Bagnall's Retreat

2011-11-30T05:47:00.001-08:00

Three recent drawings based on Hebrew Scripture.

2011-11-23T08:18:00.001-08:00

Two recent sketchbook pages, both of 'popular' singers, Johnnie Ray and Donny Osmond.

2011-11-17T00:14:00.001-08:00

Sketchbook at Palazzola, outside Rome.

2011-11-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

I'm currently in Italy and have begun drawing again...

2011-10-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

Without drawing materials. I'm temporarily without drawing materials at the moment so before anything new is drawn here is a sketchbook page.

2011-09-12T02:13:00.000-07:00

Change of Address Comic. Apologies for lack of posts recently. I have been busy moving to a new address. To celebrate/announce the new pad I produced this little comic.

2011-06-20T00:52:00.000-07:00

I am partial to a bit of hoop splaying and acid pickling...

2011-06-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

More industrial based drawing from my sketchbook.

2011-06-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

Living Museum of the North. Last week I made a return visit to Beamish Open Air Museum. While the purpose of this blog is not to recommend days out I have to say strolling around Beamish is a wonderfully accurate recreation of the Northern past. Its also a treat for sign lovers like myself. Not all are vintage. Look at this hand crafted beauty advertising a fish and chip shop. Salt and vinegar on mine, ta.

2011-05-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

Meet me outside Fine Fare. BETWEEN CHANNELS is my favourite new blog discovery. The above samples of found photo images from this site should whet your appetite. Therein you will come across many more examples of scanned 70s and 80s scenes of British drabness which this blog labels 'hauntological'. There are also some fantastic bits of clumsy letraset graphics from the same era just for good measure. Drive your Austin Allegro here.

2011-05-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

Vintage gent's clothes packaging. Will that be a standard or tailored fit, sir?

2011-04-18T03:51:00.000-07:00

Vintage electricals and drying equipment in an old washroom. Photographed at Ushaw College, Co.Durham.

2011-04-15T00:31:00.001-07:00

Working Men's Club drawing, 14th April.

2011-04-12T04:01:00.000-07:00

I recently found this interesting article on my comics at a blog called Existential Ennui. Thanks , Nick!

2011-04-11T07:43:00.001-07:00

Four nice Odhams annuals...

2011-03-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

New page in sketchbook, workers in industry and at leisure.

2011-02-09T08:53:00.000-08:00

2011-01-06T02:56:00.000-08:00

New Strip / Old Joke. Here is a new three pager based on a joke which probably dates back to stand-up comedy shows like The Comedians in the 70s. It's been floating around my mind for a while, the subject matter was attractive to me and so here is my telling of it...

2011-01-04T07:16:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, retreatants! Hope you enjoyed reading all those smashing annuals you got at Christmas!

2010-12-01T12:38:00.000-08:00

Worldwide Weirdies. I've been enjoying coming across these scans of Ken Reid's full-page illustrations for Whoopee comic in the late 70's. £2 was the prize awarded to the imaginative tykes who sent in a winning title. Think my favourite here is 'Shiverpool Docks'...

2010-10-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

More signs from the coast.

2010-10-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

Seaside Signs. British seaside towns are suffering the blight of ugly computer signage just as much as the high street. However, if you look carefully there are usually some surviving hand-painted items to catch the eye. Here are some examples I came across at "sunny" Seaton Carew near Hartlepool. I like the way someone has added a swastika to the Traffic Warden sign. The figure reminded me of Blakey from On the Buses...

2010-09-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

Mail-order clothing catalogues. Autumn mists have been appearing and there is a new chill in the air. It must be time to begin wearing warmer clothes again. Before the advent of the internet the only alternative to high-street shopping for a warm cardy or thermal long-johns was the mail-order catalogue. Here is a scan from my own collection plus a short strip inspired by these musty old publications.

2010-09-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

Derelict Odeon. Out of town cinema multiplexes replaced cinemas long ago in smaller towns. This sorry looking monolith in central Hartlepool was once an Odeon as you will see from the familiar '30s outline and faded ghost-sign. It seems there was an unsuccessful attempt to turn it into an 'American Bar' (see Pool/Snooker sign) and its frontage seems to have been host to a number of shops now abandoned and crumbling. One faint shop fascia which caught my eye was for the Tan Ya Hyde solarium. Not the most classy of shop names in which to top up your George Michael bronzing. The whole building is now in such a state of decrepitude that pigeons have occupied its upper storey and the damp rot is undulating into interesting underground-cavern patterns. Its a safe bet this place will be un-used for a little while longer...

2010-09-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

Derelict Methodist Chapels. As a follow-up to my earlier Primitive Methodist post here are two empty and boarded-up Methodist Chapels within walking distance of each other in Hartlepool. I love these simple barn-like Victorian buildings. I wonder how long ago they were full of song and activity?

2010-09-10T02:45:00.001-07:00

Disappearing Phrase. A variation on having a "loose slate" or being "a sandwich short of a picnic."

2010-09-06T10:22:00.001-07:00

Andy Capp statue. I took a trip today to see a bronze tribute to that great northern cartoon character Andy Capp. The five foot high statue is situated outside a pub named The Harbour of Refuge in Hartlepool.

Capp's creator, Reg Smyth, lived in Hartlepool though his strips (in print since 1957) have been translated all over the world. Apparently in Germany Capp is called Willi Wakker and in France Andre Chapeau.

Some photos from todays trip above and also a classic strip and two early book collection covers for good measure.

2010-09-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

Primitive Methodist illustration. This drawing appeared in The Sound Projector music magazine issue 10 way back in 2002. The North East has many 'Primitive Methodist' chapel buildings in its landscape, most now closed or converted into houses. I was interested to read that the Primitives were also known as 'ranters' or 'shouters' because of their noisy and often open-air hymn singing. The Primitive chapel goers were also known for acceptance of women preachers, teetotalism and a form of Christianity attuned to the needs of labouring people.

