunder and Clayton would make their deliveries and take back what didn't sell: Magazines, Roy of the Rovers, whatever. So that would go back to pulp, or whatever they did with it, and be recycled. Now the number-crunchers came in and they said: "No, it's not sale or return any more, they buy them." Ok?

Now then if the newsagent didn't sell all ten by the Monday he’d reorder for next week saying, "Can I have eight", then "Can I have six"…and that's it… we're starting to go down the pan. I remember, at the point that it went to the toilet paper, I think – don't quote me on this but say for the sake of argument – it was somewhere around 60,000 to 70,000 distribution of Roy of the Rovers, and not long after we were getting down to almost break even 20,000 on a Saturday each week. So that's when people were starting to poo themselves and think, "What are we going to do?".

But of course it was across the board, I mean…

Oh yeah, sure. The only one that survived was 2000AD.

And even with that, I think (though I may be wrong) that the readership is now largely composed of people who bought it back in the day and are probably in their late 20s or early 30s now! Anyway, I remember well, when I was about 13 or 14 I suppose, that every time you visited the newsagents you'd find a couple of comics had amalgamated into one publication. There was a period when that seemed to be happening almost on a weekly basis. So one question I wanted to ask is what people did when it all went to the wall? Obviously there were a lot of people employed in the industry who were now facing a crisis…

Well some artists…their artwork stayed the same year in, year out. In fact it degenerated. They were pissing it out more and more. Most of the good artists, on the other hand, if you look at their artwork over five year periods, it gets better and better and better.

They're the only ones that survived. I have survived – and I don't want to sound as if I'm blowing my own trumpet – but I have survived in this business (and that includes general illustration work as well) through quality. Quality will win out in the end. Going back to what I said I learned from artists like Velasquez, Frank Bellamy etc – where I would see something about their artwork that I would like and pick that up – I ended up, of course, with my own style…and it got to a point where people would go, "Oh, David Sque did that" – you'd just have to look to know that I did it. The artists that I cribbed from could look at it and say, "Oh, he got that from me!" – a particular part of it, you know, the way I would drawn an eye etc.

But the greatest compliment to me – and friends of mine have said, "Why didn't you sue the bastard!" – was when I went into a newsagents, picked up a comic, opened it, and flicked through it and there was a complete story that was my artwork nicked! The guy had copied my artwork religiously. So people said, "Why didn't you sue him? It's plagiarism!" I said, "No, I've been there!" and to me that is a compliment, a great compliment. That someone has chosen my style out of all the other people that he could have chosen…

I certainly would have been nicking plenty of things from your style when I was drawing. I was still at school but…

[laughs] Well that was the other thing. I used to get plagued by mothers and fathers saying, "My little Johnny, he's a brilliant artist. Would you have a look at his work and just see what you think?" And I never said no, because you cannot suppress talent, as you never know where it's going to lead. So I would always talk to them. I might think, "This is a dead, almost traced copy and crap", but I didn't say that. I'd say, "If you persevere, we'll see how it develops. If you've really got a taste for it you'll make it." You've got to encourage talent of any description.

Do you think – and this is a question I don't know if there's an easy answer to – is there a future, I mean the way there was in the 70s or 80s, for comics in Britain?

It would have to be a coming together of a sort of cult move of revival that would appeal to the younger generation. The thing about the comics of the 70s and 80s is that they appealed to all ages. That was the thing. They called them children's comics but fathers and the grandfathers used to fight over them too! Still, you just never know what's going to spark a revival…

I'm wondering how much, in terms of the way the industry was run back in those days – the ownership and management and what have you – I wonder how different that culture is now to the way it was in those days?

Unless they've swept quite a few of the old boys out, because unfortunately it's like father and son, the bosses will pass onto their underlings rules and regulations and ways to go. You get a few that stand out and change things, like the guy that did 2000AD, he's a beatnik sort of guy. I really can't think of his name because I didn't do any work for him.²

But I'll give you an example. When all of these things were tightening up, they were given strict budgets. Roy of the Rovers cost so much to produce, paying all the contributors with the printing fees and everything else. Ok? And the same with 2000AD. So, at the end of the financial year they were all hauled up to the top floor of IPC magazines in front of the big bosses etc, and each editor would be grilled. And so my editor Ian was a good boy. For the sake of argument say he had 2,000 pounds budget per issue, that's paying all the artists, everything involved, and he was bringing it in at 1,999 pounds, Ok?

Then you've got this guy that was running 2000AD and let's say his end of year figures were 2,500 per issue, Ok? So they go through it and say to Ian, "You've kept to the budget, we want you to make some more cuts, because you're doing well on that," And so they cut his budget by 10%. They go to the guy from 2000AD and say, "You're doing well, you obviously need more money so we're going to up your budget by 30%". Now where's the logic in that? It doesn't make sense does I?! But that's the way it works. His budget went up and up so he was allowed to get the top quality artists, the leaders in the field. I mean the guys that did Judge Dredd, there was a team of them I think, three or four different artists.

Well, there were some superb artists working on 2000 AD at the time…

Absolutely. Wonderful stuff. Anyway, at that point I got into computer artwork and I did some lovely work with that. I had the advantage, as I said earlier on, that I was an artist using the computer as a tool, whereas most of the other artists that were using the computer were able to use the package as opposed to being talented artists (and that's why all the artwork looked the same). I've done some lovely work that I really enjoyed and that's the way I thought I was going until Scorer cropped up.

I've got myself bogged down in Scorer now, because I’ve got to the point where I feel, well, I can do it with my eyes closed. It's still quite enjoyable work to do, but now I'm back to really working too hard for what I'm being paid. Still, it's regular work, and I'm one of the few people from that era that is in regular work.

So just going back to what we were discussing, what are most of your ex-colleagues doing now?

Well, I'm good friends with an artist that I told you about earlier- brilliant artist – John Batchelor, who went on to do lots of technical stuff. John used to do the centre cutaways in the revived Eagle. Cutaways of guns, tanks and all the rest of it. Pete Sarson [sp] was involved in that too, and he’s now a painter and decorator. I don't know what other fields they've gone into but Barry Mitchell is still scrubbing along, last I heard. There just isn't much work out there. A lot people have gone to the States for work.

Well, a lot of the British talent that went over to the States ended up becoming some of the most interesting and dynamic figures out there because they obviously brought a freshness, and totally different slant to the world of American comics.

It's unfortunate that like with most jobs, when you specialize and that's all you do, you're in deep shit if it folds. If that's all they've ever done – and there are quite a few artists who all they've ever done is comic illustration – they don't know anything else. I've diversified, doing everything from oil paintings, to magazine illustration etc. I've not got my eggs in one basket, so if all else fails, I can make a living doing oil paintings.

Anyway, it's interesting to see what'll happen. I think the key thing for any revival, really, is for it to be something that is more than simple nostalgia for people like myself. For it to be sustainable I suppose it would have to target the '13 year old boy' market successfully…

Yeah. You've got to appeal to the kids for the pocket money first. They're the highest spenders on that sort of thing.

And the most loyal as well, probably. Buying it week in, week out sort of thing, you know? Well, anyway, I think we'll leave it at that David, but I should add that, doom and gloom about the British comics industry aside, you're still easily one of my favourite comic book artists.

Thank you very much. I've had some lovely correspondence from all over the world, emails and whatnot. I had a load of emails from America and I couldn't understand why I was getting them. They said, "My dad was stationed in Oxford airbase – an American airbase – and I used to go into the local village and buy Roy of the Rovers every week religiously. I just got to love your artwork and yours was the best period", and whatnot and all these lovely flattering things. And of course, they're now sort of 40 year olds, 50 year olds. It was really great to get all that stuff and to know your work is appreciated.

