The Saturday List#459 - My top ten favourite newspaper comic strips

 How can this be the 459th list? It is incongrous. It is ridicuous. I love newspaper cartoon strips. There are four types. The political sort Then there are the observations on life. There werethe futuristic sci fi genre often running a story for weeks and months, a genre that hs sadly completely disappeared and finally the ones with fluffy animals, primarily aimed at kids. I am a massive fan of the genre. Anyway, here is my tour of the best. 

1. Jeff Hawke, Pilot of the Future, The Daily Express. Created by Sydney Jordan. An absolutely brilliangt sci fi strip. It ran from the 1950's until 1975. Hawke started as a 'pilot hero' flying spaceships and encountering aliens. As the theme's developed, Hawke's character was often viewed with humour and mild disdain by aliens of far greater intelligence. I have many of the serialised books and they are brilliantly written and illustrated. It is quite likely that without Jeff Hawkes strips, I wouldn't be able to read. I would religiously read his strips in my Dad's paper. I have never fully understood why the strip didn't get more recognition. Here is a great example of Jordan's wit and craft

2. If.. The Guardian. The work of comic legend Steve Bell. Bell was dropped from the Guardian as some of his work was deemed to have anti semitic tropes. My view of this is that the role of political cartoonists is to charicature and lampoon all and sundry and no one should be off limits. I think Bell clearly got a few things wrong at times, but I don't believe anyone should be above being lampooned. By the nature of the form, drawing charicatures involves exaggerating features, and to me it is almost impossible for a political satirist to function in the modern world, as everything is going to be called out for reinforcing stereotypes. I thought Bell was at his peak during the Thatcher era. I particularly liked his depiction of bent police and monkeys. When we can't offend people, democracy and free speech is dead. If artsits are not allowed to push boundaries and get things wrong, we are doomed.

3. Dilbert. Daily Mail / Daily Express. The work of Scott Adams. The strip was an often ironic commentary on office life and computer nerds in the office. As someone who worked in IT from 1983 until 2017 as a freelance consultant most of the time, it was a brilliant observation on the office workplace. We'd often joke that he had a spy camera in our office, as the strip mirrored what we saw on a day to day basis. 

The strip was cancelled when Adams racist views became public. Whilst I found his personal views repulsive, it would be dishonest not to recognise the quality of his work.  A big dilemma of modern life is how we react when our hero's are exposed as less than perfect. I can't really provide an answer but you cannot simply pretend that they didn't ever exist.

4.  Doonesbury. Garry Trudeau. Along with Steve Bell, one of the reasons I bought the Guardian. Sadly relegated to Fridays only. A strip that has followed the story of Mike Doonesbury, his family and friends from 1970 to the current day. This is a vehicle to pass satrical political comment on the issues of the day. Not a fan of George W. Bush or Donald Trump. 

5. Judge Dredd. The Daily Star. I bought the Daily Star for a few years, as there was a Judge Dredd strip in it. That was pretty much all that was in the paper, apart from decent football coverage. I've been a fan of Dredd since he first appeared in 2000AD in 1977. The newspaper strips were fantastic. Dredd was well suited to a cut down formula. Sadly the paper didn't understand the gem it had on it's hands.

6. Rupert The Bear. The Daily Express. One of the longest running cartoons in British Newspapers, starting in 1920. Although it not my cup of tea when I was a kid, when my daughter Maddie was born, we developed a love of Rupert. It was published in black and white. We'd cut the cartoons out, stick them in a scrapbook and she'd colour them in. I'd then read her the story. The scrapbooks show the progression of her ability to draw and colour froma ge about 18 months to about four.  She ended up getting a first in art from Leeds College of art. I suspect Rupert had a little to do with that.

7. Garfield. As with Rupert, we did the same when Lizzie was born with Garfield. Lizzie would always ask if her colouring was better than Maddies. I'd always tell her they were equallt good, but when Maddie was out of earshot, I'd tell her that hers was better, but she wasn't allowed to tell Maddie as she'd get upset. Oddly Maddie never asked!

8. James Bond. There was a period when The Daily Express had both Jeff Hawke and James Bond comic strips running. The Bond strips ran from 1957 to 1977. The image of Bond was what Fleming thought bond looked like. The strips are probably more true to Flemings image of Bond than the films.

My Dad told me that the comic was far superior to the films, as it was 'more realistic'. It wasn't till I was an adult and read some of the serialised books that I got this.

9. Alex. The Independent/The Daily Telegraph. For a while, I bought the Independent. Alex was the cartoon in the paper and I thought it was rather good. It mildly lampooned yuppies and people working in the City. I stopped reading it when it moved to the Telegraph, around the time I stopped reading the Independent. 

10. Axa. The Sun. As you may imagine, being in The Sun, the main character was a large breasted, scantily clad lady, living in a post apocalyptic universe. It was however rather good and the serialisations are worth reading. Written by Donne Avenell the quality was surprisingly good. I've never been a fan of The Sun, but I'd always sneak a look at Axa. The bloke who used to sit next to me at SPL bought it, so I could keep up with the stories.

Of these, only Doonesbury, Garfield, Alex  and Rupert are still published in the UK. It seems to me that the death of sci fi series, coincided with the steep decline of the newspapers. I got into printed news via comic strips. There is absolutely no reason why any kid would pick up a paper these days. Although I like some comic strips, the decline of intelligent stories in strips is something that to me exemplifies why the printed media is failing. It seems to me that almost no one actually remembers the golden era of Newspaper comic strips. That is a real shame. BTW, there are a few other that should be mentioned. Peanuts/Snoopy in the Observer, The Lone Groover in the NME, The Perishers in the Daily Mirror, Striker in The Sun and Mosdesty Brown in the Evening Standard spring to mind. There is a pretty good list here -  https://ukcomics.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_newspaper_and_magazine_strips

And finally. The False Dots have a gig to plug. Please come along!The False Dots Official Album Launch - Sunday 17th November from 2pm at The Dublin Castle - Click here for tickets