Busting with Nostalgia!

By John Freeman on December 8, 2009

With the release of a Buster Special imminent, former sub-editor Dez Skinn has just posted this 1970s image of the editorial team online. Pictured looking like something straight out of Life on Mars but with comics are the staff of Buster, from left to right: assistant managing editor Sid Bicknell, Dez himself, art assistant Keith Robson, art editor Bill Reid and editor Lennox Wenn.

“Looking at the pic, a few observations,” notes Dez, noting the bottle of wine on the desk. “Must have been an office party, hence the happy-go-lucky carefree wild ‘n’ crazy look we’ve all got!”

He also notes the half-naked woman on wall, along with defaced royalty snaps and Charlie Peace – Victorian and contemporary versions “His lookalike old Jack Pamby was the artist,” Dez recalls. “‘Wotcha Yorkie’, he’d greet me with on a a weekly basis. I remember he had a decidedly scary grin!”.

As for the smoking – yes, people used to be able to smoke inside! – Dez says it was quite an addictive look/taste/habit. “We ended up with three of us chuffing away (can I say that?) on pipes on one office! Lovely smell, but bins full of yucky pipe cleaners and hours wasted poking and puffing, lighting and sucking, stoking and smoking. Ah, heady days indeed…”

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John Freeman

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.