Slingsby Bros. Ink! best known as publishers of the superb collections of the “Carol Day” newspaper strip by David Wright, will be publishing a second Limited Edition volume of his earlier Judy newspaper strip in November.
David Wright moved on from his highly successful work as a commercial artist and pinup artist for Sketch in the early 1950s, and an early product of his new direction was the strip Judy, with John Hunter, writing as Peter Meriton, providing scripts.
Judy is a standard adventure strip for the time – a young, beautiful girl is thrust into danger with her partner, Ricky, and their treasure-hunting adventures take them to exotic locales all over the world in a series of loosely plotted melodramas.
From 1953-1957 Wright drew seven stories in the series, and Judy Episodes 1-119, published in March, some copies still available, reprinted the first four stories. This new collection reprints the fifth and sixth stories, episodes 120-197.
“When we published the first Judy book earlier this year, we were still missing a number of episodes from later in the run,” the publishers say of the production of new collection, “and it was doubtful we’d ever be able to find them. We also didn’t know how interested collectors would be in the strip. But we wanted at least some of Judy to be available to fans, so we published the first four stories.
“Now things have changed. With help from generous collectors and the British Library, we have completed our image set, so we’re back with the next two stories.”
The final Judy story, “The Man Unknown”, remains to be reprinted. It was drawn in a full tabloid format that doesn’t fit well in a landscape format book, and Slingsby Bros Ink! did not want to ask readers to rotate the book for those pages. But be assured – they do plan to print it!
“Judy is not quite Carol Day, due to weaker plots and cardboard characters,” notes the team, “but maintains a strong appeal because of the art and its adventure premise, and it was a great vehicle for Wright’s beautiful cheesecake panels.
“In our view, it’s a minor gem by one of the greatest strip artists to practice the art and is well worth fans’ attention.”
Tearsheets are not the ideal source for reprinting strips, but original art and proofs are unavailable, presumably long destroyed, but Slingsby Bros. Ink!, an independent US-based publisher, believe the strip is worth preserving in spite of the limitations of our source material. Although printed in black and white, the source tearsheets are scanned in full colour to help reflect the original artwork.
Slingsby Bros, Ink! will have copies in their ebay store for US collectors
David Wright’s Judy Episodes 120 – 197 (Limited Edition)
Author: Peter Meriton
Artist: David Wright
Publisher: Slingsby Bros, Ink!, due November 2026
Number of pages: 100
Format: Hard Cover; Full Colour (black and white content) illustrations
Size: 12″ x 9½” (300mm x 240mm)
ISBN: 9781913548858
Code: DWJUDY2
• Copies of David Wright’s Judy Episodes 1 – 119 (Limited Edition) can be ordered here
• Read our feature on Judy and the first volume of David Wright’s Judy here
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
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, British Comics - Collections, British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Comic Previews, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
Slingsby Bros. Ink! announce first ever collection of David Wright’s early newspaper strip, “Judy” 
Third “Carol Day” Story Book announced 
Preorders open for “David Wright’s Carol Day: Jack Slingsby”
Leave a Reply