Page 1  2  3  4  5  6  Next      Any idea what happened at TV Comic and why you were called in? It's long been thought that Gerry Haylock gave up 'Doctor Who' after one strip with Tom Baker because he felt he couldn't grasp the likeness or character after several years successfully drawing Jon Pertwee? Did you ever find out why you were suddenly roped in to draw Return of the Daleks and The Wreckers (published April-June 1975)? Yes, on return from Canada I jumped at the chance of doing Dr Who. One of the challenges, I guess, on these TV spin-off strips was to get the likenesses but I didn't feel I was too bad at this and threw myself enthusiastically into any and all such commissions. I think I was told at that time that Gerry Haylock had gone to Sweden (?) or some such country to do some lucrative illustrative work - but I am not sure. He was a great strip artist I always thought, one of the very best. Then of course I returned gratefully to Look-in and 'Kung-Fu' and then to 'The Six Million Dollar Man'. This is perhaps the Look-in strip you are most associated with, seeing as you drew every episode for the next three years. I had a fabulous time drawing and colouring 'Six Million Dollar Man'. I was crazy about the action I had to do and immediately started to concentrate, trying to create interesting and dynamic layouts. As previously stated my guiding point - my yardstick - was to be inventive with the visuals and exciting with the layouts which I felt would have thrilled me when I was 12. That was the object of the exercise. The strip always seemed to have one big action scene per week - Steve jumping off tall buildings or punching someone's lights out. Was this now reckoned to be your forte - explosive action? Was this a case of Angus Allan playing to your strengths? How closely did you and Angus work? You seem to be one of a handful of artists - along with Arthur Ranson and John Burns - he really got on with and respected. With some he liked their work but they rarely met at any sort of personal level. Yes, it was here that I actually got to know Angus Allan well. Of course I knew he was around, after all he wrote every strip every week for Look-In, was so prolific and but for his inventiveness the comic would not have been where it was. We hit it off immediately and started to collaborate on story ideas which thrilled and/or amused us both. What can I say about dear Angus? A lovely guy - creative and amusing with a quick mind and jolly tales who dressed sharp, lived large and topped this all off with a wonderfully infectious laugh. He has sadly left us and I miss him and his friendship. In those days as I said, he wrote I believe ALL the strips EVERY week for many years! [in general there would be just one strip each week he didn't write - Al]. It was an incredible feat and a wonderful example of how ingenious he was, with his many plots and storylines. And I notice that for several episodes of SMDM you added signature credits for Asbury and Allan - but apparently Shelbourn stopped this when you began putting in "Written by Angus Allan" credits; thought a step too far! I did put a writing credit for him on the strip for a while - I just thought that he deserved the recognition he didn't have and especially as what we did was indeed a joint effort. Together we created 'The Toymaker' (one of our favourite characters) and we reprised him later for a story we did for 'Garth' in The Daily Mirror.   Above: Steve Austin takes on mad magician The Great Mandini in a classic 1978 Six Million Dollar Man It was initially stories about checkpoint-dodging, Commies (both Russian and Chinese), nuclear submarines and the like but what I loved as a kid were the diversions into more lurid and insane territory. My favourite SMDM strips - which I remember so vividly from my childhood, with these leering, crazy figures all over the place, included those two Toymaker strips (crazed inventor creates an army of robot toys to terrorise America's kiddoes!), a werewolf story The Wolfman of Waldstein with gothic castles and all the horror cliches, the crackpot master magician Mandini ... In many ways, my childhood memories of the TV series pale beside the Look-in version. A little aside - while you never worked on 'Space:1999' for Look-in, Angus and Alan Fennell had you provide three strips for the World Distributors annual published for Xmas 1976. Those strips were in b&w/one colour. Puzzling ... I cannot remember but believe you anyway! That's amazing to learn there was a Garth/Steve Austin crossover. It would be remiss of me not to mention the strip for which you are perhaps best known worldwide. In September 1976 Garth artist Frank Bellamy - one of British comics' most respected artists - died suddenly and you were drafted in as full-time replacement on the Daily Mirror newspaper strip. I was so, so thrilled when I got the commission to draw - and eventually write - Garth. I was I felt extremely fortunate to land the contract. Daily continuity strips were still very popular then in 1976 and having a contract for a year was a fabulous feeling. After Frank Bellamy's sudden and shocking death there was quite a scramble of competition to gain this prized commission and I was delighted and not a little surprised to achieve this goal. I had always harboured the ambition to draw a daily newspaper strip and had tried unsuccessfully many times to get one. For instance had drawn about 12 weeks of a strip that never saw the light of day commissioned by The Sun called 'EuroCop'. I had drawn two different adventure strips off my own back in the hope that someone would like at least one of them, plus a comedy strip which although continuity, had hopefully one laugh-out-loud joke a day. So I did loads of samples but all to no avail. I still would love to do Modesty Blaise; don't know why after all this time but still would like to have a go ... John Burns had a fair old go at it and very good I thought, but that all went wrong and John left.     Page 1  2  3  4  5  6  Next