Created by "Penny Dreadful" writer Charles
Henry Ross in 1867 for Judy, and published
by Gilbert Dalziel (who also drew the character at first. Sloper is regarded
as the most famous and most popular of all Victorian comics and was published
in his own title, Ally
Sloper's Half Holiday, from 1884 until 1916.
In Victorian slang, an "alley sloper" was someone who snuck out
the back door and went "sloping" down the alley when the landlord
came for the rent. And that was just the beginning of Sloper's disreputable
qualities. He was also drunken, lecherous, inattentive to his family, scheming,
and not very bright, reveals
a feature on the character on Don Markstein's Toonpedia.
Enormously popular as a comic strip, Sloper could possibly be regarded
as one of the first "licensed" characters (although that term
was not used at the time). In
a paper for published in 2003, Roger
Sabin argues that by developing a life outside the comics, in music hall
theatre and via merchandising, Sloper revolutionised the rapport between
consumer and product and set a template for capitalistic enterprise in
the entertainment industry for the 20th and 21st centuries. Whether this
made him the 'first' comics superstar per se is
a subsidiary theme of Sabin's paper.
• For more on Ally Sloper and other
early comics visit the Early
Comics Archive on Bugpowder.
Ally Sloper (1898)
• IMDB
Entry
• Ally
Sloper Wikiopedia Entry
Ally Sloper Goes Bathing (1921)
• IMDB Entry
Ally Sloper Goes Yachting (1921)
• IMDB Entry
Ally Sloper Runs A Revue (1921)
• IMDB Entry
Ally Sloper's Haunted House (1921)
• IMDB Entry
Ally Sloper's Loan Office (1921)
• IMDB Entry
Ally Sloper's Teetotal Island (1921)
• IMDB Entry
The Astounding Adventures of Charlie Peace was
serialised in Buster in the 1960s. Initially
set in the Victorian era, in one episode Charlie was sent through time
to modern day London by an inventor who had disguised his time machine
as a safe.
One of Haggar's Extant Films was The Life
of Charles Peace (1905) which focuses on the story of Victorian
England's most infamous burglars, who also featured in Penny Dreadfuls.
More information about Haggar in the Weary Willie entry, below
Come On, Steve! was a cartoon
strip created by Roland
Oxford Davies which ran in the Sunday Express from 1932 until 1939
and then switched to the Sunday Dispatch where he was to appear for another
ten years. Steve Holland offers more detailed information on the strip
and its creator on Bear Alley here.
Several Come On, Steve! animated
films were created, such was the huge success of the character, and there
have been plans in recent years to create a new film, although these appeared
to have stalled by 2008. "The animation is relatively crude compared
to what was to come later," Steve Holland notes, "and distinctly non-PC
(especially Steve of the River, Davies' take on Edgar Wallace's Sanders
of the River)."
More information
on the films and the work of Steve's creator Davies in animation can be
found on the Roland Davies Animation web site (www.rolanddaviesanimation.com)
and detail on the exsiting film prints can be found on here as part of
Graham Newnham's web site dedicated to vintage 9.5mm film gauge: www.pathefilm.freeserve.co.uk/95flmsteve.htm
• Steve Steps Out (1936)
When Steve espies a notice of a tightrope walking competition it is more
than he can do to resist a little practice...
• Steve's
Treasure Hunt (1936)
Steve enters an ancestral home in the hope of finding buried treasure.
• Steve's Cannon Crackers (1937)
Steve's adventures on top of a fortress where, with the aid of his driver
, he mischieviously hurls cannon balls at a passing ship.
• Steve of the River (1937)
Davies' take on Edgar Wallace's Sanders of the River.
• Steve in Bohemia (1937)
Steve, endeavouring to find a costume in which to go to the Artists' Ball,
tastes the fun of night-life.
• Steve Cinderella (1938)
Steve is left behind when the Farm Show takes place. As in the fairy story,
a dear old fairy grandmother comes to help him.