The End

1. See Part 1 for details [back]
2. Not sure who David meant here…Pat Mills? [back]

Unsurprisingly (given the relative neglect¹ suffered by British comics) I found precious little of substance on the creative talent behind what was, in its time, essential reading for every young fella with even a passing interest in football. Luckily enough, however, one (significant) avenue of exploration was open to me, since I had – over the last few years – exchanged a few emails with the man whose artwork on Roy of the Rovers remains the most iconic (and elegant) take on the character: Mr. David Sque.²

As royoftherovers.com reliably informs us:

David drew the Roy of the Rovers story from January 1975 to August 1986. He gave Roy a new image with the flowing blond locks he became famous for.

Essentially, then, David's span on the comic coincided with my most formative (and comic-devouring) years, so it's no surprise that I consider the period in question to be something of a 'Golden Age' for the strip (although I consider that opinion sound, even when subjected to objective scrutiny). Where better then for fústar.org to go for answers/clues/anecdotes than to the door of the man whose inimitable style made the character one of the most celebrated fictional sporting heroes of all time?

Fortunately for me, David was nothing but enthusiasm and cooperation personified when I asked him to submit to an interview, and the result, I hope, is something that will interest all those readers who once followed a comics industry that has (sadly, and perhaps terminally) suffered near total collapse.

Anyway, it is not our business, here, to dwell on such negative thoughts…so on with the show. Enjoy.

I guess an obvious place to start, David, is to ask if you were interested in comics as a child? If so, what would have been some of your favourites?

Ah, I was quite interested in comics…I wasn't much of a reader but because they had illustrations in them I suppose, I did enjoy comics. They were the thing in those days. That was your weekend entertainment, and reading matter. Because you know I've only become a reader of books, for instance, in my older age. I always thought, because of being an artist, that the usual thing of laying in bed and falling asleep reading a book, to me that was straining my eyes and wasting my eyes and eyesight, you know? I'm so lucky in that I only need glasses for close work now.

Anyway, I used to read Beano, Dandy, those sort of things…Tiger, whatever I fancied. I didn't have any favorites until the The Eagle came out, and when Eagle came out that really started my interest going. Not that I thought at that time I wanted to be a comic illustrator.

It was just that I loved the artwork in there, and I remembered going with my thru’penny bit, which I doubt you'll remember, to the local newsagent to buy my first Eagle, and it was just magical, it really was.

I see, and how did you first become interested in illustrating yourself?

Well, I went to art college, Poole college. It was a four year course for a national diploma, so I could get an NDD behind my name, not that that means anything. Basically it was to get another string to my bow, in case my eyesight gave out in later life, I could teach with that…or go into other things…but I enjoyed the course because it was so varied.

The first two years were basically composition, life drawing, fabric design, sculpture…all sorts of stuff as far as an intermediate course is concerned. Then you had to choose and either go to Bournemouth or Poole College of Art…so I decided to study graphic design.

Right now, how ironic things are. When I was doing my paintings, because I did paintings now and then and all sorts of work right across the board – portrait work being my favorite, but (alas) I was born too late because people will either have a photograph taken or…anyway they're not really into portraits. Anyway, the thing that used to really piss me off is that when they were reviewing our paintings and compositions and whatnot, when it came to mine they said, "Beautiful artwork – but that would make a good illustration." I was offended at the time!

[laughs] Right.

I thought, "It's not an illustration, it's a bloody painting for Christ's sake! I was really, really annoyed – but that was the path that I was meant to go.

Indeed.

So basically I was introduced to that world, funnily enough, by Yvonne Hutton.³ Her name was actually Yvonne Mullins (at the time) and I used to go to Poole Art College with her.

She was in the year above me, Yvonne. And she mentioned this guy Colin Page, and they were doing comic illustrations for children's newspapers, or whatever you want to call them. So I said that's interesting, and she said why don't you come out and meet him, so I went and met him and basically in the final year – in the summer holidays before the final term – I worked with him, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was really brilliant. But when I went back to re-enroll, I was sitting there with this one guy – and he was a typical one of those guys, "If you can't do it, teach." He was a failed graphic designer! Great guy, don't get me wrong – and he asked, "What have you been doing this summer?" to which I replied, "Oh, I've been doing some comic illustrations…children's illustrations." He said "Oh, Christ!" and yelled across the whole hall to the rest of the staff shouting "Did you hear this? Squey's been doing whiz bang pop stuff!".

[laughs] So it wasn’t looked on too favourably…

No…and when I actually started the term, the principal called me into his office and said, "I heard this rumour that you were doing some children's illustrations, or comic illustrations. Is that true?" and I said, "Yeah, it's very interesting." And he said, "Oh come on, you're a graphic designer – you don't need to be doing that sort of thing." So I said, "Well, I enjoy it and that's a big plus for me, and I'm doing something different all the time. Plus the fact I'm totally autonomous – I'm doing it all, from start to finish, my own work.

What publications were you working on at that stage, David?

At that time, when it was just part time and I was doing it while I was at college, they were mainly the annuals – the Christmas annuals, and I would go help this guy with his work. So the irony of it was when I actually completed the course and went full time, the first job I got I actually earned twice as much as the principal! And I said, well that's a nice little, you know, kick! [laughs] Anyway, back to the story of Colin Page – the guy that Yvonne worked for and I worked with as well – he was a guy from London who thought I was a hick from the sticks…

[laughs] So where were you actually born?

Bournemouth – that's were I'd lived most of my life. They are sort of linked together Bournemouth and Poole, but I was born and raised in Bournemouth. So he thought that I was a hick, but I showed interest in wanting to do his type of work because I liked it…and he lived just outside of Wareham in a little village, he had his house there. They were the idyllic young conservative couple from London – 2.1 children, you know, and the good life and I envied them that actually! The good life. Above the stables (he had a stable) was his studio.

So, I would do the penciling, and he would say, "Make this bigger, alter this" whatever. I'd make corrections and send it to him and he'd say, "Yep, go ahead, just alter that a little bit, then go to ink." So then I would ink it all in and he would look at it and check it and say, "Just make that a little bit so and so.�? So he was teaching me that that field of work.

What stories were you illustrating then, can you remember?

Well, I did some work on Skid Solo if you remember that…I just helped him on those sorts of things, and he was… what was he doing at the time? Fighting 13, I think it was called. It was a Rugby story.

I think I remember that…

Umm… He actually took that on from Joe Colquhoun, and Joe was actually a friend of mine.

Right! Of course Joe was a legend with… Charley's War being what he's most famous for I suppose.

Yeah. Well he actually lived nearby in Swanage. So there's a link there…lovely guy, actually, really lovely. So, anyway, when I was doing all the work myself, I would be getting all the money. I would give him [Colin Page] some money for use of the studio while I was out there, and the idea was we would become partners, or colleagues – which in my field of work is a brilliant idea, because you cannot afford to be ill. The amount of times I've been working, two o'clock in the morning sitting on my desk with an anorak on, and two pieces of rolled-up kitchen roll up my nose…and working even though I'd got the flu. The buck stops with you. You can't say, "Oh I'm fed up with this, I'm going off." or "I'm going to have a sick leave" or whatever.

