Slingsby Bros Ink!, publishers of the high quality collected “Carol Day” newspaper strips by David Wright, are seeking help for planned collections of vintage strips he also drew – and perhaps downthetubes readers can help.
The team are seeking copies of 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 the David Wright strips, “Judy”, “Jo”, and “Danger Treads Softly”.
“Jo” (José), credited to writer John Dormer, with art by David Wright syndicated internationally, published for 86 weeks in the Montréal French newspaper Photo-Journal, from 1954 to 1956, as did “Judy” (dates unknown), written by Peter Meritson, but the French relettering is pretty awful.
“I have good runs of all three,” Roger Clark at Slingsby Bros. Ink! tells downthetubes, “and the first volume of Judy is in design now – but I still lack a number of strips.
The publisher is seeking either collectors or dealers who might have issues for sale; or libraries with either physical or digital copies of the issues they need that would provide images.”
(Roger has already tried contacting the British Library, without success).
David Wright was a British illustrator who drew a series of “lovelies” that epitomised female glamour during World War Two. He also created the Carol Day newspaper strip for the Daily Mail that ran from 1956 – 1967, a sophisticated soap opera style of comic strip.
However, it is his series of 169 illustrations for The Sketch magazine (from 1941 to 1951) that became most popular. In the 1950s he continued drawing in a similar style for Men Only.
Wright’s first comics work was for Kit Carson and appeared in Cowboy Picture Library in 1952. He also created girl strips like Judy (1953) andJo and in 1957 he painted Danger Treads Softly in black and white.
His son, Patrick Wright, is also an established comic artist.
Slingsby Bros. Ink!, a small publisher that focuses on promoting great comics that might otherwise get lost in the blizzard of new material and the latest fan craze, are happy to pay well for a qualified person to do the search and obtain images.
Please send an email to info@slingsbybros.com if you can help.
The publisher recently expanded their publishing efforts beyond Carol Day to include a magnificent graphic novel by Ricardo Leite, a Brazilian artist and graphic designer.
• Check out Slingsby Bros. Ink!, at slingsbybros.com
• Available Carol Day collections are available here from Book Palace
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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, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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