(A
seventh film, Steve in London ,
was to have been made in colour but never went into full production. Storyboard
image right: more
information on Graham Newnham's pages)
A DVD containing all six of the Come
on Steve animations
is available. Price £12 + 75p postage in the UK. Cheque or PO payable
to G. L. Newnham, 22 Warren Place, Calmore, Southampton SO40 2SD.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
• IMDB Entry
• Buy
it on DVD from Amazon.co.uk
Colonel Blimp, an old, befuddled British military officer,
reminisces about his past glories in this witty war satire. Deborah Kerr
plays three different women in the Colonel's long, but not particularly
well-spent life. A.K.A. "Colonel Blimp."
Colonel Blimp was the creation of cartoonist David Low in
1934 and appeared in Lord
Beaverbrook's London Evening Standard. The
character took on a life of its own and by 1937 the Universal English Dictionary
recognised the Colonel as "a figure in cartoons by Low, caricaturing an
extreme die-hard type of outlook."
Blimp
was Low's response
to his unhappiness with the political leadership of the British establishment.
In 1942, Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell dazzled Low into lending
the Colonel's name for their satirical film.
In
his autobiography, published in 1956 and long after Low had cast Blimp
aside, the cartoonist explained that Blimp represented everything he disliked
in British politics. "Blimp
was no enthusiast for democracy. He was impatient with the common people
and their complaints. His remedy to social unrest was less education, so
that people could not read about slumps. An extreme isolationist, disliking
foreigners (which included Jews, Irish, Scots, Welsh, and people from the
Colonies and Dominions); a man of violence, approving war. He had no use
for the League of Nations nor for international efforts to prevent wars.
In particular he objected to any economic reorganization of world resources
involving changes in the status quo."
Prime Minister Winston Churchill's was allegedly so concerned about the
film's themes he tried to have it banned - perhaps ensuring its enduring
success, another classic from co-directors Michael
Powell & Emeric Pressburger.
• Read
more about Low and Colonel Blimp on the Political Cartoon Society web site
(1990)
• IMDB
Entry
Radiation clouds choke the sky and over-crowded mega-cities
threaten to dissolve into madness. A wandering junk merchant finds the
remains of a defunct robot and sells them to Mo, also a nomad, who buys
them for his urban artist girlfriend named Jill to use in her work. But
he doesn't know the robot is a self-regenerating prototype, a military
drone intended to control the exploding population utilizing indiscriminate,
gruesome murder. Trapped, alone in her apartment and spied on by her perverted
neighbour, Jill must battle to survive against a relentless killing machine
re-built from her own possessions and which will stop at nothing to tear
her apart.
Directed by Richard Stanley, although not originally intended to be a
2000AD film, a court ruled that the story was significantly based on Shok
(Judge Dredd Annual 1981, reprinted in prog 612). Steve McManus and Kevin
O'Neill were added to Hardware's writing credits.
The
Adventures of Jane (1949)
NB: this is listed in the Jane A Pin Up At War book as 1952
• IMDB
Entry
The Adventures of Jane is the film version of the stage show which also
starred female lead Christabel Leighton-Porter, based on the comic strip
created by Norman Pett for the the Daily Mirror in 1932
as the misadventures of an innocently sexy young blonde. The comic strip
was at its height of popularity during the war years as the skimpily clad
Jane was assigned the task of boosting troop morale through regular bouts
of unexpected undress (for Jane, if not the readers).
Jane
and the Lost City (1987)
• IMDB Entry
Jane and the Colonel must journey to Africa to the lost
city to retrieve the diamonds before the Nazis. Ever-vigilantly battling
the Nazi menace, Jane must see to it that she defeats her foes while simultaneously
maintaining her dignity (and keeping her dress on). It's a globe-trotting
saga of gold-filled cities, jungle perils, and sexy French undies as Jane
searches for the fabled Lost City of Gold.
Written by Doctor Who script writer Mervyn
Haisman and directed by Terry (Hawk the Slayer)
Marcel, Jane and the Lost City starred Kirsten
Hughes in the title role and Robin Bailey as The Colonel. Costumes for
the film were designed by Michael
Baldwin.
(1995)
• IMDB Entry
• Buy
the DVD from amazon.co.uk
Directed by Danny Cannon, the future's toughest lawman is brought to
the big screen by Sylvester Stallone.