2010-09-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

Hand Painted Sign site. TypArchive is an image library with a simple mission-statement which Bagnall's Retreat can heartily endorse: "Amidst a landscape of vapid malls and sterile (computer) signage, hand-painted lettering retains an aesthetic to be treasured..."

You can also contribute your own photos of the fading art of hand lettering. Take a look here...

2010-08-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Dad's Eye strip. I thought I'd post all of the pages of Dad's Eye, because it hasn't been seen for a while. It originally appeared in a no longer available self-published comic called Knitting for Whitsun back in 2006. The story is partly true and the setting is based on views of Easington Lane and Horden Co.Durham, both depressed former mining villages. Included is a sketch book page in which I was working out how the two characters would look.

2010-08-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

Get A Trade pictures. Here are the finished drawings without colour. Mechanic, Signwriter, Plumber and Bricklayer. Learn a Trade and you'll have a future!

2010-08-13T03:44:00.000-07:00

Sketch book pages. Here are some preliminary idea pages I drew for a series of four 'Get A Trade' illustrations. These were meant to be careers-advice style pictures from an earlier era, supposedly aimed at encouraging boys into manual trades such as Plumber, Mechanic, Signwriter and Bricklayer.

2010-08-10T03:32:00.000-07:00

Sketch book pages. A couple of 70s themed drawings. One was for a Christmas card, the other for a CDr compilation.

2010-08-08T01:59:00.000-07:00

An Old Joke #2. Another sketch book strip inspired by the 1939 Remember When article.

2010-08-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

An Old Joke #1. One regional magazine I often buy is Remember When, which aims to record the recent history of the North East through the memories of local people. Published by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle this mag can feature some quirky vintage photos and articles.

I drew the above strip this week in my sketch book using a joke from a reprinted Evening Chronicle article from 1939.

2010-08-06T01:38:00.000-07:00

Ken Reid (1919-1987.) I think its fair to say Ken Reid was a genius of British comics. I grew up reading his pages in Beano, Dandy, Wham, Smash, Cor and later, Shiver and Shake. However I'm not sure how I missed out on his character Jasper McGrabb. Reid's Jasper strips were unusual in that they were set in Victorian England and Jasper himself was a rich miser who could hear the sound of a coin dropping from any distance. Shown here is a Jasper strip from Wham comic in the late 60s and for good measure I've included a classic Roger the Dodger story also drawn by Reid.

2010-08-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

Dilapidated Shop Sign. While strolling the back streets of Hartlepool today I came across this obviously long shut and boarded up shop. Its hand-painted sign is flaking to reveal a more interesting two colour piece of signage with drop-shadow.

2010-08-04T01:22:00.000-07:00

Religious paperback covers. More semi-random vintage paperbacks chosen for their covers. The Penguin Book of Religious Verse is one among a series of rather nice poetry collections at this time (1963) which featured a patterned wrap-round with square title panel.

2010-08-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Pelican paperback covers. I photographed this rather random bunch of vintage Pelican books today. Some rareified subject matter here and I confess I have no plans to read any of these titles. These are posted purely for their distinctive design. For more look here.

2010-07-30T01:19:00.001-07:00

Ladybird Book art. The publishers of Ladybird children's books have belatedly realised that there is a great interest in the illustrations used in their classic 60s and 70s series. Now a print-on-demand service is available. Its certainly not cheap but there are some beauties which are all the more evocative because they are bereft of text.

Here are some of my favourites, including a Ron Embleton illo from The Story of Newspapers and a glorious Tunnicliffe watercolour from What to look for in Autumn.

2010-07-29T12:34:00.001-07:00

British newsprint fun. Have been spending far too much time poring over these cover galleries of British comics from the 60s and 70s. Girl's comics from this period are a real curiosity because, of course, no boy wouldn't be seen dead holding a copy of Bunty or Penelope. Now I'd love to read them.

2010-07-23T09:05:00.001-07:00

Painted Signs blog. I'm always on the look-out for people who share my love of old signwriting and faded advertising from another age. This blog I discovered today records some great 'ghost signs' and commercial mosaics from Southern England and France. See example above. The black and white ghost sign is one I spotted and photographed in Edinburgh this April.

2010-07-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Dudley D. Watkins galleries. Was delighted to discover these recent online galleries of original artwork by the icon of Scottish comic art Dudley D. Watkins. Some wartime Lord Snooty and 1950s Desperate Dan on show at this site but also more obscure DC Thomson published characters not seen since publication. Take a look here.

2010-07-20T14:41:00.001-07:00

Drake Ullingsworth comic. Highlight of today was finding Ed Pinsent has a new book out and it features my favourite of his characters, psychic detective Drake Ullingsworth and his Dog. I've just ordered one and you can too here.

2010-07-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

Pen and Ink by Eric Fraser. Esteemed British illustrator Eric Fraser is perhaps best known for his creation 'Mr. Therm', a logo he designed in 1931 for the Gas, Light and Coke company. Prolific and consummate, most of his work is well worth looking at, especially his masterly monochrome pen and ink pieces. I'm posting some of these for no other reason that they are great and perhaps the equal of mid-20th Century giants like Bawden, Minton and Rosoman.

2010-07-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

Vesuvius records artwork. Thanks to Flickr I found these nice scans of the artwork I did for Vesuvius records' Travel Companion (book and tape) back in the mid '90s. I can't imagine employing such a bright colour scheme these days but it was fun to come across this again. The label produced some seminal Glasgow produce - all now, of course, long sold out.

2010-07-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

I've long been fascinated by the syndicated cartoon Horace and Doris. I first came across these antiquated gags in the pages of the Sunderland Echo, where it appears daily on the letters page. After some scouring I've found Horace is published in thirteen UK local and regional papers and its creator, John Morris, a Midlands 'career cartoonist', died in 2000. However, Morris was an old-school pro and drew 6,000 H & D cartoons at a rate of 40 per week(!), so there are still plenty left to publish.

