Thanks to his family, we’re absolutely delighted to serialise the late Barrie Tomlinson’s fascinating account of his incredible career as a comic editor and writer – a fitting tribute to the man who helped shape so much of Roy of the Rovers history, brought us New EAGLE, and so very much more.
Although undated, this feature, which we will serialise over several parts, was written while his creation, “Scorer“, was still being published in the Daily Mirror, so it doesn’t cover his more recent work, or mention his experience as something of a social media star thanks to his presence on X in later years. But it does offer an absolutely fascinating insight into his life, and, of course, if you’d like to find out more, you can buy his books, Real Roy of the Rovers Stuff!: Roy’s True Story, and Comic Book Hero: A Life with Britain’s Strip Legends and, both published by Pitch Publishing, in 2016 and 2017 respectively!
Early Comic Days: Lion and TIGER
For over 25 years, I was Roy of the Rovers‘ best friend. I made him a star. A national institution! Together, we had a ball. And it wasn’t just a football, it was an adventure like no other!
As Sub-Editor, Editor and Group Editor, I worked with many of the legends of children’s comics, on such famous titles as Lion, Tiger, Roy of the Rovers and Eagle. This is my story. The years might have caused me to forget a few things, or to getsome facts wrong. For this I apologise in advance!
When I left the army, after doing my National Service, I decided I wanted to be a journalist. Before becoming a soldier in the Royal Army Pay Corps, I had been a police cadet and assumed I would eventually become a full-time policeman. But things changed, in a surprising way, when I was in the army.
A fellow soldier had brought a trombone with him, to our barracks in Germany. He practised on it and I decided it was time I formed an organisation called The Anti-Trombone League. This became popular with my fellow soldiers and I started a very amateur ATL magazine. I invited top celebrities of the day to join and contribute to the publication. Soon, famous names such as Peter Sellers, Ted Ray, Roy Castle, Styx the cartoonist, Bernard Miles, Jimmy Edwards, Leslie Crowther, Petula Clark, George Chisholm and many more, became members of the Anti-trombone League. This was great fun, and my proposed police career started to fade as journalism took its place in my ambitions. That was easier said than done.
When I left the forces, I tried to get a job in journalism, with little success. To pay the bills, I took a job as a clerk in a bakery. (The dough was good!). I started doing a large amount of freelance articles and cartoons but with little success. I had lots of tips from two of the famous ATL names, people I had become great friends with and people whose advice and training were invaluable. I’m talking about actor/producer Bernard Miles (Later Lord Miles) and cartoonist Styx.
They taught me a lot. After I had collected a varied selection of rejection slips, Styx told me about a job vacancy on National Newsagent magazine [known today as Retail Newsagent – Ed]. I met the Editor but alas, he wanted someone with a knowledge of shorthand. That I didn’t have. But he told me that Fleetway Publications were looking for beginners to work on their children’s comics.
Early in 1961, I went to New Fleetway House in Farringdon Street, London and was interviewed by the Managing Editor, Alf Wallace. To my surprise, I got a job! I was appointed to work with the Script Editor, Ken Mennell, a veteran of World War Two [whose known credits include “Kelpie the Boy Wizard” for Wham! and, later, “Black Max“, for Lion and Thunder].
My first day at work didn’t start well. The train services from Hertfordshire into London St. Pancras were running late. Starting time was 10.0am. I arrived, puffing and panting, at 10.30, expecting a rocket on my first day. It didn’t happen. When I arrived at the offices, everywhere was deserted. I was the first one to arrive!
Ken Mennell and taught me the basics of writing a script and I sat in when he had meetings with freelance writers to discuss story plots and new characters. At these meetings, I met lots of the authors who worked on the comics. Such brilliant writers as Frank Pepper, Ted Cowan, Scott Goodall and Tom Tully.
However, talking about stories was not really for me. I wanted to work on a comic and was soon transferred to work on LION, where I found myself a Sub Editor, working under the watchful eye of Editor Bernard Smith. He was the man who had launched LION in 1952. Previously, Bernard had been Editor of The Champion, a weekly title I read myself as a boy. It contained all sports stories but in written form, with just a few pictures.
One of the most famous stories in Champion was “Rockfist Rogan”, a boxing fighter pilot. That story idea was thought up by Bernard. He taught me all the secrets of editorial work and I always used his system, throughout my career in comics. Like me, Bernard lived in St. Albans. He only died a few years ago, at the magnificent age of 103.
LION had been launched to compete with EAGLE, which had become a massive success. LION never had the colour and quality paper of EAGLE but instead it had a team of top contributors, producing such famous picture-stories as “Paddy Payne, Warrior of the Skies”; “Captain Condor”, the space hero; “Karl the Viking”; “Sandy Dean’s Schooldays”; “Robot Archie”, and many more. Writing the scripts were some of the very best authors: Tom Tully, Frank Pepper, Ted Cowan and others. Illustrating the stories was a wonderful line-up, including Joe Colquhoun, (“Paddy Payne”); Selby Donnison, (“Sandy Dean’s Schooldays”); Don Lawrence, (“Karl the Viking”); Ted Kearon, (“Robot Archie”); Reg Bunn (“Rory MacDuff”) and the various artists who contributed to Frank pepper’s brilliant “Captain Condor”.