So that was the principle and basically after a year working with him I thought, "Something's not right here." I didn't think I was getting enough money, etc., etc. And there was a mutual friend – John Batchelor who's a very famous cutaway illustrator – and I rang him up when Colin was away on holiday (I think he’d gone to Ibiza for a couple of weeks). So I rang up John Batchelor (who knew all the contacts in London) and I said I said to him, "John, this is David. If you want that this phone call never took place, I'd quite understand, but this is the position", and I explained that all the work went through Colin and I had no contact with London at all (IPC magazines who were in Faringdon Street at the time).

I could imitate his work and he could imitate mine, right? So it would have been a golden opportunity to make life easier for each other. Stand in for each other, take holidays, breaks, sickies, whatever you want. It would have been brilliant…but he was a crook from London [laughs]. I said "This is the position, John. He gets the work, it goes out in his name and so and so", and he said, "That's not right. Christ, I didn't know he was doing that." He said, "Right, I'm going to make a few phone calls." So he rang me back and he said, "Can you come to London on Friday with me?" And I said yes. So, we went up to London and I met all the big bosses. Within half an hour, they said, "We know your work, we like your work, and they gave a job straight away – within half an hour. Then they took me out for a three-hour lunch in the Red Lion, off Faringdon Street where all the hacks go, and it was brilliant. So that's basically when my career took off.

And what age were you at that stage, David?

I was twenty one.

Okay, right. So really not long out of college, at all…

No, I finished college when I was nineteen-going-on-twenty, and that would have been…around 1966. So anyway, I subsequently found out that all my work went up as his and in his name. and I was getting less than half the fee, though I was doing all of it! So he was screwing me, and he was screwing Yvonne, obviously, who was also working there.

So as far as the people in London were concerned , the work was his?

Yes. They thought that he did it!

Okay, because that was a question I was going to get on to in a while, but you didn't have any credits in those days. The American comics always had a sort of "who did what" but with British comics you were generally anonymous, weren't you?

The reason for that was there was a big rivalry between IPC Magazines and DC Thomson, the one based in Scotland, and I have done some work for them, but they wouldn't allow you to sign your artwork because they didn't want you to be poached. I used to get the odd sort of fan letter written to "whoever the artist was", because of their rule of not being allowed to sign anything or be acknowledged…and if I remember rightly, 2000AD was the first one that did it.

Yes, they did, and some of those people became, not household names exactly, but they became known within the comics world because of those credits: the credits for lettering, the credits for art, the credits for the writing…

It was a stupid viewpoint of theirs [IPC/DC Thomson] really. Because if they gave credit and their artists were appreciated then it would have led to healthy competition, and then everyone would have been happy. They would have got better artwork, the best artwork, and the artists would have been paid proper money. But DC Thomson for instance didn't know what IPC were paying their artists and vice versa. It was an insular family type business, all secretive.

Interesting.

They guarded their artists jealously, but they didn't pay them accordingly! It's never been fantastic money. I've lived well, but I've been lucky. I've had a career working at doing something people consider a hobby. You know, I love it.

Indeed, so can you perhaps talk us through the path from there to Roy of the Rovers, which, I suppose, is the next step.

Right, so the first job I had that I was given then was "The Hand of Khan", and it was a guy that was a Viking….a super hero that used to fly around and he had this steel hand. Now this also links with the fact that my style is an amalgam. Basically – and everyone does this – anyone creative is inspired by different people. So first, on one of the pages on your site, you talked about "The Hand of Khan"…sorry "The Steel Claw". Now the guy that used to do that, or at least he did it at one stage, was a guy called Velasquez [sp].

His artwork was the best ever. Absolutely superb. He just used the lines – that's when I learned to illustrate with a brush. Most people use a pen when they are doing ink wor, but I use a brush, because it is far more expressive, and that's what Velasquez used to use. Where he comes from I don’t know…probably South American – they used to get illustrators from all over the place. So, Velasquez was my first influence.

Anyone else that springs to mind?

Well there was…Barry Mitchell, I liked a lot of things he did with his line work…and then there was Ron Embleton, he was a friend of mine, a good friend.

I'm trying to think…what would he have done?

You would have known him from fantastic work that he did in Look and Learn.

Ah, I see.

He had a very distinctive style because he used to actually draw with colour – it was all strokes. He didn't blend or anything, it was all strokes. And he then went on to do 'Wicked Wanda' in Penthouse – did you ever see that?

Ehm…

No you were a good little boy. A good little Catholic boy!

Absolutely! I wouldn’t know anything about that sort of thing…ahem…

[laughs] Anyway, lovely guy unfortunately he died suddenly aged 58, and poor old Joe Colquhoun, he died quite young too. Actually, when I started Roy of the Rovers I had an awful lot to do and I went to see Joe to see if he could help me…and he helped me out, drawing in a few pages for me and then I'd pick them up and ink them in. All right, we can go back to the story of my life so to speak. So first there was "The Hand of Khan", then…

Sorry David, what publication was that in?

Well you've got me there, it was either Tiger or Victory – was it Victory…or…

Victor maybe?

Victor. That's right. One of those two anyway. Then I went on and for a short while I did "Slogger", which was about an Australian Cricketer, and more of a funny, cartoony type of style. Then I got my first sort of serious job which was "Philip Marlowe". Now he was a secret agent and his cover was being a professional golfer. He was like a James Bond character.

[laughs] I don't think I remember him…

With a little fat cat caddy as his sidekick. Actually when I look back at some of those drawings they were horrendous! But I thought they looked good at the time. Then they created a story for me, and that was "Martin's Marvelous Mini".

Martin was me, because I was into motor racing and whatnot and they used to race and rally this mini, and went all over the world. Funny little story, they were going though Africa and I said, "Oh I'll do a distance scene" – it was center-page and full colour. So you've got, in the distance, the mini with a long plume of dust behind it, and I thought for interest I'd put a tiger in the foreground.

So I spent a lot of time on it and it went up to London on delivery and Barry Tomlinson who was the guy who was my editor then and is my editor now – well not my editor he's my scriptwriter. So I sent it up and Barry said "Brilliant, love the artwork, lovely tiger, could you do a redraw. They're only found in India!" I thought "Oh Shit!". I didn't think, you know!

[laughs] And again… I'm trying to remember, what publication was "Martin's Marvelous Mini" in?

It was either Lion or Tiger. I think it was Lion. Yes, it was Lion, I'm sure.

Funnily enough, even though some of these stories would have been before my time, I ended up getting a lot of comics from these local 'Sales of Work' (as they were called) which were in local parish halls raising money for various religious organizations, the missions etc. There would always be mothers who would, very cruelly, take all their son's comics and…

[Laughs] Right!

…bring them into the jumble sale and of course, I'd buy them all. I still have some of them. So there'd be plenty of comics from the 60s. I was born in the 1970s but I had all these old British comics and a lot of these stories sound pretty familiar to me. What year are we talking about here, by the way?

Hmmm… I think something like 1968. Somewhere around then. Now then, Yvonne at the time was doing "Roy of the Rovers", okay, and that was in Tiger.

Yes, because the comic didn't exist at that stage – the actual, separate Roy of the Rovers comic.

Right, no. Now then, so Yvonne went on to do something else and so "Roy" was in the offing…but of course they pigeonhole you: "Oh David is motor racing." And I was talking to Barry and he said, "Oh Yvonne's giving up 'Roy of the Rovers'". So I said, "Well I wouldn't mind doing it….I'll do it for a while to help out if you want", and I actually did both stories – both in full colour- for something like three months, which was a nightmare!

[laughs]

Anyway, they said, "This is football! You’re not interested in football" and I said, "No I can draw anything." People are people, figures are figures – just put a football shirt on them or whatever! Now of course I was sworn to secrecy and couldn't tell the Sunday papers that I didn't like football when I was doing the national footballing hero in comics! Obviously I've played it, but I'm a doer not a watcher. I loved playing football at school and in later years.

