Richard Sheaf headed to the Isle of Wight last month, to check out Roy of the Rovers Barrie Mitchell’s exhibition at The Mead Gallery – and caught up with the artist himself, too…
The Mead Gallery is a new part of the Monkton Arts set-up at 11 East Street, Ryde, Isle of Wight. Monkton arts accurately describes itself as “… a quirky vibrant arts centre with café, galleries, studios and music venue… tucked away in the creative makers hamlet in Monkton village”. It’s based just a short walk from the seafront in Ryde, just ten minutes by hovercraft from Southsea, and I was delighted to be able to attend the final day of their recent exhibition, “Comic Cuts – the work of Barrie Mitchell”.
Local resident Barrie, who’s originally from North London, but moved to the island a few years ago, was kind enough to share just some of the comic art he’d created over a 40 plus year career. The apprenticeship phase of his career started back in the late 1950s in London where he saw fellow Link Studio member John M Burns launch his career.
Barrie’s work first appeared in Bunty No. 191, cover dated 9th September 1961, and he worked on an enormous array of titles and characters over the next four decades.
Starting with work in girls comics such as Mandy and Diana, he also drew for Pow!, Wham! Smash! and Sparky. As this excellent potted career overview on the Book Palace website notes:
From the early 1970s, Barrie specialised in football strips, beginning with “Paxton’s Powerhouse” for Scorcher and “Jack of United”/”Jimmy of City” (1970-74) for Score ‘n’ Roar. He went on to draw “Skipper Willie” and “Cast Iron Bull” for Wizard, “Twisty” (1976-77) and “Kid Cox” for Bullet, “Play Till You Drop” and “Look Out For Lefty” for Action, “Guts to be a Goalie”. “Pickford”, “Stark: Matchwinner for Hire” (1978-82) and “Superstar” for Scoop, and “Marks Brothers” and “Playmaker” for Roy of the Rovers, and he drew the lead “Roy of the Rovers” strip in 1992-93, and returned to the character in 1997. He returned to the character in a one-off strip published in the Daily Mail in 2011, written by Ian Rimmer. In 1989-90 he drew “Scorer” in the Daily Mirror.
Non-football strips he drew include “Day of the Eagle” for Battle, “M.A.C.H. 1” and “Judge Dredd” for 2000AD, “The Lawless Touch” for Tornado, “Doctor Who” for Doctor Who Magazine, “Speed Kings” (1978-81) for The Victor, and “Knight Rider”, “Worzel Gummidge”, “The A-Team” and “Streethawk” and the bio-strips ‘When They Were Young’ and ‘The Story So Far’ for Look-In.
He was the final artist of the soccer comic, Roy of the Rovers. He drew the strip from October 1992 until its cancellation in March 1993. Mitchell then went to work for Marvel UK. In 1997, he returned to the revived “Roy of the Rovers” series. Mitchell also cooperated on the Mirror‘s “Scorer” strip in 1989-1990. In the early 1990s, he was also the artist of “Playmaker”, another comic in the Roy of the Rovers comic book.
Book Palace have some pages of Barrie’s work for sale here – but back to the exhibition, now ended…
Amazingly, the art featured, over 200 original art boards, is not even all the art that Barrie has held onto over the years! The exhibition space, formerly a garage, had one of the best comic art exhibitions you’re likely to see in the country this year. It was an amazing treasure trove of art. It also featured character sketches Barrie had done, obscure publications he’d worked on – the Brian McClair testimonial programme for instance – covers for paperbacks, work for foreign language comics and much more besides.
Barrie had generously loaned his original art from the 1977 2000AD Summer Special Supercomic, many pages from his work on Doctor Who, the Red Dwarf Smegazine, “Scorer”, the newspaper strip from the Daily Mirror, Roy of the Rovers, “Andy Steel – Playmaker”, some of his work for Match of the Day magazine, “Skid Solo” in Top Gear magazine and, most poignantly, the artwork from the final ever issue of Tiger (20/03/93), showing the helicopter crash which brought the weekly Roy strip to an end.
There were also paintings of a number of Jaguar cars. Barrie’s a big fan of the brand and has owned his jag for over 50 years now! A keen member of the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ club (Isle of Wight branch), Barrie was able to show off his paintings of some of the Jaguar cars owned by fellow club members.
There was also a really large piece, roughly A2 sized, entitled “Football Heroes” that showed about 40 football characters that had appeared in football strips across the 20th century. A great work.
While I was there, Barrie was generous with his time, not only being at the gallery daily, but chatting with all those who came to visit the exhibition. I’d like to thank him for the time he spent with me (and the lunch he kindly bought me!)
It was a pleasure to meet Barrie who, as he says, “… is closer to 90 than 80” and thanks also to Monkton Arts, for letting Barrie share his art with us.
Richard Sheaf
All photos ©️ Richard Sheaf
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Richard Sheaf is a longtime contributor to downthetubes and has written for numerous magazines about British comics.
Categories: Art and Illustration, British Comics, Comic Art, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Events, Exhibitions, Features, Other Worlds, Reviews
In Review: Into Battle: The Art of British War Comics
Leave a Reply