Slingsby Bros. Ink!, best known as publishers of the superb collections of the “Carol Day” newspaper strip by David Wright, have just announced the impending publication of his precursor strip, “Judy”.
As far as they are aware, this is the first printing of the nearly-forgotten “Judy” since its original publication, and comes after an appeal for copies of two hard-to-find publications last year: Empire News from 1955 (by then, also known as Empire News and Sunday Chronicle), and Tit-Bits from December 1955 to September 1957, in order to reprint David Wright’s earlier strips, which also include “Jo” and “Danger Treads Softly”.
“With our trio of Carol Day story books complete, David Wright fans are asking, ‘What’s next?’”, editor and co-publisher Roger Clark explains.
“While we don’t have another Carol Day book on deck at the moment, Slingsby Bros, Ink! is pleased to announce the publication of David Wright’s ‘Judy’, a nearly-forgotten ‘Carol Day’ precursor strip.”
In the early 1950s, David Wright made an unusual career move for a successful commercial and pinup artist – he turned to comics. An early product of this new direction was the strip “Judy”, which he began in 1953 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.
“‘Judy’ is not the equal of ‘Carol Day’ due to weak plots and cardboard characters,” Roger acknowledges, “but it maintains a strong appeal because of the art and its adventure premise, and it was a great vehicle for Wright’s beautiful cheesecake panels.
“It is far from uninteresting or unworthy of preservation, and in our view, it’s a minor gem by one of the greatest strip artists to practice the art and well worth fans’ attention.
Slingsby Bros. Ink! have collected the first four “Judy” stories for this volume and hope you will agree.
Here are some sample pages and page spreads from the David Wright’s Judy (Limited Edition), the strip pages sourced from their original publication, to give David Wright fans an idea of the strip and the presentation.
American followers of Slingsby Bros. Ink’s dedicated work, representing gems from newspapers of yesteryear, will be able to check out the physical book out at the publisher’s booth at the third Original Art Expo (20-22nd February) in Orlando, where Chris Killackey will have a few advance reading copies available.
“Clearly tearsheets are not the ideal source for reprinting strips, but original art and proofs are unavailable,” Roger explains of this collection’s source material. “As far as we know they are not extant.
“We believe the strip is worth preserving in spite of the limitations.”
Priced at £38 ($50) the Judy collection is at the printer now, and Slingsby Bros. Ink! expect it to be in stock in the next few weeks.
• David Wright’s Judy (Limited Edition) is available to preorder here from Book Palace in the UK (and for all orders outside the United States) and will be available from the Slingsby Bros. Ink! ebay store for US collectors
If you want to be notified when the book is available, with links for purchasing, be sure you’re signed up for the Slingsby Bros. Ink! mailing list here
Publication Details
• Contents: Stories 1-4, comprising episodes 1-119
• Source material: Tersheets
• Format: Casebound
• Size: 12 x 9 1/2 inches (same as casebound Carol Day Showcase)
• Full colour covers and interiors
• Printed endpapers
• 144 pages
Retailers, please contact Geoff West at the Book Palace (info@bookpalace.com) for wholesale pricing
• Check out Slingsby Bros. Ink!, at slingsbybros.com
• Available Carol Day collections are available here from Book Palace
- 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, British Comics - Collections, British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Comic Previews, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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