The rather slapdash drawing style puts Horace in an earlier, non-ironic era of say, Larry newspaper cartoons and the subject matter is equally stereotypical. Horace is a long-suffering hen-pecked husband and Doris is a money wasting battle-axe of the Peggy Mount school. Does anyone else enjoy reading these anachronistic sketches? Perhaps its time has already run out because I managed to buy (via an Amazon seller) the 2003 Northern Echo collection of Horace & Doris strips for a mere 1p !

2010-07-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

Hello again, retreatants. I'm now back from Spain and once more have my feet planted in Northern English soil. Watch this space for new pleasantly musty comics, illustrations and photographs.

2009-09-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

Packing up and moving on. Time to stop posting on this particular blog. Many thanks for reading and commenting. I will be setting up another blog from my new address within the month (using Bagnall in the title). Adios!

2009-09-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Old School Sign Writing. I've had a couple of sign-writing commissions lately. From these photos of a church sign in progress readers will see I like to follow old methods: lay-out in chalk, lettering in enamel paint, painted with a sable brush. My only concession to modernity is the font style which I initially print out from my laptop. Old craftsmen would snap their Mahl Sticks in disgust!

2009-05-31T12:33:00.000-07:00

Modernist Catholic Churches. These concrete and clear line edifices all date from the late 50s to the turn of the 70s and are from the Archdiocese of Cincinatti. Their mammoth size and confident style all testify to a boom time for American Catholicism when Mass attendance was huge and vocations to the priesthood were at an all time peak. Even new convents were being built at this time. Unthinkable now, when (in the West at least) the thought of a religious vocation is not considered a marketable option.

2009-05-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Here is an overdue posting of vintage shop signs photographed on my holiday to Malta. All of these flaking and crumbling beauties were seen in the lovely capital city Valletta. The majority of these fascia stood above vacant businesses so I suppose some will be disappearing shortly.

2009-03-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

Happy to announce that from Tuesday 17th March I will be on holiday in Malta. This Mediterranean island has 365 churches and its Cathedral in Valletta is home to Caravaggio's painting of The Beheading of John the Baptist, a gloomy baroque picture I have long wanted to see in situ. As this is the third week in Lent it is too early to see any splendid religious festas in Malta but I hope to soak up the island's devout Catholic culture and also some early spring sunshine.

2009-02-21T05:05:00.000-08:00

Pub Signs. These foam-board signs were commisssioned from me by my niece Sarah and her fiancee Craig for their wedding which took place last Sunday. Why pub signs? On their evening "do" they held a pub quiz with team leaders each representing a fictional pub. These signs swung from wooden posts in eight sections of the real pub. The winning team (my sister Elaine's) received cup trophies. Oh and there was fish and chips too. Congratulations Sarah and Craig!

2009-01-22T15:48:00.000-08:00

The January Wall. Here's how my office wall looks lately, what with the New Year and all that. One visitor said there is no cohesion between my varied pictures and artefacts - the display is rather mixed up. Make your own decision - how many of us are singular in our interests anyway?

The wall-hangings left to right are:

1. Crucifix bought for me from Catholic Truth Society circa 1980 by girlfriend of that time.

2. Print of the first Broons Annual cover from the late 1930's.

3. Fantastic Four Jack Kirby print from Marvel Comics website.

4. Report from Newcastle Evening Chronicle about new Bishop-elect, Seamus Cunningham of Hexham and Newcastle Diocese.

5. Cover by Steve Ditko of Amazing Spiderman Number 33, early 1960s.

6. "Punk's Not Dead" 2009 Calendar reduced to £1.99 in sales. Current picture of Glen Matlock is OK, but could prove shameful when June's picture of Boomtown Rat's Bob Geldof is on show.

7. Page (not original) from a 1930's Lord Snooty strip illustrated by Dudley Watkins.

8. Plaque bought from Lourdes during 2008 depicting Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

9. Official Broons 2009 Calendar bought from The Sunday Post.

2008-12-30T10:17:00.000-08:00

The British High Street. As 2008 draws its last few breaths I'm probably not the only one to reflect on how the recession has hit us so quickly and so hard. Small shops are disappearing and of the big chain stores its not only Woolies which has kicked the bucket. The outlook is so gloomy that soon we may only have out of town supermarkets in which to spend our credit-crunch pennies.

Above street scene is an unpublished drawing from a couple of years ago.

2008-12-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

His Glory will appear in your midst.

Happy Christmas to all my friends. Regular posting will return in the new year when things shouldn't be so hectic!

2008-11-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

Treasure Chest Comic 1946-1972. This educational comic book was published in the USA by George A Pflaum and provided (free?) to Catholic parochial school students during the above years.Treasure Chest's solid pre-Vatican II dogma expressed in strip form must have been intended as a moral antidote to the horror and superhero comics which were exerting an unholy grip on America's youth.

Despite these clear digital archive scans you can't help but smell the musty whiff of cheap newsprint, eye the glow of a yellowed patina and somehow hear the echo of classes of schoolchildren collectively chanting the answers to the Baltimore Catholic Catechism.

2008-11-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

Vegetable box art. In the quest for the unsophisticated and the unintentionally odd in graphic design I offer these examples of fruit shop cardboard boxes. I had to snap these screenprinted goodies with my roving camera. First is a broccoli box from Channel Farm, Kinross. As this produce is from Scotland I was happy to read the slogan "Builds Braw Bodies". But can anyone tell me why has the boxes designer included an illustration of a braw female body who looks like Marsha Hunt circa 1969, complete with frizzy afro hairstyle and psychedelic bell-bottoms? And how about the cauliflower box also above? No self-respecting Mac carrying designer would dare go for the anthropomorphic angle these days but here we have a cauli with not only a hideous grin but also disturbingly long eyelashes. I hope this vegetable countenance never visits me in a future nightmare...

