Basil Reynolds auction sales

The comics artist Basil Reynolds has appeared on the blog a few times over the years (all previous references are here) and I just wanted to record, for posterity, some recent sales of his artwork from the Peter Hansen sale on 10/11 March 202 at Andesron & Garland...

Lot 497 was described thus

Original artwork for page 5 of Micky Mouse Weekly No. 142, published October 22nd 1938, featuring the characters Skit, Skat and the Captain, by artist Basil Reynolds, ink over pencil on artboard, 51.5 x 38cms; together with artwork for another Mickey Mouse Weekly picture strip “The Big Top”, dated March 18^th, ink on artboard, 26.5 x 54cms, both unframed.

Sold for £110

Lot 499 was described thus

Original artwork for page 5 of Micky Mouse Weekly No. 138 “Mickey’s Bumper Birthday Number”, September 24^th 1938, by Willbank Publication and Odhams Press Ltd, featuring the characters Skit, Skat and the Captain celebrating Mickey Mouse’s birthday, by artist Basil Reynolds, ink on artboard, 53.5 x 38cms unframed.
Sold for £140

Note that this was previously the property of Denis Gifford and was sold in lot 4518 of the Hamer book & comic auction on February 16th 2003 (see here for an image of the auction catalogue cover). Estimate was £250; hammer price is unknown. 

Lot 500 was described thus

Original front cover artwork for Money Fun! painted by artist Basil Reynolds to a script by Denis Gifford, gouache on heavy paper stock, 49.5 x 37cms, unframed.

Sold for £85

Lot 501 was described thus
Two fully coloured interior pages from issue No’s. 1 and 2 of Denis Gifford’s Money Fun! painted by artist Basil Reynolds, with features "Wonders of the Wild", "Funny Money!" and reviving Reynold’s long running strip "Skit, Skat and the Captain", gouache on heavy stock paper and art board, 49.5 x 37cms. (a pair).

Estimated at £200-£300 this lot went unsold

The image on the left was on the back page of Money Fun #1 and the image on the right was on the back page of Money Fun #2

Heroes! The British invasion of American comics - part 4

Recently (ish!) finished at the Cartoon Museum (here)was their exhibition 'Heroes! The British invasion of American comics'. 

For anyone who couldn't make it here's part 4 of my look at what you missed...

Part 1 was here

Part 2 was here

Part 3 was here

Basil Reynolds - Chiswick resident

One for all Basil Reynolds fans out there (!) - this was swiped from a recent ebay listing and I've included it here mainly for the historical record of Reynolds address (and because I have some friends who live just off Dukes Avenue!)

Basil Hope Reynolds (1916-2001) was born in Islington, London. He was educated at Holloway County School and took art classes in the evening before joining the Adams & Fidier Art Agency, which produced comic strips for newspapers, in 1933. Reynolds drew Our Silly Cinema (1933) for the South Wales Echo, Septimus and his Space Ship (1934) for the Scottish Daily Express, and Billy the Baby Beetle (1935) in the Daily Sketch. 

In 1936 he was hired by Wilfred Haughton as a staff artist on Mickey Mouse Weekly, for which he wrote and drew "Skit, Skat and the Captain" (1936-40), "Elmer and Tillie" and "Shuffled Symphonies". 

During the Second World War he served in the army in the Middle East, before returning to Mickey Mouse Weekly as art editor, as well as drawing strips including "Bongo", "Li'l Wolf and Danny the Lamb", "True Life Adventures" and "Peter Puppet". 

Later, Reynolds also became art editor of Jack and Jill, Playhour and Tiny Tots. (UK Comics Wiki)

Basil Reynolds original art

A post today for friend of the blog John Wigmans...he's a big fan of the work of Basil Reynolds (whose work I've looked at previously here). Normally the Book Palace have some of his smaller wildlife illustrations for sale (here) for £90 but they've recently taken delivery of a much larger piece...

as it says here ...

Artist: Basil Reynolds (biography)
Medium: Pencil on Cartridge Paper
Size: 10" x 14" (255mm x 355mm)
Date: c. 1938

This is the unique original Pencil drawing by Basil Reynolds.

A wonderful complete one page Christmas Special story. Skit, Skat and the Captain was a regular feature in Britain's first glossy photogravure comic Mickey Mouse Weekly.

The strip was created by its artist Basil Reynolds. Reynolds had been one of the youngest nationally syndicated newspaper cartoonists in the 1920s. This is a full pencil rough with full text. There are four editorial corrections in the last panel.

Original pre World War Two artwork is vanishingly scarce and to have cartooning of this quality surviving is a special treat. The clock joke was a recurring gag in the strip. Reynolds has been noted as having influenced the great Ken Reid.

A magnificent piece - it can be yours for £700!

Goodies fun book (2)

Inspired by this recent post (by friend of the blog Michael Carroll) I've tracked down both the 'Goodies fun books'. They're quite different beasts - this volumes is aimed at a much younger audience than this volume (which is much more 'adventure' strip orientated).

Anyway, this volume...It's A4 size 52 pages (including covers) with a mix of colour and black & white artwork. I've not included examples of all the material but I've got most of the strips here - they're mainly single page strips - again in contrast to the 'adventure' volume where the strips were often 3 pages long.

This art is signed by 'Fel' who it turns out is Bert Felstead - a veteran of Fleetway nursery titles (says Steve Holland (and one other person) when I posted this query originally).

I've included this pages as an excuse to show a beautiful Basil Reynolds image of a red squirrel

Christmas quiz! Can you identify this comic?

I love a Christmas quiz, so in the spirit of that why not see if you can identify this comic...guesses in the comments section here on the blog or on Facebook directly. 

So, here it is then, can you work out what British comic featured all the following strips - artwork (in order, below) is by Don Harley, Gordon Hogg, Reg Parlett, Philip Mendoza, John M Burns, Basil Reynolds and John Ryan.

Stand by to find out much more about this comic this week...

Advertising comics (6) - Money Fun - issue 2

So here's the front cover to Money Fun, Denis Gifford's National Savings Bank comic

And here's the back cover

The highlight is probably the involvement of artist Basil Reynolds who could turn his had wonderfully to realistic art or more conventional cartooning - here he's reviving Skit, Skat and the captain who had originally been published in the 1930s

Contributors to this 8 page, July 1982 publication include Denis Gifford, Les Barton, Brian Walker and John Richardson, whose original centre-spread art (shown below) is currently on sale here for £75
http://bookpalace.com/acatalog/info_RichardsonJBob.html#SID=348

For more details please see Denis Gifford's ACE Newsletter #38 (volume 4, number 5) dated Aug/Sep 1981.