Daily Mirror’s “Horace” strip heads off into the sunset

The final episode to date of Horace by Roger Kettle and Andrew Christine. © Mirror Newspapers

The final episode to date of Horace by Roger Kettle and Andrew Christine.

The Daily Mirror newspaper has cut its originated strips again, replacing the long-running gag strip western-inspired gag strip Horace with a reprint of the adventure strip Buck Ryan, coloured in style, as with their Garth reprints, by Martin Baines.

Originally titled A Man Called Horace, the Wild West’s most gormless cowboy has delighted Mirror readers for over 20 years. debuting on 29th May 1989, the strip, written by Roger Kettle  (once decribed by fellow comics cretor Rod McKie as a “national treasure”) and drawn by Andrew Christine, experienced a hiatus in 1996 under Piers Morgan’s feckless editorship (Morgan had no love of the strips, it’s said), before being revived with title shortened to Horace in 1997.

Writing on the official Horace Facebook page, Roger Kettle, who also writes Andy Capp for the Mirror and Beau Beep cartoon (the latter also drawn by Christine), described the cancellation of the strip as the “End of an Era” yesterday – and the paper’s decision, made in July, has prompted anger from the strip’s fans on Twitter, (there’s even a growing #bringbackhorace campaign Facebook and the official Horace forum.

“Those of you who read the Daily Mirror or Daily Record may have noticed a Horace-sized gap in your paper today. Sadly, after 26 years, the strip has made its final appearance. Due to the financial situation at most newspapers today, severe cuts are being made and Horace is a victim of these circumstances. 

“Andrew and I would like to thank all those readers who have followed our daft little characters over the past quarter of a century… The financial situation at today’s newspapers has been given as the reason but it’s still a wee bit sad,” Roger told dismayed fans via the strip’s official forum

 “It would have been nice to bow out on our own terms. “To have written a strip that ran for more than a quarter of a century is an achievement I’m proud of and I’m grateful to all of you who followed it over the years. Thank you!” 

 “We were asked if we’d like to produce a closing week’s series,” Roger, reveals feeling any return is unlikely, “but, as we’d already completed more than enough work to cover the remaining period, we declined. Basically, it would have meant doing a week’s work for free (the Mirror would not have paid us for it) so we decided just to leave things as they were. 

“I dare say I would have written something horribly corny that allowed Horace and Kitty to end up together. We made the right choice!”

 

It's feared a campaign to get Horace back in the Mirror will receive scant attention.

It’s feared a campaign to get Horace back in the Mirror will receive scant attention.

Roger and Andrew cut their cartooning teeth at DC Thomson in the 1970s. Andrew drew for Topper (then selling some 300,000 copies a week), while Roger intended to be a journalist but was instead asked to script some of the company’s comics, including “Beryl the Peril”.  They went freelance in 1975 and concluded that the best way to generate some regular income was to get into the comic strip market. 

A 1990 feature in the Scottish Herald notes there then followed almost two years of rejection, hard times, hard work, perseverance, and much discussion, over games of pool, as to whether they would ever make the breakthrough. Then came Beau Peep, which quickly established an audience in the Daily Star where it first appeared, followed by A Man Called Horace.

Changing times: despite running to only eight pages during World War Two, one page remained full of strips. (Thanks to Tim Quinn for the image)

Changing times: despite running to only eight pages during World War Two, one page remained full of strips. (Thanks to Tim Quinn for the image)

The Mirror has a fine tradition of publishing comic strip, as you can see from this excellent list on the Yesterday’s Papers site, dating back to it early days, and as Lew Stringer notes in his comments on the strip’s cancellation, when paper rationing reduced the Mirror to just eight pages a day during World War Two, it still devoted over one page to all new comic strips. “How times have changed,” he remarks.

The first re-matestered episode of Buck Ryan, re-coloured by Martin Baines. Buck Ryan © Mirror Newspapers

The first re-matestered episode of Buck Ryan, re-coloured by Martin Baines. Buck Ryan © Mirror Newspapers

Buck Ryan, originally written by the Mirror‘s children’s pages editor Don Freeman (and later by James Edgar, who also write newspaper strips such as Matt Marriott and Garth) is a private eye adventure strip drawn by Jack Monk that debuted on 22nd March 1937 and ran until 31st July 1962.

The strip has been reprinted in Italy, Australia and many other countries down the years. After the strip was cancelled, artist Jack Monk went on to draw strips for Lion (including “Commander Cockle”), Hornet, Sparky and Debbie.

Web Links

Horace by Andrew ChristineThe Official Beau Peep and Horace Noticeboard Horace on Facebook | Horace on Twitter @mancalledhorace (note that Roger Kettle has indicated both these social media avenues may have a short life span, despite only being set up recently)

Daily Mirror Horace archive Yesterday’s Papers: Daily Mirror Strip Index

Read the 1990 feature/ interview with Roger Kettle and Andrew Christine on the Herald web site

Read about the debut of Buck Ryan here

Follow the growing #bringbackhorace campaign on Twitter



Categories: British Comics - Newspaper Strips, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News

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2 replies

  1. Great article John! BTW, in the 3rd paragraph you spelt Beau Peep wrong 😉 Cheers, Rob

  2. In regard to Horace I think he would be better off being resurrected by a decent company rather than the incompetent Daily Mirror. They frequently screw up on all the comics strips and seemingly don’t care as they have never been decent enough to answer my queries or fix the faults. Having the new comic under the heading Horace proves that. Bring back Horace but with a site that cares.

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