But did you not feel overawed taking on a major football strip when you weren't particularly keen on the game yourself?

Not at all, no. Now don't get me wrong. My pet was "Martin's Marvelous Mini". It was my story. So I was just helping out. Of course, one of the things was to cure money problems – get some money in the bank – the joys of being self employed! So after three months I was swimming in it – no worries at all – and I rang up Barry [Tomlinson] and I said "I'm sorry, it's getting too much. I'm going to have to give up 'Roy'"." They said “No, no, no, no, no. We love the way you're doing 'Roy'. You're going to have to give up 'Martin's Mini'."

[Groans] They didn't really give me much choice…but to sweeten it they said we're going to make "Roy" bigger and "Martin's" was going to go back into black and white anyway. I don't think it did for a while but it was just to tell me that I was going to lose money if I made that decision. Of course I could have said, "Stuff the lot", you know, "I'm self employed", but I went on to do "Roy" full time, even though I wasn’t a real football fan.

You see, I hate what goes along with football, that's the problem. I follow all the big international games – England, whatever when they're playing. But it's just that, I suppose, through most of that time there was lots of hooliganism and violence and whatnot…

Of course, that was probably the worst period for that kind of thing in England…

Yeah, it really was, and I remember that…Barry went on to supervise six publications at one point: Lion, Tiger, Roy of the Rovers and three more that he'd taken over. So he was group editor. And my editor, who came in to do Roy was Ian Vosper. Lovely, lovely guy.

So he was my immediate editor on Roy and he rang up one day and said "Hey! Portsmouth (…he was originally from Portsmouth…) are playing Bournemouth at Bournemouth. Would you fancy going?" And I said "Yeah…alright", and that was the first professional football match I had ever been to. I could not believe it, we were up in the back of the stands, watching the Portsmouth fans run across from left to right, making loads of noise, this is while the game is going on! Then they were running back, right to left, followed by the Bournemouth fans. Then they'd stop, and say, "Oh someone scored a goal… Yay!" and then back to the fighting again!

God! [laughs]

And I thought if this was bloody football, forget it. It was a nightmare outside too. I remember once being on one of the back roads in a shop, and I was talking to the owner. I had an Aston Martin at the time – a DB6 – my pride and joy and it was parked outside and we heard this noise. So we went out and there was this football crowd, because it was a Saturday afternoon before the match.

So they went down the corner, about a hundred yards down the road, and then one of the tail-enders said, "Whoa, look at that! An Aston Martin!" And they all come screaming back up, marching towards the car, and I thought, "Well, fuck this for a game of soldiers" so I got in, started it up, and drove straight through ‘em, because, you know, you didn't know what kind of damage they could have done. It's just that feeling that totally put me off football.

I can totally understand that, in a way. I've always loved football, and obviously, I loved football stories in comics as well. But then again, I've been to relatively few professional football matches – being Irish – because we have a very tiny, nonexistent almost, soccer league here. So I've definitely been insulated from that aspect of things. I never experienced that kind of feeling, that sort of hostility.

Unfortunately, fan is short for "fanatic," and that's what the mentality was.

Very tribal as well…

Yeah, very tribal and very territorial. So fans that went to watch an away match just risked their lives! Because they were going into foreign territory, and like you see the fights in the bars where it all starts out friendly, drinky drinky and whatnot, and then there's the, "Ah, you're wankers" and so on and then “Whoa!�?, it all takes off, with, "You're rubbish," etc, etc., and it's just bloody tribal war again!

It's something I never considered. Now that you actually mention it, when you started doing the strip it was a particularly nasty time, wasn't it, In terms of that sort of stuff? They say football has become more family-friendly these days. I don't know if that's true but…

I would definitely say so. I mean, there are still the firms that just go for a fight. Those still exist but it's kept out of the stadiums now.

What I was going to say to you as well, was that I found it strange when you said that you weren't a fan because I remember at the time reading the comic thinking – and I won't mention any names – that some of the other football strips used to feature action that was kind of incredible. It was a bit daft, you know, people dribbling the length of the field and scoring ridiculous bicycle kicks and so on, but I always felt with Roy that it was pretty rooted to reality. There wasn't really that sort of ridiculous end of things, you know?

Well, one that was down to the scripts, and two, I wanted to get away from the 'super hero'. I never drew him as a super hero. Actually this leads me on to a story. When I was doing it for about a year full time it started to get really popular. Now whether that was my artwork or just the feeling at the time, I don't know, but they decided that it warranted bringing out a magazine of its own, and that's how Roy of the Rovers (the comic) was born.

Now, getting into that, I chatted with Barry [Tomlinson] about it and we decided that it would be a good idea to make him a real character. Okay, now the downside of that is that it spells the death knell of the character, and it actually ended up being (essentially) Son of Roy of the Rovers (at the very end).

But that's the natural progression, as soon as you establish an age. There were always jokes, of course, because he started in…1954 I think it was, and he was a perpetual hero. The jokes were, “Oh Roy Race must be 55 by now!�? and all this sort of thing, but of course in the true hero mould it was ongoing, "no set period", you know. So it could go on and on forever. Anyway, we decided to make him a real character. But you know there was this cut-throat business side, and hierarchy in the company. Barry is a lovely, lovely guy and a good ideas man, and he went to his boss, who was the big group editor – he was a nasty piece of work actually – and Barry goes to him for a meeting and the guy says to him "How's this going, how's that going, how's Roy of the Rovers going?" And Barry says "Great, we've got several ideas about it. We want to make him a real character, marry his secretary Penny⁴, and have kids." And the guy said "Oh, crap idea! Bollocks! That will never work."

A month later – Barry told me this – a month later they had to go to the top floor, to the managing director, editor in chief. So they are all sitting around this big table, and they talked to all the different people present, and the big cheese says to the guy in question, "Well what's happening about Roy of the Rovers? That's looking good". And the guy says "Yes, actually, I've had a brilliant idea. It might be a good idea if he got married – married his secretary – and had kids, and became a real character". And Barry had to sit there and just listen to that….even though it was Barry's idea and this guy had pooh-pooh'd it!

Bloody hell…

And this guy just stood up there and took the credit for it – "Yeah, good idea, great! Go for it!".

So Barry was forced to bite his lip…

Yeah, he couldn’t do anything, but that's the way of business isn't it? Corporate business anyway. That's why I've been well out of it, and I've never had a boss. I work for me. Mind you, I've been a bastard of a boss – I won't let myself have time off for Christmas, and I'm not allowed to be sick.

[laughs] What about some of the writers who were working on the strip at the time. Whatever about yourself and people like you who did the artwork, the writers of the period were pretty anonymous. I don't know anything about them to be honest…I don't even know anybody's name.

Ummm… I can't think of the guy who did Roy – I can't think of his name, because I loathed him! He was like an out of work actor, but he owned a pub, and his wife ran it and he was upstairs writing all the scripts. Every time I opened the envelope with the script – he smoked very heavily – and all you could smell was nicotine wafting out of the envelope [laughs]. But I didn't like him, though I actually quite liked his scripts. I can't for the life of me think of his name. Yvonne didn't like him either.

And Yvonne had worked on Roy before you had?

Yes, very talented as well. Unfortunately they had a hold on her and she didn't leave Colin Page. She was angry when I told her all the things that I did, and I think he calmed her down- just gave her a bit more money or whatever.⁵

Okay, so now's probably a good time to start talking about how the whole process – from start to finish – of creating the average weekly strip on Roy. Could you describe how it went?

