Raymond Sheppard and the Q-Ships

Some of the Sheppard artwork on sale

This is just a quick note to say that Paul Liss has another sale of original Raymond Sheppard artwork. Here's the link to his website so you can also sign up for a newsletter - then you don't need me to tell you it's on! 19 of the 27 Sheppards that are for sale are reduced in price.

And my favourite, if anyone wants to buy me a late Christmas present, is the group of 6 pen and ink drawings from a story in Lilliput magazine. Allow me to tell you more...

Cover of Lilliput September 1957

The September 1957 issue of Lilliput has the 'reconstructed' story by John Prebble called "Q-ships were expendable".  In the First World War the Atlantic passage via southern Ireland was a dangerous one for British vessels as German U-Boats lay mines and attacked all shipping. The problem was depth charges were crude at this time and the only chance of stopping a U-Boat was to ram it or fire at it when surfaced. Wikipedia explains:

The problem was how to lure the U-boat to the surface. A solution to this was the creation of the Q-ship, one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war. Their codename referred to the vessels' home port, Queenstown, in Ireland.These became known by the Germans as a U-Boot-Falle ("U-boat trap"). A Q-ship would appear to be an easy target, but in fact carried hidden armaments. A typical Q-ship might resemble a tramp steamer sailing alone in an area where a U-boat was reported to be operating. By seeming to be a suitable target for the U-boat's deck gun, a Q-ship might encourage the U-boat captain to make a surface attack rather than use one of his limited number of torpedoes. The Q-ships' cargoes were light wood (balsa or cork) or wooden casks, so that even if torpedoed they would remain afloat, encouraging the U-boat to surface to sink them with a deck gun. There might also be pretence of "abandoning ship" with some crew dressed as civilian mariners taking to a boat. Once the U-boat was vulnerable, the Q-ship's panels would drop to reveal the deck guns, which would immediately open fire.

  

Lilliput Sept 1957, p.20

 Prebble's story concentrates on the name most associated with Q-Ships - Gordon Campbell who was awarded a Victoria Cross for his bravery. As he admitted himself Campbell's decoy ships were not his idea but as old as the Navy. But Campbell was the one who added theatrical trimmings to the 'panic party' that evacuated the smitten ship

The 'panic party' p.22 - Original art

 He insisted a stuffed parrot in a cage was carried by one member of the crew and that one dressed as a woman. He also had people squabbling as they left the ship in order to delay the evacuation and exasperate the U-Boat captain into moving closer and surfacing, only to be surprised by guns firing at his boat!

p.24 - Original art

Gun crew laying motionless p. 25 - Original art

Periscope up p. 26 - Original art

 On the original art, with 6 illustrations on one board, one can see that instructions were given to the art department to shrink these to one and 3/8 inches and to illustrate what that looked like here's the final page - on which an advert appears which takes up half a page!

Lilliput Sept 1957 p. 28 as published

Crew of the U-Boat trying to escape from the flooded vessel
p.28 - Original art

Christine Sheppard shared the board below which has the other two illustrations that were published in Lilliput at 3 and 1/4 inches.

p.23 shows the Q-Ship being hit
p.27 shows the conning tower being fired on

Lastly, the reason I like the 6 image board is because there's one image that was not published

Unpublished - Firing at the U-Boat - Original art

Gordon Campbell wrote a book which was reprinted many times called "My Mystery Ships" and is easy to find on Abebooks

Many thanks to Paul Liss for his kindness in allowing me to use the original art images and of course Christine Sheppard.

Raymond Sheppard and Elizabeth Cruft (Part 2)

Girl 10 Sep 1952
Pets Corner No.15 “Canaries”

The previous 14 episodes of "Pets Corner" can be found here. Today we are looking at episodes from #15 to #26, the end of the series. Drawn by Raymond Sheppard in Girl comic in 1952 - thanks again to David Slinn - these delightful episodes may appear a bit dated but still read well.