2000AD Online notes
the story combines elements from the Judge Dredd stories The
Return of Rico (prog 30), The Day the Law
Died (progs 86-108), The Judge Child (progs
156-181) and Block Mania (progs 236-244).
Visually stunning, the film proved dissapointing to, especially after Dredd
is taken off the streets.
You can read The Return of Rico online on
the 2000AD official
web site (registration required).
Modesty Blaise (1966)
• IMDB
Entry
Nothing can faze Modesty Blaise, the world's deadliest and most dazzlingly
female agent!
Modesty Blaise was of course based on the long-running and hugely popular
newspaper strip created by Peter O'Donnell, whose adventures ran in the
Daily Express for many years and are now
being re-published by Titan Books. Several novels were also written and
a strange film produced. O'Donnell wrote every single strip. More about
Modesty here on downthetubes.
Considering the pedigree of the strip, the film is a huge disappointment
on many levels.
• The official
Modesty Blaise web site includes a guide to Modesty Blaise (including an
interview with Peter O'Donnell)
My
Name Is Modesty (2003)
• IMDB Entry
• Buy
the DVD from amazon.co.uk
Killer elegance, deadly force, explosive strength...
what's in a name? The origin of the world's most lethal female secret agent.
A more recent attempt to breathe silver screen life into Modesty Blaise
from director Quentin Tarrantino. Much of this film is set inside a casino
being held up by a dangerous gang and it's surprisingly pedestrian compared
with his others films such as Kill Bill.
(1995)
• IMDB Entry
• Buy the DVD from amazon.co.uk
In an article on Blakiana,
based on an episode of a BBC radio show, The Radio
Detectives, Professor Jeffrey Richards writes that "The history
of crime detection has produced no more famous name than that of Sexton
Blake. In the December 1893 issue of The Strand magazine,
Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls.
That very same month the Halfpenny Marvel published
a story called The Missing Millionaire written
by a jobbing writer, Harry Blyth, under the pen-name Hal Meredeth. The
story introduced a character that came to be disparaged as ‘the office-boy's
Sherlock Holmes' or ‘the poor man's Sherlock Holmes'.
But for several generations of the mass reading public, Sexton Blake was the Baker
Street detective; a more significant figure in the popular imagination
even than Holmes..." Read
the whole article on the superb Blakiana web site
Sexton Blake did not really come into his own until editor W. H. Back
took control of the Union Jack magazine in
1904. After several weird assistants came and went, including Griff (half
man and half beast) and a Chinese named We-Wee, his most famous assistant,
Tinker, arrived in a 1904
story entitled “Cunning Against Skill.”
One of the most popular characters in the Blake household, his housekeeper,
Mrs. Martha Bardell, came a year later. Plump and garrulous, with a gift
for malapropism, Mrs. Bardell had a use (or misuse) of the English language
which was both weird and wonderful. Another addition to the household in
this period was Pedro, the famous bloodhound, sent to Blake by a well-wisher
named Mr. Nemo.
Blake also appeared in Illustrated Chips, Popular, Detective
Weekly, Knockout and Valiant as
well as annuals. While the character's publishing history is largely
as magazine stories, there was at least one attempt to bring him to comics,
if not successfully: in 1978, IPC released Tornado which
featured a strip called Victor Drago and The Terror
Of Troll Island, set in 1929 and starring 'Victor' as a private
detective. In fact, Victor was Sexton but the publishers feared the name
'Sexton Blake' was too old-fashioned and re-named the character. It seems
that the name change came late in proceedings because one of the panels
from the strips shows that Drago's Rolls Royce, The Grey Panther, has
the number plate SB 192. More
information here on ComicsUK.
In total, Sexton Blake has so far spawned 22 feature films,
many plays (between 1907 and 1930), radio shows (1939-1967) and two TV
series (1967 & 1978). A
comics.co.uk article on early comics cites the character's golden era
as starting after 1921, which was when Harold Tyman, the dynamic and idea-creating
editor took the reigns of the Union Jack.
It was from here, and well into the 1930's, that Blake became almost as
famous as Holmes himself.
