Marney the Fox

John Stokes provides gorgeous art for the 18th January, 1975 edition of Buster. I've included some larger frames for you to look at. I love the way JS uses various textures in his art from splattered ink to finger prints. I'd love to own one of these original pages.

Fishboy

Art by John Stokes from Buster, dated 1st November 1975.

Marney the Fox

Art by John Stokes. I think it's plain to see that this one was a labour of love. Such beautiful line-work. I'd love to have seen the originals of this one. As they say where I came from: bostin'!
Oh yeah, from Buster dated 1st November 1975.

I was in contact with JS a while back and have an interview (of sorts) with him that I'll publish at some point. Here's a little taste:

I found some Buster comics out the other day. You put an insane amount of work into those Marney the Fox pages. They look beautiful! I only wish they'd been printed on a better grade of paper. I see you used a lot of splatter techniques? Did you use an old toothbrush for that? Also I see a pattern that looks like fingerprints too? Your pages are quite textural. It'd be interesting to see an original Marley, to look at the surface of the art. What kind of pens/brushes/materials did you use?


It was the first time I had used spatter. If  I wanted it to be random sizes and quite irregular, I used a toothbrush loaded with Indian Ink, and for a more overall effect I used a diffuser spray, which is a pair of metal tubes, joined together at a right angle. You put one end in a bottle of Ink, the other end in your mouth, and blew until you felt as if your eyeballs were about to pop out! It gave a fair approxamation of an airbrush, which were very rare at the time. Then I went to work with the process white to bring out the highlights, snow effects, etc. And, Yes, I used fingerprints too, anything to give the pages the textures that were everywhere in nature.
   Who knows what happened to the pages. None were ever returned to me, so they probably ended up in bin-bags on a dump somewhere. At that time I was using a Gillot nib with a very flexible tip which was heaven to draw with, but after a few years  the quality dropped off so much that out of a box of a hundred nibs, less than fifty were useable. I only used brushes to fill in black areas by that time, although in my early years I used a sable brush a lot, for figure drawing, but became dissatisfied with the amount of detail I was able to get with them.

Fishboy-Denizen of the Deep

John Stokes illustrates this tale from the 28th December 1974 edition of Buster.

The Battle for Britain

Art by John Stokes. Lion dated 11th December 1965.

Marney the Fox

More texture-tastic work from John Stokes. Buster & Cor!!, 28th December 1974.

Star Death

Art by John Stokes. I think this is from Doctor Who Monthly number 47 1980?

The Black Knight

John Stokes provides some nice line work.  Always value for money. I see a little bit of Frank Bellamy in the rendering of 'the stranger' in the final panel of page 3. From Hulk Comic, March 28th 1979.

The first part of this storyline has been reprinted in The Lion and the Spider.

Marney the Fox

Greetings! I've been a little busy of late: what with work and moving house.

Having given the kids an audio book version of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mister Fox for Christmas and having to listen to it several times a day since. I thought it'd be appropriate to start the New Year with Marney the Fox from Buster dated 27th March 1976. Beautiful work by John Stokes. I'm assuming he enjoyed drawing it because he puts an insane amount of detail into this strip.

Alien Aid

John Stokes provides the art for this short from 2000AD dated, 10th May 1986.

The Battle for Britain

John Stokes draws this tale for Lion dated 14th May 1966. I find it weird that, in nearly every episode there's a caption remarking on Vic Gunn's 'West Indian assistant, Barrel'. I'd think it'd be kinda obvious to even a casual reader at the time that he's not a honky.... Dunno, why it bugs me. Guess it's my PC sensitivity coming to the fore. By the way, when I say PC I mean Pie and Chips of course.

Death Game 1999

John Stokes provides illustrations for this text story from the Action annual 1977.

Fishboy-Denizen of the Deep

From Buster 15th May 1971 art by John Stokes. Like Denis Mc Loughlin, John Stokes put a lot of detail and texture into his pages. Go here for more information.