Okay, basically how I used to go about Roy of the Rovers was the same way I do now. First I get the script. Basically it will be…a scene description, the characters involved, and then the dialogue, Okay, so first off, you divide it, in the case of Roy, into pages. Some frames have to be bigger than others of course. That's one thing I will say I've never been that good at is page layout. There are some better artists than I as far as page layout is concerned. Occasionally I would get an inspiration and I would do some good things, but I was just run of the mill as far as page layout was concerned I must admit.

Well now, actually, that you mention it – I do remember one page that sticks in my memory. It was the time when Roy was due to leave Melchester to join Walford and that whole saga. I do remember a full page with him having various memories (in 'memory bubbles') of past events and what have you…and that was a real favorite of mine as a kid, because it was a pretty dynamic image with lots going on.

[laughs and feigns voice] Oh I have me moments!

[laughs] Anyway go ahead.

So I divide it up into pages then I say "Right, I've got five, six, seven, eight frames on this page – which one do I give dominance to?" Goal scoring ones in Roy were difficult because they had to take up space. So basically the format that I would work to is…say we've got frame one and it will say: "Here is Roy talking to Blackie Gray" and whoever. Then you go to the dialogue. Now English you read left to right, so say you've got three characters – the first one's got to go top left (balloon) the second one has go to go top right, then the third person has got to be below that. You can have them all in a row if you can fit them in, you see, but I never liked putting balloons on anything. On action, on people, whatever. So having done that, I would then imagine the three characters chatting…and their expressions. Then I would be like a camera – walking around that group until I got the best view and the best distribution of the balloons…so they're readable.

Okay.

Because London would go bloody ape if they were unreadable. I mean, back in the past, I've seen pages where they've had to draw arrows in [laughs] and number the boxes because the artist hasn't done it right, you know?

That's a strange thing too, but I guess you develop a certain 'comic literacy' that means you just know what order these things are supposed to fall in. I don't know…but maybe if you showed it to someone who'd never read a comic in their life they'd find it hard to follow the conversation…

Yeah, that’s true.

But I think as a kid, you would figure it out, because of certain familiar conventions or whatever…

Yeah.

So, was that standard then, that you would – because I'm trying to think of what the job would be for the letterer – you would place the balloons yourself?

No, though I would do an undersized balloon. Because it did really annoy me later on when I was doing colour and they'd say, "Don't leave any balloon spaces. Leave empty spaces", but there was a lot of work that would get covered up and it really teed me off.

Yeah, I've often thought that must be annoying! All your good work covered up…

I'd be thinking "Right then I'll just leave acres of sky to put the balloons in!"

Well it must have been good having the crowd to put the balloons over as well….

Yeah and I actually used to enjoy – I had a great trade going – of putting friends in on the advertising hoardings, so when I was courting my ex I'd put "Jennifer's Salon" or "Jennifer's Hairdressers" on the hoardings during the matches, you know?

[laughs] Very good.

So I did everything but the balloons. Anyway as an aside, the greatest disappointment in my artistic life, and a real bring-you-down-to-earth thing was this: Where I used to live, where I grew up, there was heath land over the back, and they were gradually filling in the valley with rubbish – you know, land fill. Now none of my friends and family ever threw out magazines. Those went to me, because I always wanted to draw everything accurately. So I would thumb through every magazine I could possibly read and tear out references for whatever I had to draw. I can draw most things I want now off the top of my head unless I need a special car. I think, oh, I'll put this guy in a Lamborghini. Now I go on the Internet and I'll go to images and I'll get a Lamborghini and away we go. But then it was magazines.

Now I used to take my dog for a walk over the heath land and go by this rubbish dump. I'm one of those people who cannot pass a skip without rummaging through it, and the amount of things I get out of skips you wouldn't believe. I've always been that way. One man's rubbish is another man's gold!

[Laughs] I hear you. You've got a kindred spirit here.

The amount of things I've got out of skips and put right because of mechanical knowledge or whatever, mended or fixed and for nothing, right? Anyway, so the point that I was getting to was…I was walking along and there was a copy of Roy of the Rovers with shit all over it…

I had always had an idealistic view that my art was so wonderful that it was pinned up on kids' walls. But no, it went in the bin! [laughs] So that's the full cycle, from nothing to rubbish!

End of Part 1

So we'll leave it there, dear readers, for now, as that's about the half-way mark. Lots more goodies to come (before the weekend) in the second, and final, part. David is a terrific conversationalist and I honestly feel, if it hadn't been for the strain put on his layrnx and my telephone bill, that we could have made this into 5, 6, or 100 parts…but 2 large slices should be enough to keep comics lovers happy.

In the next installment hear tales of Spandau Ballet, 'Toilet Paper', and the death of the British comics industry.

Till then…

[tags]Roy of the Rovers,Roy Race,David Sque,comics,Beano,Dandy,Tiger,Eagle,Charley's War,football[/tags]

1. In comparison to Marvel/DC stuff. [back]
2. Now living in sunny Spain. [back]
3. The artist who drew the Roy of the Rovers strip immediately before David. [back]
4. Which he eventually did. [back]
5. David asked me to mention Yvonne Hutton's (nee Mullins) tragic, and early, death. As David himself puts it "On holiday somewhere, her husband was driving, and the two kids in the back and they're coming back towards Dorchester – they lived in Weymouth – and there was a new dual carriageway and they were talking and it was night-time and they went up the wrong side and hit a lorry head on. It was a tragedy. She was a lovely girl. A lovely, lovely girl." [back]

After Part Two's tales of horse colic, Neil Jordan, Flann O'Brien, Fortycoats, and 'Ould Mr. Brennan'…our story drifts gently towards its ending. My thanks (again) go out to Eugene for agreeing to chat (off the cuff) about this, that, the other, and everything in between.

You've been a great audience, folks. Good night, and safe home. (curtain)

So what's become of the actual wagon now Eugene? The documentary [Pulling the Strings] seemed to suggest that it has become the property of Fossett's Circus….

It used to be outside Telifís Éireann [in Donnybrook] for a long time, literally falling asunder, until Eddie Fossett took it. He then (thankfully) decided to repair it, so he has it in storage now.

Actually, for the second last Late Late Show with Gay Byrne, Gay said he would love to have the wagon on…but nobody knew where it was! Then, by accident, I found out where it was through doing the Punch and Judy Act in the Peter Ustinov film version of The Old Curiosity Shop. I didn't appear myself, but I did (as I say) do the Punch and Judy in it, and there were also some of Eddie Fossett's jugglers and acrobats involved. Anyway, Eddie and I got chatting and he said "You know, I have the wagon!" (laughs) So that’s how I got to find out.

Then, about 4 years ago, we had it up in the National Museum in Collins' Barracks, and we had about five thousand turn up to see it…mostly adults!

So is it back in Fossett's now?

Yes, it's back in Fossett's. It's there and it can be hired out.

You've suggested that you felt that you (and the family) lost control of Wanderly Wagon, somewhat, around the time it made the transition to colour, as it no longer felt like "a live show". How had things changed exactly?

In the early black and white days they couldn't edit the tape, so you did the show from beginning to end and if anything went wrong you had to start again. But then when it went into colour and they started to have editing facilities, they began to do shows simultaneously, so we'd do the interiors (say) for two different shows together. That made continuity very difficult …it became more of a technical show…and it was much more difficult to work like that for me.

I know that Wanderly was one of the first Irish TV shows (if not the first) to use 'Chroma Key' (or 'Colour Separation Overlay'), thus allowing the wagon to enter more fantastical realms (under the sea, outer space etc). What are your memories of working with that technology?