Sexton Blake (1909)
Sexton Blake poses as a cleric to save a Squire's
daughter from marrying a murderer.
The Jewel Thieves Run to Earth by
Sexton Blake (1910)
• IMDB Entry
Sexton Blake rescues a clerk from a gang of
criminals who tie him to a clock-operated gun.
Sexton Blake v Baron Kettler (1912)
• IMDB Entry
Sexton Blake recovrs some stolen plans.
This film is supposedly based on an issue of Union Jack (currently unknown)
but Blakiana suggests it is more likely based on The
Adventure of the Lady Typist (Answers Weekly,
Issue 1,135)
The Clue of the Wax Vesta (1914)
• IMDB Entry
A Sexton Blake film. Yvonne seeks revenge on the
villains who ruined her mother.
Adapted from the first few Sexton Blake stories featuring companion Yvonne.
The
Mystery of the Diamond Belt (1914)
• IMDB
Entry
A Sexton Blake film. Unbeknown to heroine Nora, the secretary
for a jewellery firm, her father, George Marsden Plummer, is the head of
a gang of jewel thieves. Posing as a nobleman, he steals a priceless diamond
belt, shifting the blame to Nora's innocent sweetheart Brahms. It is up
to Sexton Blake, his assistant Harry, and his faithful dog Pedro to retrieve
the belt and expose the guilty party.
Based on The
Mystery of the Diamond Belt by Lewis Carlton which was serialised
in 15 parts in The Boys' Journal from
issue 57 to 71. The editor of the Union Jack magazine,
Mr. Lewis Carlton, plays Sexton Blake's right hand man, Tinker.
The Kaiser's Spies (1914)
A Sexton Blake film. An entymologist runs a spy ring
of bus driver from a tower in Epping Forest.
Britain's Secret Treaty (1914)
Sexton Blake poses as a foreign war minister but
is captured by The Count who attaches him to a bomb and hangs him over
Beachy Head.
Adapted from the The
Case of the German Admiral by Andrew Murray, published in Union
Jack Issue 570.
The Stolen Herlooms (1915)
A Sexton Blake film. Sexton Blake is drugged with poisoned
flowers and tied to a sawmill while attempting to save an ex-gambler who's
been falsely charged with a jewel theft.
The Counterfeiters (1915)
A Sexton Blake film. Blake tracks a gang of counterfeiters
to an old mill where they capture him and tie him to the waterwheel and
Tinker to the lock gates.
The Great Cheque Fraud (1915)
A Sexton Blake film. Blake saves Tinker from a bank swindler after using
an overhead cable to escape from a raging inferno.
The Thornton Jewel Mystery (1915)
A Sexton Blake film. A girl frames a drunkard for
a jewel robbery. Sexton Blake is rescued from the crook's launch after
Tinker performs a 60ft dive.
The Further Exploits of Sexton Blake: The Mystery
of the S.S. Olympic (1919)
• IMDB Entry
Sexton Blake rescues the kidnapped daughter of an inventor who has
been murdered for his secret formula.
Shot around Liverpool Docks and aboard the liner, Blakiana notes
the story of the film was written specially by Robert Murray for copy in Union
Jack, and was published in issue No. 857 under the same title as
the film.
Sexton Blake Series (Began releases in May
1928)
• See
the Blakiana film listing for full details
Sexton Blake and the Bearded Doctor (1935)
• IMDB Entry
A doctor kills a violinist to defraud an insurance company.
The first Sexton Blake film with sound. Based on the novel The
Blazing Launch Murder (Sexton Blake
Library second series Issue 449) by Rex Hardinge
Sexton
Blake and the Mademoiselle (1935)
• IMDB Entry
Mademoiselle Roxanne robs the crooked financier who ruined
her father.
Based on the novel They
Shall Repay (Union Jack issue
1,378) by G. H. Teed
Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror (1935)
Sexton Blake unmasks a millionaire stamp collector as
the head of a hooded gang.
Adapted from the Sexton Blake Library story The
Mystery of No. 13 Caversham Square, by Pierre Quiroule,
this is the last of three films to feature George Curzon as Blake.