Girl 17 Sep 1952
Pets Corner No.16 “White mice”

Girl 24 Sep 1952
Pets Corner No.17 “Guinea-pigs”

Girl 1 Oct 1952
Pets Corner No.18 “Pigeons”

Girl 8 Oct 1952
Pets Corner No.19 “If your dog is lost”

Girl 15 Oct 1952
Pets Corner No.20 “Tropical fish”

Girl 22 Oct 1952
Pets Corner No.21 “Your dog and visitors”

Girl 29 Oct 1952
Pets Corner No.22 “Hedgehogs”

Girl 5 Nov 1952
Pets Corner No.23 “Your dog's health”

Girl 12 Nov 1952
Pets Corner No.24 “Your dog when winter comes”

Girl 19 Nov 1952
Pets Corner No.25 “Ferrets”

Girl 26 Nov 1952
Pets Corner No.26 “Showing your dog”

Ramond Sheppard and Elizabeth Cruft (Part 1)

Girl 23 April 1952
Pets Corner No.1 “Choosing a puppy"

A children's 'magazine' programme, Telescope, ran from 1950-1951 on BBC TV (the only TV channel at the time) and, as Nostalgia Central tells was hosted by Cliff Michelmore and alternated every Saturday with Whirligig.

How does this relate to Raymond Sheppard? Well, he illustrated a half page in colour called "Elizabeth Cruft's Pet Corner" for 26 issues in Girl during 1952. Girl, of course, was the second comic produced by Marcus Morris and team to accompany their bestselling Eagle.

Elizabeth Cruft and Cliff Michelmore c.1955 in All your own

Elizabeth Cruft (born c.1938) presented  a slot called "Your puppy" on the above-mentioned Telescope programme. She was the great-granddaughter of Charles Cruft, the founder of the eponymous Dog Show. In 1957 Elizabeth Cruft appeared in a programme narrated by Doris Langley Moore called "Men, Women and Clothes: How Fashions Come and Go" which was broadcast on 21 April 1957.  Incredibly the BBC have saved it and made it available online - all 15 minutes that were first broadcast at 22.00! It also starred Ron Moody - easy to spot, and Vanessa Redgrave - not so easy. The series is on YouTube and this episode has, I think Elizabeth Cruft appearing in the crinoline (around 5.00 minutes in). Later 1950s photos exist of Elizabeth in fashion shoots.She married John Moore and had 2 children 'Alexa' Alexandra Elizabeth Moore, and 'Tiggy' Catherine Louise Moore.

Thanks to the generosity of David Slinn we have a complete set of scans of all 26 episodes. 

Girl 30 Apr 1952
Pets Corner No.2 “Care of your cat”

Girl 7 May 1952
Pets Corner No.3 “Where your dog sleeps”

Girl 14 May 1952
Pets Corner No.4 “Care of your budgerigar”

Girl 28 May 1952
Pets Corner No.5 “Angora rabbits”

Girl 4 Jun 1952
Pets Corner No.6 “Feeding your dog”

Girl 11 Jun 1952
Pets Corner No.7 “Train your dog to walk to heel”

Girl 9 Jul 1952
Pets Corner No.8 “How to look after your tortoise”

Girl 16 Jul 1952
Pets Corner No.9 “Travelling with your dog”

Girl 23 Jul 1952
Pets Corner No.10 “Goldfish”

Girl 30 Jul 1952
Pets Corner No.11 “Bathing and grooming”

Girl 13 Aug 1952
Pets Corner No.12 “Dogs at holiday time”

Girl 20 Aug 1952
Pets Corner No.13 “Golden hamsters”

Girl 27 Aug 1952
Pets Corner No.14 “Teaching your dog to sit and stay”

Part Two to follow soon

Raymond Sheppard and Star Weekly (Toronto)

Art by Raymond Sheppard

INTRODUCTION

The 1 October 1949 edition of the Star Weekly (Toronto) has a statement showing the Star Weekly was 'bequeathed' - which after a minute's research turns out was because the paper was put into a Trust in order to preserve the liberal editorial stance. The circulation figure of 900,00 for the holiday month of August shows how national and popular this paper and magazine were.