Well there were wonderful things you could do, of course. Suddenly the wagon could fly, and I remember we used helicopter footage that they had, and showed the wagon flying out to Cappagh Hospital, and all the other children's hospitals we used to visit at Christmas.

In general, how much freedom, did you have from RTÉ creatively?

Well we were always allowed to come up with ideas, and I was consulted about the different things we could actually do with puppets. So…over the years we came up with a lot of the puppetry ideas that made the show what it was.

How tight was the schedule in terms of getting the shows finished on time?

We used to rehearse for two days, and then we’d be in the studio for a full day, but it was never enough time, never enough time…

Then there were also sessions doing songs, recording songs and so on with Jim Doherty who used to do the music. There were a lot of different song-writers and composers too, over the years.

Were the mythical/folkloric elements of the show something you personally felt interested in, or did they (instead) spring simply from the imaginations of individual writers?

Well that really only featured in the later episodes like the ones they're after doing for the DVD, and 'Chroma Key' was used a lot in those ones. But we really didn't do that kind of 'Irish folklore' thing too often before that. We had some great episodes, though, in the early years, like 'Upside-Down land'…and…some of the early ones were marvellous really. All done without the special effects too.

I’ve heard that many (if not most) of RTÉ’s Wanderly Wagon tapes were erased/re-used due to cost-cutting techniques prevalent at the time. How much material actually remains in the archives, do you know?

Well they were big, wide tapes and they used to use them over and over. I was originally told that most of the tapes were gone, but there are still quite a few left…probably 150 tapes at least. Of course, we must have done an awful lot more that that over the years…so it's a great shame. But it was common practice at the time, and the BBC used to have the same problem.

For example, for all the years we did Murphy agus a Chairde (5 years) there's none of it left. Well, there's a little 2 minute clip…or it mightn't even be 2 minutes…in the documentary, and that survived because it was on film. It was a documentary about Telifís Éireann that happened to be filming at the time.

But in the coming years they're going to allow me to go through the archives and pick out ones that I'd like. I'll hopefully even be able to get something out of the tapes that are damaged, and I could always link up the fragments with inserts from Judge and myself.

So there'll definitely be more material coming out on DVD?

Yes, [the first volume] was a great success last year with over 30,000 copies sold. I didn't really have that much to do with it, they really only gave it to me to OK, but if I'd had the choice I wouldn't have picked the ones they picked. If I'd had the time I might have chosen something else but by the time they came to me it was already November so…

Anyway, it was EMI that did it and it took a long time to get Telifís Éireann to release the material, but because of the success they're definitely going to do more.

Finally, Eugene, could you tell us a little bit about the 'International Puppetry Festival' you're currently organising?

The puppetry festival is in its 13th year, and we're working hard on it at the moment. We're hoping to have a Russian company, a Mexican company, and a group from Iran would you believe! They're three girl puppeteers from Iran and it would be a great coup if we could get them.

As well as our own theatre we'll also be using the Pavilion this year, for the Russian one. It's not all finalised yet but we're hoping it'll be a very good festival.

The End

(…More fustar.info interviews [hopefully] coming soon…)

With Part 1 (and Eugene’s early days) behind us, our tale now winds its way toward the promised land of Part 2…and the arrival of a certain wagon.

Ready boys and girls?

Ok, Eugene, if we could just talk a little about the origins of Wanderly. Who takes the credit for the initial concept of a show based around a ‘magical wagon’?

That was a joint idea between myself and [director] Don Lennox. We had a lot of ideas at the time…but then of course they brought in writers…there were a lot of writers. We probably had, oh, 7 or 8 writers over the years.

Is it true that Pat Ingoldsby wrote some episodes?

Oh yes, Pat Ingoldsby wrote for us…Neil Jordan too! Then there was Carolyn Swift, Gordon Snell, Michael Judge…and a lot more.

I’ve heard you mention that Judge and Mr. Crow (the two most iconic puppet characters) were there from the very beginning of Wanderly, but had they ever been used prior to that (in Murphy agus a Chairde for example)?

Oh no, they were all different. They were all specially created for the show – Judge, and Mr. Crow, and Foxy, the squirrels, the mice, and Sneaky Snake – they were all our own original ideas for Wanderly Wagon.

According to the recent documentary made about the family, Pulling the Strings, you were originally only supposed to supply the puppets, but eventually found yourself playing the 'Jovial character' that Wanderly Wagon needed.

That’s right yes, originally. I had done some straight acting before that though. I was in the Abbey Theatre production of At Swim-Two-Birds [an Adaptation of Flann O'Brien's novel by Audrey Welsh] where I played the Pooka.

Oh Right!

…and did the ventriloquism for the Good Fairy who was an invisible character. Alan Simpson, Lord have Mercy on Him, was the director of that…an absolutely wonderful man. It was a wonderful production.

I also acted in a children’s play, a Robert Bolt play…in the Eblana theatre, which is gone now…and I did pantomime, of course, and a few other things too. I actually did several pantomimes with Maureen Potter in the Gaiety.

Of course when I did the ventriloquism it was really more adult shows and cabaret, but through television, then, I became known more as a children’s entertainer than an adult entertainer…

What about the casting of Nora O’ Mahony? Had you known her before, and what was she like to work with (and as a person)?

Nora O’Mahony of course was Godmother, and I knew of her…you know. She was a very famous actress actually, and had played in several films in Hollywood. One of the last ones she did was Darby O’Gill and the Little People, do you know that one?

I do indeed, with Jimmy O'Dea, Sean Connery etc.

Yes, they showed it quite recently…she was the barmaid [Molly Malloy] in that, so if you ever see it again you’ll know to watch out for her. She was a lovely person…but she gave it all up and went to work as a lay missionary in Rhodesia, and she was Bishop Lamont’s secretary for many years until she got a tropical disease, a kidney disease, and she was invalided home. After that she started reading letters on The Frank Hall Show on television, and that’s how we discovered her for Wanderly Wagon.

I believe that Rory (Bill Golding) left the show in 1974, though I don’t recall this personally I might add. I’ve read that the character "left the team early deciding to help the moon mice repair the moon with the help of some cheese". Is this true, and what are your memories of Bill?

He was a wonderful actor and he played several characters. He played Fortycoats¹ actually, with his flying sweetshop (The flying sweetshop was my idea, by the way).

And yes, what you read is true, himself and Foxy went off to repair the moon with the mice!

But Bill was always very busy because he did a lot of commercials and he did a lot of straight acting in the Gate Theatre and that…

Someone told me that he actually does the voice of "Ould Mr. Brennan".² Is that right?!

Yeah, that’s actually the voice he used to do for Fortycoats, the original Fortycoats! Now after Wanderly Wagon finished they did a program called Fortycoats & Co.…which was a rehash of our program…

So you (the Lamberts) didn't have anything to do with that show?

No, we’d nothing to do with that at all…but they actually rehashed some of our scripts, you know. Anyway, it was never as popular as Wanderly Wagon! (laughs)

Frank Kelly is another fondly remembered Wanderly regular. What are your memories of working with Frank?

Well Frank Kelly actually wrote quite a lot of Wanderly Wagon and then he played several characters over the years, the last one (of course) being Dr. Astro. But he had played several others…I remember he played a pirate – I forget his name now [Ed: Possibly 'Long John Gold'?] – and he was a brother..a monk! And, of course, he did the voice of Sneaky Snake. He was a very versatile man, though he’s now (of course) best know for Fr. Jack!