Meet Sexton Blake (1944)
• IMDB Entry
A crook steals his brother's formula for a new airplane
alloy. Sexton Blake is called in to investigate by the War Office.
An adaption of Anthony Parsons' story, The
Case of the Stolen Despatches from Sexton Blake Library
Issue 19, new series
The
Echo Murders (1945)
A Sexton Blake film. In Cornwall, Sexton Blake stages
his own death to catch Nazis who have taken over tin mines.
This Sexton Blake film again starring David Farrar as Blake,
is based on the story The
Terror of Tregarwith, by John Sylvester, published in the Sexton Blake
Library in May 1943.
Murder
at Site Three (1959)
Sexton Blake smashes an espionage ring operating within
Britain's space program with the help of a truth serum which he develops
himself.
Based on the novel Crime
is My Business by W. Howard Baker
In 2033, justice rides a tank and wears lip gloss...
Lori Petty and Naomi Watts are just part of the cast of Tank
Girl, based
on the comic strip created by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin for Deadline (and
now writing
Phoo Action for TV). The plot centres on
a Tank Girl and her rebel group, who are attacked by Water & Power,
a powerful force that controls the remaining water on a dystopian Earth,
led by Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell).
Directed by Rachel Talay, the film's original suggested budget was $15
million, but that was soon raised to $25 million to accommodate the large
amount of action. A fair amount of the film was apparently cut out,
the result of MGM-UA's concerns abouton screen drug use and sex with kangaroos...
• More on the film on this Tank Girl fan site
(2005)
• IMDB Entry
• Buy
the DVD from amazon.co.uk
An uncompromising vision of the future based on the critically-acclaimed
graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, produced by the Wachowski
Brothers, the creators of 'The Matrix' trilogy.
A tale of revolution in an England
of the future, one that has become fearful and fascist; anyone different,
from homosexuals to free thinking artists are black bagged and subjected
to torture and inhumane medical experiments.
Hugo Weaving stars as V in this adaptation of the V
for Vendetta comic,
the mysterious masked avenger who carries knives, has lightning reflexes,
lots of explosives, and intentions to blow up Parliament. He's also on
a vendetta against the evil powermongers who made him the lonely monster
he is. Innocent waif Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) is saved by V and
winds up hiding out in his nifty secret lair, which is filled with forbidden
books, art and a jukebox that plays Cat Power and Julie London's 'Cry
Me a River'. Meanwhile there's a hangdog police inspector (Stephen Rea)
picking up their trail, and a plethora of evil British government types
regularly bullied into action by the intensely odious Grand Chancellor
(John Hurt).
The tramp Weary Willie was originally created by the cartoonist Tom Browne,
and first appeared in the magazine Illustrated Chips in
1896. The strip had a phenomenal run of over 57 years before Weary Willie
and companion Tired Tim finally struck it lucky as they succeeded in making
the mouse trap millionaire, Murgatroyd Mump, laugh for the first time in
50 years, in Chips
#2997 (dated 12th September 1953).
In the 1920s, Willie also became a popular American cartoon character
drawn by Emmett Kelly, who later adopted him as his stage persona when
he became a circus clown. He can be seen as Willie
in The Greatest Show on Earth (US, d. Cecil B DeMille, 1952).
Weary Willie (1898)
Also known as "An Overfull Seat"
• ScreenOnline
Information
• Internet
Movie DataBase Entry
Weary Willie, the tramp, contrives to obtain sole use
of a park bench by driving its occupants away with his objectionable behaviour.
Weary Willie and Tired Tim: The Gunpowder Plot (1903)
• IMDB
Entry
One of William Haggar's early films, which does not survive. More information
on Haggar at: www.williamhaggar.co.uk.
A book, William
Haggar, Fairground Film-Maker by Haggar's great-grandson, Peter
Yorke, was published in 2007 by Accent Press. Haggar's Extant Films (Haggar, who
lived in Aberdare, South Wales, made bewteen 40 to 60 films during
his career, which lasted until 1909). See also Charlie Peace, above.
Weary Willie and Tired Tim Turned Barbers (1903)
• IMDB
Entry
Weary Willie in Search Of Hidden Treasure (1904)
• IMDB
Entry
