Book And Magazine Collector 299

By John Freeman on August 31, 2008

The long running series of articles on Great British Comics Artists by David Ashford and Norman Wright in Book and Magazine Collector has reached part 30. After last issue covered Ron Smith, this issue’s subject is Frank Humphris.

Humphris was the artist on original Eagle’s Riders Of The Range strip written by Charles Chilton. Indeed the American West was to be the main subject for the artist who also worked for Boy’s World on The Flaming Frontier series of features on The West as well as writing and illustrating three Ladybird books on Cowboys, Indians and the Battle Of The Little Big Horn. The colour article is 13 pages long and includes a bibliography.

Also of interest in this issue is a 12 page article by David Whitehead on the career of author George Richard Samways. Samways worked for the early twentieth century story papers such as Magnet, Gem, Popular and Boy’s Friend. He wrote around one hundred stories of Magnet’s Greyfriars school and another fifty concerning Gem’s St Jim’s school.

Issue 299 is available for £3.50 from WH Smiths and Easons, or from the B&MC website.

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “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.