There’s a scene in the documentary where Jim O’Hare talks about the actual design of the wagon. Can you tell us a little bit about how it was first created?

Yes, Jim was the designer, and he worked in Telifís Éireann. The wagon was designed on a dray…CIE used to have these horse drays and it was on one of those. And we actually bought the original horse, Telifís Éireann owned him…Pádraig the Horse! We did a lot of filming of putting on the harness, and feeding him, and hooking him up to the wagon and all that…but there was actually a new lawn laid in Telifís Éireann, because it was quite a new building back then, and the poor horse ate the grass, got colic, and died.

Oh dear…

The thing was that nobody knew because we were still using all the footage we'd shot of the horse and the wagon! Then over the years they hired several other horses, but the kids never really seemed to mind that they were different. We had a piebald horse, and a brown horse…but it was just accepted! (laughs)

And, of course, we did a lot of the St. Patrick's Day parades with the wagon and the various horses.

So it was actually a properly functioning wagon then?

That’s right. Oh it was, yeah.

But the interior was obviously a set…

Yes, it was a separate set, and that was always a bit of a shock to the kids when they had a look inside!

I presume that the wagon was designed, from the beginning, with puppetry in mind?

Oh yes, it was. The downpipe was for Crow, and there was a barrel where Sneaky Snake was operated and so on. There was actually a fair bit of room inside, but it still used to be cramped enough when all the puppets and puppeteers were in there.

Jim also suggests that the original intention was for the show to be an outside broadcast, with the wagon (physically) travelling around Ireland every week? Was that the case?

Yes, but we very seldom travelled anywhere! We had it down in Clonmel at a big parade one time…and I’m sure there’s footage somewhere, because that was filmed…so it’s around somewhere.

Would be great to dig that up. So, basically, despite the initial concept, the show pretty quickly became almost exclusively studio based…

That’s right, but we did do a few outside things. I remember we had it in Powerscourt a few times, and Stephen's Green on several occasions. Whenever we actually went anywhere thousands of people used to turn up! We also had it in Birr, and a few festivals here and there but originally it was supposed to travel a lot more.

End of Part 2

(…Part 3, "A Most Unusual Wagon…", coming very soon…)

1. The character of Fortycoats seems to have been named after a real-life Dublin 'character'…or possibly more than one, as Wikipedia explains:
   

   The name Johnny Fortycoats first appears in Dublin folklore in the 1930s. It may perhaps have been applied to more than one person, including one of a couple of tramps who walked the coast of Dublin at the time of the television series. A wild looking man, universally recognized (Dublin is a large village), harmless as anyone knew. He was far removed from the world of television. It was his habit to wear several coats, hence the nickname.

   [back]

2. For those who don't know, 'Ould Mr. Brennan' is a famous Irish, uber-Dub, radio character who advertises "Brennan's Bread"…in pretty maudlin style. [back]

While the likes of (the wonderful) Bagpuss may have charmed and captivated children across the Irish Sea, there was but one choice (no, really) for those of us who grew up in the "single channel land" of 1970s RTÉ: The magical, the marvellous, the decidedly strange…Wanderly Wagon.

For those whose childhoods were Wanderly-free, a brief description of the show might prove useful. The excellent Irish-Tv.com has this to say:

Wanderly Wagon was probably the classic children's television programme from RTÉ, the Irish state broadcaster. [It] ran from 1968 until 1982 – but come to think of it, for many years it was the only children's television programme on RTÉ. So what was it all about? Well, three intrepid human travellers set out in a magical flying wagon accompanied by a cloth dog, a smart cuckoo clock with a crow in it, and a wooden fox who lived in a barrel fixed to the outside of the wagon. The travellers did venture outside planet Earth occasionally but only ever seemed to travel in Ireland when they were on Earth. When things were flagging a bit, everyone including the villains would break out into song.

A further (comparative) offering comes from Pádraig O Méalóid:

Think Dr Who with a fat man [Sorry Eugene!] instead of The Doctor, a grandmother [sic] instead of the companion, a horsedrawn wagon instead of the TARDIS, and absolutely no budget whatsoever, and you're still miles out.

Though both descriptions give a hint of the show’s unique flavour, we children of the 70s/Early 80s had nothing but half-remembered fragments to reminisce about until late last year when EMI (in conjunction with RTÉ) brought out the first volume of The Best of Wanderly Wagon on DVD. The release has proven a huge success, and yours truly dutifully trotted out to get himself a copy to roll back the years and wax nostalgic. Having relived the experience I was curious to find out how much Wanderly information was available online. After a couple of casual searches, it became clear that (surprisingly) there was actually precious little of note.

A few breathless emails and telephone calls later, and I emerged (after a few weeks…) with a fústar.org exclusive: A lengthy, 3-part interview with Wanderly's co-creator, star, and Irish puppetry legend, Mr. Eugene Lambert (a million thanks to Eugene for his co-operation, he couldn't have been nicer).

So, without further ado, I present (unsurprisingly enough) 'Part 1′. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed compiling it. Away we go…

To begin with, Eugene, can you tell us a little bit about how you first got involved in puppetry?

Well, I actually started doing puppets when I was a child, 8 years of age, when I got some books on it. My father was a county librarian in Sligo, I’m originally from Sligo by the way. Anyway, I made a ventriloquist’s doll when I was about 10 and after that I used to do school concerts and shows for the boy scouts and all that sort of thing. So that was the beginning.

You spent 7 successful years, I believe, with Jury’s cabaret performing as a ventriloquist with your dummy/companion Finnegan. Was ventriloquism a popular form of entertainment on the Irish variety circuit at the time?

Well no, not really. There were only about two ventriloquists around! So when I started doing it I had no idea that there was even such a thing as a ventriloquist. (laughs)

Was it literally then a case of just getting a book from the library and teaching yourself?

Well I actually started doing ventriloquism without a book at all. I’ve always mimicked and done voices and all that sort of thing, so it was a really just the next step from the other puppets I used to make…deciding to make a puppet that could move its mouth.

So if that was the very beginning of your interest in puppetry, how did you then get involved in it professionally?

Well, I was doing those concerts…and…you see my father died when I was 15 so I had to leave college, but I did go to the Tec for a few years, and I was always very good at making things with my hands. Then I actually became a fitter in Denny’s Bacon factory in Sligo, but I still used to do parochial concerts, and that, with the ventriloquism.

Then I came to Dublin…and we got married in 1950, Mai and I, we were only 22! So we came to Dublin and, as I always tell the story, we only had two cases. All our belongings were in one, and my puppet was in the other. That, and ten shillings…that’s what we came to Dublin with, you know. By the way, the dummy I had then was actually a predecessor of Finnegan, a character called Frankie.

Anyway, we came to Dublin and I got a job in refrigeration, in 'Re-cold', 27 Pearse St. It’s actually the Pearse Museum now, that building there…but it used to be a company called 'Re-Cold'. So, I was working in the fridges there when Mai entered me for a talent competition in James’ St. Hall. I won the competition and a chap saw me, he was a magician, and he brought me down to the Queen’s Theatre, which also used to be in Pearse St. So I got on in the Queen’s and that was really the first sort of professional break that I had. I did a lot of weeks in the Queen’s, before going on to play in the Capitol Theatre, which was beside the GPO, and the Olympia. In 1954 I actually played with Laurel and Hardy in the Olympia!

Around that time someone saw my act and I ended up going to England for 18 months, touring on the Musical Hall circuit. Nobody could do that now, of course, because it’s all gone. But it was a wonderful experience…and that, I suppose, is where I got my proper theatrical experience.