2008-10-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

Dudley D Watkin's Young Warrior Comic Strips. Easily my favourite British cartoonist and revered illustrator of Desperate Dan, Lord Snooty, The Broons and Oor Wullie, Dudley D Watkins also had a lesser known artistic sideline producing Christian tract strips for the Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade during the 1950s and 1960s. Watkins was a highly religious man and always kept a huge Bible near his drawing board. His Bible had wide margins in which he would scribble copious notes when inspiration took hold. Watkin's place of worship was the Dundee Church of Christ, a Free Protestant community where he met his wife.

From 1956 he drew and wrote William the Warrior, a schoolboy character much given to scripture quotations and musing on moral dilemmas. Later he created Tony & Tina, the Warrior Twins (see above) for the Young Warrior Christian Children's Paper. These strips were collected and published in booklets during 1966 and 1969.

2008-09-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

Czech Signwriting. I've just returned from my second visit to the city of 1000 spires and cabbage soup, Prague. I don't think I will ever tire of Prague's endlessly fascinating streets, fine gloomy Baroque churches and dusty antique shops, this September in unseasonably nippy temperatures.

These elegant examples of signwriting painted directly onto the building's stonework caught my eye. Somehow the letter style couldn't be from anywhere else but the Czech Republic.

2008-07-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Traditional Catholic Visualism. I've been spending far too much precious time lately lapping up the resplendent photographs on the excellent Hallowed Ground picture blog. Here is an inspired and carefully chosen celebration of the liturgical grandeur that was the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. It has taken many a year to recover from that cultural rupture which (indirectly) brought us a neo-Protestant mistrust of the visual in church worship. Other woeful Vatican II by-products in Catholic liturgy have been banal, folksy hymns and a mood of jamboree rather than awe at the sacred mysteries being represented.

For myself, hopes for the future and continuity with the past include going to Thursday evening Mass last week at Sacred Heart & English Martyrs Church, Co. Durham and witnessing Fr. Dickson process to the sanctuary wearing a black biretta on his head exactly like the above unknown circa World War I cleric.

2008-07-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

Beano Summer Special Comics. I'm almost certain my Dad bought me copies of these Summer Specials (dated 1972, 1973 and 1975) during holidays in Wales, Yorkshire and the Lakes. In my early teens I remember reading mainly American Marvel and DC comics. But I also recall with a good deal of affection these DC Thomson goodies, printed in semi-gloss paper in tabloid size. There are many references here to venerable British Butlins style holidays in these jolly old pages. Steam Trains, Striped Blazers, Straw Boaters and School Teacher's Mortar Boards also crop up. Did we ever come across such delightful anachronisms in Captain America or The Avengers?

2008-06-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

More signs from Lourdes. I wouldn't normally upload any pictures of vinyl (spit) signs but these examples from the grotto domain of Lourdes are certainly untypical. The above request for respectful silence is pleasingly naive and the schematic representation of a humble act of contrition between priest and penitent quite heartwarming. By the way, the confession hall at Lourdes was a little confusing - make one wrong turn and you could be faced with a confessor who could only speak Dutch or Spanish or Italian or German. O Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!

2008-06-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

Ghost Signs of Lourdes. Not long back from my (early) summer hols in Lourdes and Walsingham - a sort of two-centre pilgrimage jaunt which I enjoyed very much and will be reporting on in future posts. For now, and because its a disgracefully long time since I posted anything, here are 3 rather nice faded wall signs from the back streets of Lourdes. People complain about Lourdes being an over-commercialised Catholic shrine, but an alert eye can detect evidence of an earlier, more quiet era. I particularly like the middle auto sign, this long closed garage once must've been the place to take your Peugeot or Renault for a quick buff and polish.

2008-05-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Vintage Warm Weather Refreshment. Temperatures are suddenly on the rise and we're having a mini May heatwave. After a hard day on the lathe or coalface I'm sure we could all do with some refrigerated treats like those pictured above.

2008-05-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

No Modernist Houses here. After morning Mass I spent my Bank Holiday Monday tootling around the local vicinity in search of sights which might run counter to our near total national submission to consumer lusts.

Near a Morrison's Supermarket which was full to the gunnels with sallow and obese drone youths taking advantage of the weekend's special offer on cases of Stella was this cluster of empty flat-roofed houses obviously ready for demolition. Walking around these silent reminders of faith in the square and the functional at Doxford Park near Sunderland I wondered what such nostalgically appealing International Style boxes might soon be replaced with. Nearby was a slick sign announcing "another exciting new development from (forgotten corporate name)". I should have known, more expensive and cramped houses to enslave mortgaged couples in atomised isolation, their only consolation being they are at last on the "property ladder"!

2008-04-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Rural hand-painted sign. I've driven past this very nice amateur sign nearly every day in the past few months and have grown to love its untutored gloss-paint brushiness. Pointers to its unprofessional charms are (a) closeness of lettering to border (b) confusion between upper and lower case letters, note the dotted 'i' and (c) random application of a serif on the letter U.

This formica beauty is located between Leamside and Great Lumley, Co. Durham.

2008-04-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

Still Open For Business. These photos of severely decaying retail premises come from a visit I made yesterday to Stanley, Co. Durham. I was there for Saturday morning Confession at St. Joseph's, a magnificent 19th Century church with a beautifully decorated and dark Lady Chapel which is lit only by the small number of votive candles the elderly faithful choose to pay their 20p for. Parish Priest Father Joe Park is a kindly old priest with not many teeth and whose long winter clerical cloak shows under the velvet confessional curtain hem.

