Ken Reid (1919–1987) was a British comics artist and writer, well-remembered for creating Roger the Dodger, Jonah, Faceache as well as the hilarious Creepy Creations and World-Wide Weirdies.
However, his work for the London publisher Odhams Press Ltd is considered by many to be the best British humour strips of the 1960s.
The two hard-cover books offered in my shop are the ultimate collection of Ken’s strips in Wham!, Smash! and Pow! comics, collected together for the first time since Odhams Press published them in 1964 – 1969.
They are Frankie Stein – featuring the lovable friendly monster and his desperate hysterical maker Prof Cube, Jasper the Grasper – featuring a Disney-inspired but unmistakably British tight-fisted old skinflint, Queen of the Seas – a serialized maritime extravaganza featuring the pompous captain Enoch Drip and his one-man-crew Bertram Bloop, Dare-A-Day Davy – featuring a boy who can’t resist a dare and shows clear signs of multiple personality disorder, and The Nervs – the absolute pinnacle of coarse, '60s-style politically incorrect satirical hilarity.
This official collection, published under license from TI Media Ltd, is now available thanks to the highly-successful IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign.
I lived on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain when I was of the comics-reading age, so I knew next to nothing about British comics as a kid. A pen-pal from Leeds once sent me an early issue of Whoopee! which made a profound impression on my 10-year-old self, and inspired me to try my hand at the genre. I freelanced for Lithuania’s national humour magazine for quite a while in my twenties. At one point in the early ‘90s they even nominated me the cartoonist of the year!.. Then other things in life took priority, and it was only in 2007 that I got back to my old hobby – this time as a collector of British comics, and starting from 2012 – an active blogger and owner of http://kazoop.blogspot.co.uk
Having come up with the general idea of the complete collection Ken Reid’s Odhams work, I developed the concept of the books and obtained a license from TI Media Ltd. I then arranged for a talented young artist to draw sumptuous cover illustrations (front and back), obtained enthusiastic introductions from well-known folks in the British comics industry and secured further entertaining intros from Ken’s son Antony J. Reid, who kindly allowed me to use his dad’s archive material – my ultimate resource when researching and writing a detailed biography of the artist, covering the years 1964 – 1969 when he worked for Odhams (also included in the collection).
I lived on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain when I was of the comics-reading age, so I knew next to nothing about British comics as a kid. A pen-pal from Leeds once sent me an early issue of Whoopee! which made a profound impression on my 10-year-old self, and inspired me to try my hand at the genre. I freelanced for Lithuania’s national humour magazine for quite a while in my twenties. At one point in the early ‘90s they even nominated me the cartoonist of the year!.. Then other things in life took priority, and it was only in 2007 that I got back to my old hobby – this time as a collector of British comics, and starting from 2012 – an active blogger and owner of http://kazoop.blogspot.co.uk