You said there weren’t many ventriloquist acts in Ireland at the time, but presumably there were quite a few on the Music Hall scene…

Well there was a famous ventriloquist called Terry Hall, and he was in the show in the Olympia when I was in the Capitol, and…I don’t know whether you ever remember Lenny the Lion?

Em…a bit before my time I'm afraid…

He was actually on the BBC…he had a BBC show…and Terry had left the show in the Olympia to do that, which is how I got the job! So, I went on tour then …I remember the first stage of the tour was in Cork in the Old Opera House, and when that finished I went to England and toured for 18 months as I’ve said. After that I came back to Dublin, and started doing dinners, children’s parties etc., but I also had a day job!

I also believe that you used to perform with Finnegan on a popular RTÉ radio program. Hearing this reminded me of a scene in Woody Allen’s Radio Days where one of the characters protests at the presence of a ventriloquist on the radio, asking (the fairly obvious question) "How do we know he's not moving his lips?". Was that ever an issue for you?

(laughs) Well no, not really. Charlie McCarthy was extremely successful in America on the radio, and then you had Peter Brough with Archie Andrews on the BBC [in a show called Educating Archie], and then, of course, I was here.

Take the Floor was a show on Radio Éireann with a man called Dinjo…and it was a huge success, and I toured around the country doing concerts with him, mainly Sunday nights…or the whole weekend in some places…and, of course, did the day job as well. We’d travel to Killarney and back in the one day and then have to go in to work in the morning!

I actually also had a children’s program called Finnegan Picks the Music on the radio…and that would have been way back in the 50s and the early 60s.

And what was the format of that?

Well it was based around Children’s records…which unfortunately you never hear now. I know people say that kids now are into pop music and all that, but they never hear the likes of Burl Ives and those songs…those wonderful children’s songs that he had. But there were a whole lot of these songs you know…Danny Kaye, for example, had hundreds of children’s songs. So I used to play those kind of records and then do a little bit of dialogue between songs with Finnegan and myself.

And then in 1963, I entered an idea to Telifís Éireann, and that’s where the other puppetry started…with a show called Murphy agus a Chairde. The idea I submitted was actually a marionette show, and from that I got what they call a 'test'. So it was all based around marionettes, which I had to make, and Mai (my wife), and my eldest daughter manipulated them with me. The other children (we had ten in the family) were very small at the time.

At the same time I was doing "Gaels of Laughter" in the Gaiety with Maureen Potter, as well as seven nights a week in Jury’s Cabaret in Dame St. So I had to give up the day job at that stage…as the money was pretty poor in comparison…

What was the money like in Telifís Éireann at the time, if you don’t mind me asking?

It was never good you know…but it was a lot better than the day job! (laughs)

So then, on the television front, Murphy agus a Chairde ran up until 1968 (5 years in all), and in the meantime I had met a wonderful director called Don Lennox and we started discussing further programs…and Wanderly Wagon came out of that and ran from 1968 up until 1982.

End of Part 1

(…Part 2, "A Wanderly Beginning", coming soon…)

So without further ado…here is the inaugural fustar.info interview (there will, I hope, be more to follow) -

fústar: What was the inspiration/motivation for the reprint of Doomlord: The Deathlords of Nox? How exactly did it come about, and was it difficult to obtain the rights?

D McD: About a year and a half ago Titan Books put feelers out through the net looking for people with collections of comics for them to scan for their proposed Spider and Steel Claw books. I got put in contact with Titan through a mutual acquaintance who knew I collected British comics. I lent my Lion and Steel Claw collections to Titan, and they used them to bring out the recent hardback volumes.

This got me thinking, if Titan can do it so can I! I found who held the copyright, got in contact with them, put my proposal to them, and they liked it enough for me to make a mock up and send it to them. When they got it, they approved it, I paid the licence fee UP FRONT, and away I went and printed them up.

fústar: What is it about 'Doomlord', do you think, that makes the strip as fondly remembered as it is?

D McD: Doomlord was an easy choice as I always felt that it was a 2000 AD story trapped in the Eagle. It was written by Wagner and Grant (who are responsible for Dredd and Strontium Dog, to name a few, in 2000 AD) and drawn, for the most part, by the legendary Eric Bradbury. Doomlord was the one truly great strip in Eagle and virtually none of the stories have been reprinted.

To be fair Eagle had a lot of great self contained stories such as Tower King, Hard Men and Comrade Bronski etc., but it had very few solid continuing stories.

fústar: You decided to skip the early photostrip/fumetti period and go straight for the first conventionally illustrated Doomlord story. What was the thinking behind this, and what are your thoughts on the photostrip format?

D McD: I didn’t reprint the Photo stories for two reasons:

1. The pages don’t scan so well.

2. Opinion is split on the photo stories. Some love them, some hate them, and I wanted to appeal to the largest amount of people possible.

As for whether or not I liked the photo strips, when they came out I didn’t really like them, but looking back they were a brave experiment, and quite good…but I am glad they had to change to regular comics.

fústar: People, like myself, who grew up reading comics in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, were really the last generation to enjoy a robust and (reasonably) healthy British Comics Industry. Where once there was an impressive array of titles, we now find 2000 AD as, pretty much, the 'last man standing' in terms of 'action/sci-fi' comics. Is there any 'way back' for the industry on this side of the Atlantic do you think, or has the market changed irrevocably?

D McD: The market for what I would have bought as a kid in the mid 80s is dead and gone, I picked up the Dandy when it relaunched and I was disgusted. Four panels per page, remember when there were twelve?

Grumpy old man mode over…

The Dandy and Beano are still alive and appealing to a new generation of readers, the nursery market is booming, and there are a lot of these mags aimed at boys about TV and computer stuff, with a few pages of comics…so there is still hope for new comics, especially from D.C.Thompson. They are really the only big publisher in the U.K. with the skill and interest to produce any new comics, and I believe they are possibly toying with the idea now, especially when you see the likes of Billy the Cat in Beano (which hasn’t had an adventure strip for decades).

Anyway if a new comic does come out I’m sure I wont like it, because it won’t be like the one I used to buy as a kid! (Note: I’ll probably still buy it!)

fústar: Finally David, have you any other reprints planned?

D McD: There hopefully will be more. I don’t have the luxury of having credit with printers, so I’ve had to pay for everything up front, but as soon as I approach break even, there will be another book.

Many thanks to David for taking the time to speak to us, and I wish him the very best of luck with his subsequent publications. For those that would like to order a copy of the reprint in question (go on, you know you want to) David can be contacted at the following address: doomlord@eircom.net

David's mention of hardback reprints of King of Crooks (featuring The British Spider) and The Steel Claw is indeed encouraging news for fans of those British comics long ill-treated as disposable (and insignificant) ephemera. If one also takes on board the publication of the recent Dan Dare and Charley's War collections, it would appear that Titan/IPC are finally realising that there's a neglected treasure trove of material 'out there' (pretty much) unseen since its initial release.

Finally, a further notable development in this mini-renaissance, is the newly-published Albion: potentially the most significant resurrection of British 'super-heroes' since Grant Morrison brought them back from the grave in 'Zenith: Phase 3′ (only for him to slaughter most of them again in their battle with the 'Lloigor')

It's 'plotted' by Alan Moore, written by Leah Moore & John Reppion, and illustrated by Shane Oakley & George Freeman. Since I have yet to see a copy I can't say more than that, but any comic that features Robot Archie, The Steel Claw, Captain Hurricane etc. (not to mention the involvement of the Moore family), has simply got to be worth a look.

More news when I get my (greedy) mitts on it.