Despite these shops crumbling state they somehow remain open and stand for me as hopeful counter-cultural beacons amid the chain-store strangulation of our land. First pictured is an independent Estate Agent with nailed on plastic letters on its flaking fascia which must have come from a DIY store circa 1976. Please note the hand-written "Can't Get A Mortgage?" notice which you'd never see in a high-street Halifax branch. Next shop is Sandra's Ladies Hairdressers, a shop so unkempt I was certain it must be closed until I watched a head-scarved old lady walk inside and then saw a flourescent light flicker on through its exceedingly grubby net curtains. Last photo is of Beamish Street's garage with a unique weed-filled bathtub as it's welcoming feature.

2008-04-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

Modernist Sunday School Art. Found these lovely vintage images on a Norwegian children's book illustration site. This style of popular religious artwork seems to have first appeared in the 60s and is "modernist" only in that it borrows the flat picture-plane, unmodulated bright colours and schematic black-outline representation from mid-20th Century painting. There are also echoes here of Hanna Barbera style cartoons. Being roughly 60 years old this generically modern graphic mode is now quite dated but has also acquired a luscious retro patina. Many parish churches still employ the style in their bulletins and decorations in a bid to communicate in a direct graphic manner. Even my own RC church uses liturgical wall-hangings in exactly the same simplified Matisse meets Derain manner.

New Testament subjects depicted above are the Annunciation, the Last Supper and the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. I love the way the Angel Gabriel is represented as a strictly linear outline rather than the traditional flowing and feather-winged messenger of the Immaculate Conception.

2008-03-29T15:11:00.000-07:00

Ladybird Book Art. One recent hardback volume which has been fascinating my reading specs since the beginning of this year has been Boys and Girls, A Ladybird Book of Childhood. This hefty collection of stunning images from the 60s and 70s heyday of Ladybird publishing rises high above the recent glut of UK nostalgia titles like the (admittedly likeable) Jackie, Eagle Comic and Look-In collections which were on every gift-title bookshop stack before the Nativity of Our Lord 2007.

Into late 40s Austerity Britain first appeared Ladybird Children's books, a series of inexpensive hardback volumes. Their small size was dictated by the paper shortage of post-wartime and the modestly sized printing presses of publishers Wills & Hepworth, Loughborough. Their format (virtually unchanged to this day) was a huge success and became most familiar and best-selling in every Woolworths and WH Smith during the 1960s and 1970s.

I've been a collector of classic Ladybirds from this period for about 5 years and willingly admit to pinching some of their iconic imagery for use in my comic and illustration work. Thanks to ebay all but the rarest titles are usually easy and cheap to locate (but I still can't find a decent copy of The Customs Officer!) Their beautiful and painstaking illustrations by artists like John Berry and Harry Wingfield provide an indispensable snapshot of an entirely lost British era and only now are these artists receiving belated recognition. Of course, predictable criticisms have been levelled against Ladybird books: they presented too cosy and middle-class a picture of Britain from that time and one recent Sunday Supplement reviewer of Boys & Girls said Ladybird books failed to illustrate the possible underlying tensions between parents in the happy family unit which is uniformly presented. But I ask you, what child would ever want to happily read about an impending divorce from their self-absorbed and irresponsible Mothers and Fathers?

Top photo shows a few choice Ladybird titles from my collection and the remainder are from the highly recommended Boys & Girls book.

2008-03-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

Church Spire remnant. About five years ago, when I was having weekly driving lessons, my instructor Bill Berry used to make disparaging comments as I was steering cautiously through Bowburn, Co.Durham about the curious neo-modernist church situated in the town's main council estate. Concentrating on the road, I was unable to take too much notice of the eccentric building he was pointing out. What I did fleetingly take in was extraordinary - a bizarre metal and fibreglass 1970's edifice, the roof an Armadillo-like backbone of spiky red triangles with an equally eccentric spire which looked like an upturned shark's tail. A friend recently informed me the notorious metal church had been demolished due to it being declared an unsafe structure.

By chance, I returned to Bowburn this week and on a sharp, brightly-lit morning on the cusp between Winter and Spring, I was delighted to see the spire of the metal church is still in place, proudly pointing upwards amid a blank area of mud and rubble where the main body of the church once stood. I took a photograph which you can see above, but information about the original church remains elusive. All I can unearth is the building was a Church of England place of worship dedicated to Christ The King and local parishioners are still raising money to build a safer replacement. When their new church is eventually finished I predict much fewer double-takes from passing drivers.

2008-02-27T11:50:00.000-08:00

Windy weather again. I've been waiting for a blustery opportunity to upload this fantastic Dudley D. Watkins panel from his 11th February 1951 Broons comic page. Last night the gales reached similar cat-hurtling violence but I certainly didn't expect an earthquake to add to the wintry excitement. Its tremor woke me from my slumbers just before 1am. Jings! Whatever next?

2008-02-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

Rare Catholic Statues. Ever since I was a 21 year old wide-eyed visitor of Liverpool's (long gone) Catholic Truth Society shop I've loved plaster statues of Saints designed for home devotion. Sadly, even today's practicing left-footers seem to regard these inexpensive objects as incompatible with their precious property's laminated decor and who, in their right mind, would want to offend their neighbour's secular sensibilities with even the remotest display of belief in the non-material or self-sacrificial?

Happily, some of these once populist, mass-manufactured figurines are currently available for purchase on ebay. Even the ignorant should recognise the first figure as St.Sebastian, here without the details of his arrow-pierced martyrdom. The second is St.Expeditus, from Roman antiquity, and the third is the great St.John Vianney (aka Cure D'Ars), patron Saint of Priests.

2008-02-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

Bagnall's Retreat has been on retreat!

For the last 3 days I've been living at Ushaw College a.k.a St.Cuthbert's Roman Catholic Seminary. Directed by Fr.Paul Grogan, the retreat centred around a 25 hour grand silence which was imposed on Friday evening and lifted at 9pm Saturday, when myself and the seven other male retreatants were able to re-join the rest of the community.