Raymond Sheppard illustrated a few stories in the Star Weekly which I've yet to track down. But before sharing the few I've found, a small introduction.

If you imagine a UK Sunday newspaper with its glossy magazine, a newspaper, a section containing comics (yes I know I'm going a long way back!) this is similar to the Star Weekly, but published on a Saturday. I've been dependent on the microfilm available at the British Library, which is a commercial product they bought in, rather than scanned themselves. The quality therefore is not very good, but we'll come to that. Let's look at the 4 sections  - I've taken images from eBay as they are in colour and illustrate what I saw when looking through the microfilms.

MAGAZINE - sepia and colour

The 24 page magazine features royalty, film stars, events and novelty stories all illustrated by photographs and I'm guessing printed photogravure

Star Weekly 27 May 1939

Star Weekly 27 May 1939

COMICS - in colour

Star Weekly 2 September1944

This section carried on for many years in the Weekly and had many of the King Features and McClure Syndicated strips such as Tarzan, The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Terry and the Pirates, Joe Palooka, Napoleon (by Clifford McBride) and Superman (where uniquely Wayne Boring, the artist, gets a credit he never got in the actual DC Comics till decades later!).

COMPLETE NOVEL - B&W with colour illustrations, 15 pages

Browsing the complete novel sections, I saw a range of authors and illustrators. The first novel I found was Erle Stanley Gardner's "The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom". These are printed separately in a section like the above, but on newsprint and always feature a quarter page advert for the following week's novel on the back page. Interestingly, compared to the rest of the Star Weekly, the illustrator (on page 1 and in the centre pages) rarely gets a credit! 

Star Weekly 11 April 1942

Star Weekly 11 April 1942

GENERAL SECTIONS 1&2 - Newsprint in black and white of 24 pages

Because my primary interest is in illustrations I'm going to list a few illustrators (to help researchers who want to go further). In 1949 and 1950 I saw the following among many others:
Lu Kimmel, Elmore Brown, Marshall Frantz, Elizabeth cutler, Percy Lenson, Vincent Guise, George Glaser, Eileen Segner, George Garland, John Pike, Emmett Watson, Carl Bobertz, Arthur Sarnoff (3 Sep. 1949), Clyde Ross. Many are well known 'pulp artists' but quite a few were unknown to me at all.

Star Weekly 8 August 1936

The articles are very assorted and include short stories. The back page was taken up with Kemp Starrett's "Vignettes of life", a cartoon collection - see examples here.

Well, let's go to Sheppard's illustrations.The three I've found so far are from the General section of the Star Weekly

First we have Star Weekly of the 24 September 1949 - "The big game I fear most" written by Edison Marshall (p.4) shows a lion pouncing on a group of six antelope  (as described in the text).

Star Weekly 24 September 1949 p.4

I apologise for the scan (from a microfilm of the original paper!) but fortunately Christine Sheppard has in her collection the following original

Raymond Sheppard original

The second one I've found is in the issue of 15 October 1949 "He watched a wilderness battle" is written by Frank DuFresne (a former director of the Alaska Game Commission) and shows a bear fighting a pack of wolves.

Star Weekly 15 October 1949 p.8

 Christine has a cutting which shows the newsprint paper on which the image is printed

Cutting from Star Weekly

And once again we are extremely lucky to have the original but strangely, in this case, in full colour!

Original colour art for Star Weekly by Raymond Sheppard

Finally, for now, I also found Star Weekly published in 1950 (January 7) "Strange foods for the zoo" by John Fleetwood (p.11). The scan is a bit faded and I've tried to darken and sharpen it a bit. If you look closely you might spot a peacock - under the tiger's paws!

Star Weekly 7 January 1950 P.11

As the caption explains:

Wild animal tastes don't change when they are transferred from the jungle to a cage. They can't make their kills any longer, but they still must be provided with the food they're accustomed to in the wild state. And that calls for a most extraordinary and varied menu

Once again thanks to Christine we have the original artwork too!

Detail from the original art

Original art by Raymond Sheppard