In something of a quiet week, our attention switches to British football comics, with the sad news of the passing of writer Fred Baker, and the rather more pleasant prospect of a happy nostalgia trip for Roy of the Rovers fans. Elsewhere, we bemoan the fact that it’s… well, a quiet week, really - and the usual linkspamming of articles written elsewhere that we don’t even really need to mention in these leads any more, do we?

First some sad news, as we learned this week of the death of British comics legend Fred Baker. Baker was one of the foremost writers of boys’ sports stories during the genre’s golden years of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. For magazines such as Tiger and Scorcher he created a number of classic strips including motor racing stories Skid Solo and Martin’s Marvellous Mini, and football strip Tommy’s Troubles (so popular that when it was cancelled in 1985 it was brought back within six months due to reader demand!). However, his greatest legacy was surely the Scorcher, Tiger, Eagle and (finally) Roy of the Rovers strip Billy’s Boots. A brilliantly high-concept and instantly iconic setup (lousy schoolboy footballer finds a pair of boots belonging to a 1950s legend, the wearing of which instantly transforms him into a football genius) meant that Billy’s Boots became one of the most popular football comics of all time (perhaps the only strip to truly threaten the crown of Roy of the Rovers itself). It was also even quite popular with readers not hugely interested in football (Rich Johnston wrote a great little elegy to the series in 2004’s Just One Page charity anthology).

But while Billy’s Boots was fantastically popular (even getting a reference in a Half Man Half Biscuit song), for me, Baker’s finest achievement was the wonderful Hot Shot Hamish (later merged with another Baker strip, Mighty Mouse, to become Hamish and Mouse). Drawn by the equally brilliant Argentinian artist Julio Schiaffino, Hamish was easily the funniest strip that Tiger or ROTR ever published - the tale of a gentle giant from a remote Hebridean island with an incredibly hard kick of the ball (he’d frequently bust goal nets, or even knock the ball through walls on occasion), it was fantastically entertaining, with a high volume of gags littered throughout both the writing and art. For many readers (myself included) it was the first strip you’d look for upon getting ROTR each week, and it never failed to amuse.

Having retired from comics in the early ’90s, Baker had suffered from Alzheimer’s in later life, and died from pneumonia on 4th June 2008. There’s a tribute by long-time Tiger and ROTR writer/editor Barrie Tomlinson over at Down the Tubes. (SP)

Sticking with the subject of Roy of the Rovers, and on a slightly lighter note, it’s good to see that Egmont are finally realising what a good bit of branding they have in their hands - the first of a new series of ROTR archive books came out this month, featuring a run through two seasons’ worth of classic stories from the early ’80s (including the shooting of Roy Race, his temporary replacement by Alf Ramsay, and Melchester’s first relegation from the top division). With further books to follow in the coming months (including the mouthwatering prospect of a Complete Archive series, which begins shortly with 1954-55 - although who knows whether it’ll make it to a full run, sadly), it’s a good time to be a nostalgic ROTR fan. And who knows - if the books do well, could we even see new material in the future? Perhaps not a new weekly comic (the recent death of Shoot shows that weekly football mags are hardly in strong health), but I wouldn’t rule out a link-up with an existing magazine (as happened between 1997 and 2001), or perhaps even an online venture… (SP)

There are a whole two new comics-related updates from me over at Den of Geek - the first is the latest Alternate Cover: “Spider-Man stories we’d rather forget” (which pretty much speaks for itself) and the second is a review of the Incredible Hulk Xbox 360 game, which is very, very, very loosely based on the movie. Very loosely indeed. (JH)

And finally… I mentioned above that it’s a quiet one this week. That’s not just in terms of actual news, though, but also regarding new comics themselves. I know that anyone’s weekly pull list is a matter of personal taste - but this week, there was very little released that had anything in the way of impact. Next week, though, DC have got the second issue of Final Crisis out along with James Robinson’s eagerly-anticipated first issue of Superman. Marvel, meanwhile, finally pull out a new Ultimates 3 on us (hey, it may be crap, but it’s significant crap), along with a similarly-important New Avengers issue (tying in to Secret Invasion), the second issue of the surprisingly good 1985, and the fourth of the unsurprisingly awful Hulk. As reviewers on a site with a very rigid structure (four new comics reviews a week), this puts us in a difficult position. Like I say, okay, it’s our personal preference that means that none of us is reading Ultimate Fantastic Four or Batman and the Outsiders - “quality” is (mostly) a subjective attribute. But in comics, it’s pretty obvious what books are “big”, “medium” or “small”. And this week was almost entirely full of medium or low-sellers, whereas next week is packed with A-list (I’m only suprised there’s not a new Morrison Batman out, in fact - didn’t that and Final Crisis come out the same week last month, after all? Shouldn’t that pattern follow through if both books are on time?) You have to wonder if anyone, anywhere, is managing this kind of thing. Doesn’t it make more sense to stagger the important titles? Won’t 1985 get less attention if people are busy talking about Final Crisis? Is it really fair to give us two Jeph Loeb books in a single week?

I know that we (I mean Comics Daily in particular) bring these pressures on ourselves - if we wanted to, we could post more than one review a day (you won’t catch us missing a day, of course, but still). Or we could spend one week reviewing stuff from the previous week that we didn’t have a chance to catch up on. But the former option dilutes the particular niche that the site has built up (if you want six or seven new comics reviews a day, there are plenty of sites such as Comics Bulletin that do that), while the latter strips away the timeliness that is (we think) fairly important for reviews in this industry (I note from a recent comment that we’ve inspired at least one reader to start buying Captain Britain, which is great - but surely it’s better to get them onboard early rather than having to catch up weeks or months later on a sold-out book). The way that the industry works, sadly, means that this sort of thing is unlikely to stop happening any time soon - companies aren’t going to intentionally delay books to avoid clashing with others, they’re just going to try and get them out as close to on-time as they can. And you can’t envisage someone being specifically appointed to keep tabs on it. But all I’m saying is that, as both a reviewer and a reader (because, hey, it’s hard to know which is worse - those weeks where you come out of the shop with one book, or the ones where you have to spend all your booze money on twenty), it would be nice to have a bit more of an even spread of quality and interest, particularly when it comes to “event” books. (SP)

Tags: Fred Baker, Hulk, Roy of the Rovers, Spider-Man
Publisher: The Sunday Pages