The first photo was taken from my room not long after arriving and the other two are from a brisk and nippy morning walk in the snowy grounds before I gathered with Anthony, David, John, Frank, Simon, Benjamin, Martin and Fr.Grogan to recite the Morning Office in St.Joseph's Chapel.

2008-01-25T16:33:00.000-08:00

More Kenneth Rowntree Art. Astute and regular readers will have noticed that I am very keen on unearthing any printed items or original art of the pre-1970s work of my late art school Professor Kenneth Rowntree. I challenge you not to like this latest Rowntree (1949) book I have discovered via Ebay. Here are enough dull greys and sober design to last you a pleasurable rain drenched weekend.

2008-01-20T04:55:00.000-08:00

Denture Repairs Comic Strip. This little piece of whimsey came about because I'd spotted a hand-painted sign in a Co.Durham semi-detached house window reading "Denture Repairs Here". Behind its net-curtains the sitting room looked dingy and old-fashioned, with a Seance on a Wet Afternoon ambience which certainly appealed to my imagination. I was planning to take a photo of this sign but when I returned to the terraced street the other week the sign had gone. I felt the vanished image needed to be commemorated in a strip.

2008-01-18T13:41:00.000-08:00

More exotic packaging art. In response to my earlier post about Turkish confectionery packaging Harley Richardson has kindly captured these Asian graphic delights at a Tooting store and sent them to Bagnall's Retreat. What makes these designs superior to Tesco or Sainsbury's latest offerings? Apart from their visual unfamiliarity I think these boxes have an attractive bias in favour of arbitrary decoration (stars surely straight out of an old Letraset book) rather than boringly informing the anxious buyer what lurks inside the cardboard packaging. No sophisticated re-touched photographs appear here nor calorie or fat-content statistics. The uninitiated consumer must enter a mystery contract and £1.49 seems a very fair price to me for a product which promises to aid "prayer and pleasure".

2008-01-03T14:24:00.000-08:00

A John Betjeman postage stamp. I unearthed this piece of Betjeman ephemera because the lovable old coot is once again prominent in my thoughts since reading A.N. Wilson's recent biography. It's a fine account for which I can forgive the author's 1993 heathen-biased life of Jesus. What strikes home is that the British architectural and cultural heritage Betj strove to save is virtually extinct but so is any trace of comparable humour or genuine eccentricity in today's cultural commentators.

Like my earlier blogged sighting of George Melly in a London street I remember vividly spotting John Betjeman ambling near Leeds Town Hall while I was about 19 years old and about to transfer onto a National Express bus to Liverpool. Betjeman's portly figure was unmistakeable, as was his battered charcoal suit and trilby. He seemed to be gazing upwards at the soot-encrusted provincial buildings, memorials of Victorian civic pride.

2007-12-28T12:18:00.000-08:00

Turkish Confectionery Art. The necessary arrival of Polish foodstuffs in British shops has seen me optimistically searching for either appealingly dated or enticingly exotic Polish packaging. So far I've been disappointed, most Polish beer cans or orange cordial bottles look as brightly bland and contemporary as any other items of consumer enslavement on Tesco or Asda's shelves. The search for graphic novelty has had to continue elsewhere...

Ulker Cokokrem, now on sale in the UK, is a Turkish liquid chocolate confection packaged in toothpaste style tubes. Perhaps its sugar-saturated contents will be a hit with sweet-toothed children. The acidic green and red packaging is what locked my own adult eye in pleasurable wonderment. Garish candy-stripes and bulging typefaces are seldom used by Western European graphic communicators, but here they are working a treat, like a breath of unsophisticated Bosphorous air. Look how the Turkish designer revels in presenting the product smeared on a crust of bread in total un-natural, lava-like, rippled glory. See how the tube's goofy troglodyte cartoon character could be almost drawn by Ed Roth and how the red plastic cap works as the trog's headgear. Perfect!

I hope I'm feeling well enough by New Year to munch a little bit of Ulker Cokokrem. As they say in downtown Istanbul...mmm, Kremasi!

2007-12-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

Sick-Note Bagnall. My sincere apologies to all my friends who I was unable to send Happy Christmas wishes to. I've been struck down with the worst streaming cold since I was a lad in short trousers. The timing couldn't have been worse. Pax Vobiscum to you all and I hope you'll keep reading and commenting in 2008 A.D.

Above photo is of St. Padre Pio revering the Christ Child during a 1960s Christmas at Pietrelcina, Italy.

2007-12-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

If you feel compelled to spend your miserable wages on Christmas Tat then these examples of festive kitsch are about one degree preferable to the corporate evils on display in our Capitalist marketplaces. Why? This German Advent calendar doesn't contain any branded chocolate and so you may happily reflect on The Annunciation and the Flight to Bethlehem etc. without teeth decay /contributing to some fat Cadbury executive's Christmas bonus. The St.Nicholas doll above may look cute but he is definitely not modelled on the dominant company-originated image of Santa Claus we all have to put up with. The red-suited and white-bearded brand of Santa comes directly from Coca Cola advertising in the 20th Century. This St.Nick is offering what he owns to the poor and there's not a Nintendo Wii in sight!

2007-12-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

Another Edward Bawden mention is long overdue. This lovely Bawden print of The Titfield Thunderbolt is available as a Christmas card from the Royal Academy online shop.

2007-12-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

Winter is definitely upon us, but so is the season of Advent, the start of the church year and the holy period of preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Christ.

Adventus is the Latin word for "coming" and is the exact equivalent for the Greek word parousia, the word most commonly used in reference to the Second Coming.

On Sunday you were all permitted to light the first candle on your Blue Peter coat-hanger Advent Crown. I hope you remembered to ask permission from Dad to use his matches...

