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Terry Hooper-Scharf

Wednesday 15 July 2020

British Comic Books Archive New Acquisitions

Apart from Whacky Rodeo (a 1940s British comic) I have two new bundles of art work. Original artwork to boot.

Ever hear of Prank magazine? It was a British Underground magazine featuring music and a lot of Underghround "girl art". I saw three issues for sale at a Bristol Comic Expo about ten years ago but the seller wanted £20- a piece so I walked away.

After my last appeal for old comic book art (British only) for the BCBA I got an email from someone calling himself "Springcheese".  Would I like some original pages from Prank? Apparently he was the editor and had given up after years of publishing. I said "sure".

Nothing.

A wind-up I thought.  Today the postman knocked on the door and handed me a big package so I unwrapped it to find what seemed to be a lot of A4 card in another tissue type wrapping. You could have hit me with a hammer as I would not have noticed.

There were single and half page illoes -some in black and white and others in colour.  Barring a few, there were most of the issue covers. Covers with text paste-ups -true old school.

The covers make it clear that the material is NOT for anyone other than adults. Not something I could post on CBO because there is a world wide audience and in certain countries this type of material could lead to serious ramifications for readers.

Prank has been researched by someone I know and he almost blew a fuse when he saw some of the scans -one piece of cover art had been sold to someone he knew for £150 a year ago. "You've got a small fortune there!" he told me. However, the point of the BCBA is that donations are NOT sold off.

I asked the artist who produced some of the work if he wanted any of the originals back? "**** No. Done with it. They're yours!"

I think that Prank will need a blog of its own and aimed at the mature audience. The pages will be scanned and stored digitally and the originals placed in safe archive boxes.

Exciting!!!!!

1 comment:

  1. good things happen sometimes ... and God love it when it does! Real art is in the creation and some of the old 'zinsters' for want of a better word, were nothing if not creative! I envy you. Enjoy. TTFN.

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