LION was a war and adventure title and its companion comic was TIGER. The two publications shared a large office at New Fleetway House. At one end of the room was LION, with Editor Bernard Smith and his two Sub Editors. At the opposite end of the room was TIGER comic and its Editor Derek Birnage [who died in 2004, aged 90], plus his Sub Editors. Derek was the Editor who launched TIGER in 1954, as a sports and adventure title. Of course, it was TIGER which set Roy of the Rovers on his long and successful career. More of that later.
In the centre of that large office sat Reg Clark. Reg was a brilliant sports writer and contributed articles for many of the comics, Holiday Specials and Annuals. He wrote for TIGER under the name of ‘The Skipper’ and those articles were very popular. Reg nearly always had a pipe in his mouth. It was fortunate that we all worked in a big office!
A regular sight, every lunchtime, was Bernard Smith, Reg Clark and Derek Birnage going for their daily walk, which always ended up with a cup of tea or coffee. They were about the same age and, between them, they had a wealth of experience. They were three perfect gentlemen. It was a pleasure to work with them.
I was happily working on LION, I had my first script published in that title. It was a feature about the Coldstream Guards, for a series called “Badges of the Brave”. I visited the Coldstream headquarters and did my first interview. I was thrilled!
I learned some art effects by working on a cartoon strip called “The Backwood Boys”, which was drawn by Roy Davis. Roy used to mark in blue ink where he wanted a tone put on his drawings. Being blue, the wash didn’t reproduce and my job was to put a layer of Zipatone (a pattern of dots) on top of the blue wash, cutting around figures as Roy Davis indicated. It took ages, but it was a great way of learning art techniques!
Then came some editorial changes. Bernard Smith was transferred from LION and replaced by Geoff Kemp. Derek Birnage was moved from TIGER and David Gregory was put in charge of the two titles.
David had been the Editor of the Fleetway Annuals. It was the old story, I’m afraid, in relation to Bernard and Derek. When you get to a certain age, management always think things will be better under a younger man!
I continued working on LION. I particularly enjoyed lunchtimes in the big office. We started playing cricket! The bat was a wooden ruler, with a cardboard roller taped to theend of it, as a handle. The wickets were three more cardboard rollers and the ball was a roll of sticky tape. It was great fun. We worked up quite a sweat. I remember Geoff Kemp, who was the Number Two on LION, returning from lunch and remarking: “It smells like a jock-strappers’ conventionin here!”
When I wasn’t playing cricket, I was designing and drawing greetings cards. First of all, I just did the ideas and asked various artists to do the artwork but I ended-up only selling the ideas. The card publishers, Citation Cards, wanted a style that was more basic, so Istarted doing the artwork myself. I’m no artist, but the style was just what they wanted andI sold hundreds of cards to that company.
One historic day, a spelling mistake appeared on the front cover of TIGER. David Gregory immediately transferred me from LION to TIGER. At last, I moved out of the big office!
The new office was also quite large and I shared it with a Sub Editor and with the Group Art Editor, a lovely man called Royman Browne. He was a very talented visualiser, and did the layouts for the opening large frame of each picture-strip. He was also a cartoonist, having a regular cartoon printed in a monthly cricket magazine. I was thrilled when I gave him an idea for a cartoon and it was published in the cricket mag. My fee was a free copy of the magazine!
Bernard Smith had taught me the basic system for being an Editor. Now David Gregory showed me that an Editor needed status. He even showed me that Editors could have long lunch hours!
Barrie Tomlinson
This feature will continue with the start of Barrie’s long involvement with Roy of the Rovers….
• Real Roy of the Rovers Stuff!: Roy’s True Story by Barrie Tomlinson was published in 2016 | Buy it from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link) | Read Ian Wheeler’s Review
• Comic Book Hero: Working with Britain’s Picture-Strip Legends by Barrie Tomlinson was published in 2017 | Buy it from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link) | Read Ian Wheeler’s Review
Also on downthetubes…
• In Memoriam: Author and Roy of the Rovers Comics Editor Barrie Tomlinson
• British Comic Legends: Writer Tom Tully
• In Memoriam: “Billy’s Boots” and “Jet-Ace Logan” Comic Artist John Gillatt
Barrie Tomlinson’s own tribute to his friend and work colleague
• British Comic Characters Profiled: Roy of the Rovers
• Roy of the Rovers – Rebellion Books Check List
Head downthetubes for…
• Barrie Tomlinson’s X
Discover how much Barrie continued to promote comics, and interact with fans
• Tune in to the British Football Comic Podcast, available via a variety of platforms: Apple, Podbean, Spotify and YouTube – who interviewed Barrie several times
• Lion King of Picture Story Papers
Steve Holland’s indispensable guide to the weekly comic
• Bear Alley: Fleetway Pocket Library Authors
• The Independent: Roy Davis, Cartoonist – Obituary
• The Oink! Blog: Roy Davis’ work for the comic
All comics and characters © their resepective creators
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, Comic Creator Spotlight, Comics, Features
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