2007-11-27T11:59:00.000-08:00

John Bratby revisited. When I wrote about the slightly-neglected British "Kitchen Sink" artist John Bratby in my September 13th post I didn't expect much of a response and true enough, no blog comments were received.

A little while later though I received an email from musician and artist Harley Richardson with a very interesting and unexpected Bratby connection. His Dad, Ian Richardson, a former BBC employee, had once had his portrait painted by the great palette-knife wielder. I knew Bratby had concentrated on portraiture since the late 60s and his sitters had included British luminaries like John Betjeman, Sir Alec Guinness and Spike Milligan, but never dreamed I would hear first-hand details of what it was like to be painted by the whiskered one. Ian Richardson has kindly written about his encounter especially for Bagnall's Retreat and this is what he remembers:

"When I was on the BBC staff, any mail for 'Ian Richardson' would come to me and that would sometimes include fan letters for my actor namesake, who had made a name for himself, not least in 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy'. Late in 1982, I opened an envelope to find a letter from John Bratby inviting me to pose for an exhibition 'The Individual in the Growing Egalitarian Society'. I was told that the exhibition would also include new portraits of the Queen Mother, Paul McCartney and a number of other prominent folk. Clearly the invitation was not intended for me, so I wrote back to John, saying how flattered I was but the invitation was obviously for the actor and had been forwarded to him. This amused John and he thought it would be fun to paint both Ian Richardsons, so in March 1983 my wife and I went to his house in Hastings and sat for several hours as he did the large portrait using a palette-knife and oils. Throughout the sitting, his wife, Patti, brought me coffee in an outsize cup and saucer...plus a frequent supply of bacon sandwiches. She would take the opportunity to study the progress of the portrait, then would return a few minutes later to hand John her comments scribbled on a scrap of paper.

As John and I parted he gave me a signed copy of his book 'Breakdown'. It was intended for his psychiatrist and already had a hand-written dedication in the fly-leaf, but John had simply added my name and the date and handed it to me. My actor namesake declined to be painted by John and my portrait never appeared in the exhibition. John later offered to sell it to me for £300, but I was so poor at the time that I couldn't afford it. Later, after John had died and I was financially better off I contacted Patti Bratby asking if the portrait was still available, but she couldn't find it anywhere among his collection."

2007-11-17T03:06:00.000-08:00

Cardboard Box Art. I've always liked the simple images you find printed onto functional cardboard boxes. At a time when most graphic communication is over-sophisticated and pretentious the sight of a basic pictogram warning a warehouseman to go easy with his Stanley Knife warms the cockles of my heart. I cut the above example off a box found this week and the image seems to be a more eccentric variation of the message "careful with your knife when opening this box". My interpretation is this: Don't insert your beef-slicing cleaver into this packaging or you might split the thread on the bobbins inside, especially when wearing a dickie-bow.

More cardboard art to follow.

2007-11-14T13:48:00.000-08:00

A comic strip of moral advice. Mind you, I need to take note of that advice more than most, and I wrote and drew the blinking thing!

2007-11-04T15:57:00.000-08:00

Firework Art. Walking to church this morning at 8.30am I couldn't help taking note of the previous night's firework detritus in the streets. Not only were the used label designs disappointingly perfunctory, unimaginative and basic but most people seemed to have celebrated Bonfire Night two nights early!

When I was in short trousers I used to look forward to the morning after Bonfire Night so I could gather up the burnt-out rockets and roman candles which were scattered in the streets. The label designs then were perhaps more exciting than anyone's actual firework displays. Here is a small sampling of beautiful Firework Art from the 50s and 60s. Even the names of these old firework companies conjure up a million associations of Old England: Brocks, Wessex and Pain's. The first Brock's Fireworks poster alone is an anonymous masterpiece in my eyes.

2007-11-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

Loyal readers will know that hand-painted signs are one of the regular obsessions of this blog, including rare "ghost signs" painted onto brick. I can't take credit for the above double beauty, though. It's from Sam Brown's excellent brickads site. For more of Sam's fine collected vintage advertising go here.

2007-10-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

Professional Transylvanian Signs. There were lots of charming and eccentric examples of these in Brasov town alone. The above selection will hopefully speak volumes as far as visual appeal goes. Wouldn't you rather buy your next pair of bi-focals at Helioptic Optistar rather than Specsavers?

I loved the wristwatch illustration in its half-moon shaped frame but still can't determine what the lovely shop in the first two photos was selling. Is a Bijuterii a jewellers? Perhaps jewellry repair. Hard to say, as this beautiful store of mystery would not let you see its wares. I can't tell you how much I prefer this silent window frame and fascia to today's Sunday shopping experience at my local B&Q and Argos...

2007-10-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

Concrete Transylvania.

I suppose we spoilt Western European tourists when visiting former Iron Curtain territories can't help looking out for bleak architectural remainders of the 20th Century Communist era. I knew President Ceausescu enjoyed deliberately erecting ugly utilitarian factories next to historical Romanian sites and had no qualms about bulldozing churches and houses to make way for his immense neo-classical palace in Bucharest.

Here are three examples of appealing Socialist Modernism, all from the town of Brasov.

2007-10-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hand Painted signs of the amateur variety seemed to abound in Transylvanian back-streets. Most of them were practical warnings for selfish folk not to park their clapped-out Dacia cars in front of wooden garage doors but I particularly liked the "Posta" one with its envelope diagram, artfully slapped onto a doorway encrusted with years of weathered paint.

2007-10-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

Back from Transylvania! A fortnight has passed since returning from this adventure (too many mishaps like a cancelled plane and a middle of the night dental hospital visit for it to be called simply a holiday.) Nevertheless, this region of Romania has indelibly carved it's virtually Third World identity on my heart. The mountains were beautiful, the architecture exotic, the people both friendly and religious and the food/drink hearty and very cheap. I was happy to see Transylvanian's earning something from the Dracula merchandise they had for sale near Bran Castle, though since getting home I'm tired of being asked "Let me have a look at your neck..."

Will be posting some pics of great hand painted signs from the region plus some remaining architectural vestiges of Communism. But if you really can't wait, here is a big batch of Transylvanian snaps to gaze at.

2007-09-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Transylvanian Twist. On Sunday I begin my long awaited holiday to Romania. First the capital of Bucharest and then by train to the Carpathian Mountains. Above is the Transylvanian town of Brasov, my base for exploring these ancient Saxon lands.

Pray for the safety of my mortal soul so that I don't return as one of ....(shudder) the Undead.

2007-09-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Sink Art. It's hard to imagine these 1950's canvases as once being thought controversial, offensive or vulgar. They are all paintings (barring the film poster) by my current favourite British artist John Bratby, and yes, it would be no exaggeration to say Bratby was briefly the Damien Hirst of his day, thickly daubing provincial back-yards, washing lines, chip-pans and toilet bowls to the horror of the refined sensibilities of mid- 20th Century Royal Academicians. Disgusted art critic David Sylvester coined the term "Kitchen Sink Painters" to denigrate John Bratby and his associates, who insisted on depicting the drab, grey, mundane, musty and rusty.

John Bratby's notoriety was abruptly cut short by the onset of the swinging 1960s and the heavily publicised Pop Art of David Hockney, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton and Allen Jones. Their cool paintings and sculptures referenced international Pop Culture, and the glamorous influence of the USA media. 1950's UK Kitchen Sink art was suddenly and cruelly consigned to the critical scrap-heap and consequently meant that a Bratby canvas could still be bought for under £10,000 in 2005.

Much as I enjoy 60s British Pop Art as a visual counterpart to the revolutions of the Fab Four, Psychedelia etc. I now prefer to hanker after the smelly oil-paint, crew-neck jumper and goatee bearded art of the former Kitchen Sink era. This alluring, semi-forgotten bohemian world has a lineage that goes back to the heyday of the Slade School of Art, the dingy realism of Walter Sickert and the dank, gas-lit interiors of the Camden Town Group.

What clinches Bratby's artistic appeal for me is discovering he was still in favour enough to be commissioned to paint the giant canvases for the film The Horses Mouth. In this fine 1958 movie, based on Joyce Cary's classic novel, Alec Guinness plays maverick artist Gully Jimson, a bearded eccentric not unlike John Bratby.

Alec Guinness, Joyce Cary, John Bratby. In UK cultural terms I can't currently think of anything currently more appealing And what could be more in need of re-discovery? I hear the Saatchi brothers recently bought and displayed a brace of choice 1950s Bratby pictures. But how many more will look beyond the glitz of the Sixties to stare into the greasy water of the Fifties kitchen sink?

2007-09-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

A Disappearing Put-Down?

I hope none of you fellows have ever been on the receiving end of this withering judgement, the latest in my series of Disappearing Phrases drawings.

A midden, for those who don't know, is a dung-heap commonly used before the advent of modern sanitation. I've never heard this phrase spoken by anyone under the age of 50.

2007-08-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

A hand-painted sign miscellany. These three are all unrelated except for differing degrees of faded-ness and decay.

The first is an out of business barber shop in Bishop Auckland Co.Durham, probably most interesting for the window boards which are now revealing underpainted black on green "highest quality horticulture" lettering behind the flaking red top coat.

The second is a nicely weathered board fixed onto a red-brick end terrace in Blackhall, Co.Durham. Blackhall itself is a small coastal town of such dreary abandonment that its silent atmosphere clings to you like a black cloud long after you have driven away.

The third is from a side-street in Wheatley Hill, Co.Durham. Again this is a place of forlorn decay, only disturbed by sullen gangs of pasty Chavs with Staffordshire Bull Terriers barely under control. I tried to photograph the Catholic Church in Wheatley Hill which is now closed and no doubt due for demolition but was put off by a barking guard dog at the neighbouring Dairy and aggressive teenage lads circling the area on bikes. This sign is a hand painted board over another of an earlier vintage. Both are now virtually illegible.

2007-08-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

Pope In The Bathroom. I wrote and drew the above strip for this year's Caption comic convention booklet but didn't get it finished for their deadline, so I'm posting it here. The 2007 convention's theme is "Dreams & Nightmares", not usually my kind of subject-matter, but this vivid dream was fresh in my mind and I thought it needed to be set it in the semi-autobiographical Fairfield Prodigies Liverpool neighbourhood which I've mentioned in earlier posts.

By the way, my Dad really did once wear a Tam O'Shanter like the knitted one in panels 2 and 3. Click image to enlarge and read!

2007-08-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

Today is the Feast Day of St. John Vianney (1786-1859), Patron Saint of priests and more universally known as the Cure d'Ars (parish priest of the French village of Ars.)

The setting of St. John Vianney's life was France in the years after the Revolution, when bishops, priests, nuns and seminaries were being violently suppressed. He inherited the rural parish of Ars which was sunk in drunkenness and debauchery and through great effort eventually made it a model of sanctity. He was intent on eliminating "occasions of sin" and even cut down the apple trees in the orchard to deprive the village boys of the temptation to go scrumping. He disdained to sleep in a bed, the floor was sufficient for him. For food he would cook a pan of potatoes once a week, hang them in a wire basket and eat them until there were none left. The final potatoes were always rotten and wormy.

Counter-cultural and extreme to the last, this bony old cove somehow inspires a lot of affection in me. Pray for us today, St. John Vianney.

2007-08-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

I like this set of I like postcards. Here is my left hand happily clutching the first paper and print examples of Anne Ward's unique photographic snaps usually only seen online on her deservedly acclaimed blog.

Anne should have an Alan Whicker style budget to further her travels with camera, husband and two children. Take a look at her collection here and I guarantee you'll be impressed, dazzled and delighted.