Errol Le Cain's Sailor and the Devil

Errol Le Cain's short film Sailor and the Devil was made in 1966, while Le Cain was working at the Richard Williams studio. I first heard about the film thanks to its brief mention in Denis Gifford's book British Animated Films; I later found that it has something of a following, despite being hard to see. From what I understand no complete print is known to exist, although Garret Gilchrist has a copy with only a few seconds missing, which he has recently posted online:

Back in 2010 Michael Sporn wrote a blog post about Sailor and the Devil, drawing largely on a 1960s PBS documentary and showing a few black and white stills, while Hans Bacher provides some colour shots, including the ones I used above. More recently Amid Amidi wrote a piece on the film, which also discusses Le Cain's other animation work.

More information about Errol Le Cain, who passed away in 1989, can be found at the website Errol Le Cain Legacy. Le Cain does not appear to have worked in animation for long - although it is worth noting that he worked with Pearl & Dean and Moreno, as well as Richard Williams - and instead established himself as a children's book illustrator.

TV Comic Annual 1955

A few scans from the 1955 TV Comic Annual. At this point the comic was aimed at preschool readers (it would later target slightly older kids, with strips based on series such as The Avengers) and was dominated by stories and comic strips starring puppet characters from television programmes for small children.

I'll be the first to admit that these string and glove puppets are not, strictly speaking, animated characters - but I'd say they're close enough cousins to be covered here.

Muffin the Mule appears to have been the comic's main draw at this point, starring in both an illustrated prose story and a comic strip. Neville Main provides art for both, while the prose story is credited to Annette Mills, the presenter who appeared alongside Muffin on television.

Muffin's co-stars Prudence Kitten and Peregrine Penguin get their own strips as well. Annette Mills is again credited with writing for Prudence, but no artist is identified. The Peregrine strip has no credits at all.

More strips credited to Annette Mills, although I'm unsure as to where the characters originated. At first I assumed that Puffer Dog and Charlie Parkin appeared on television alongside Muffin, Peregrine and the rest, but I can find no confirmation online of them ever appearing in anything outside of various tie-in books. Puffer certainly looks like he was modelled around a puppet, so perhaps he was a character who never caught on.

 

Next up we have Hank, a character created by ventriloquist Francis Coudrill for the children's series Whirligig. Coudrill was also an illustrator, and his distinctive minimalist style can be seen in these illustrations.

Here we have the perennial Sooty. His original performer Harry Corbett is credited and was presumably the writer; more surprising is the name of Tony Hart, familiar from numerous children's arts programmes (some of which saw him appearing alongside Aardman's first star, Morph).

Mr. Turnip is another puppet character from Whirligig. His creator Joy Laurey is credited on this strip.

When this annual was published,  S. G. Hulme Beaman's Toytown stories or radio, which starred Larry the Lamb and others, had not yet been animated. However, this Toytown story has an animated connection as its illustrations are credited to George Moreno, the American animator who moved to the UK and set up British Animated Productions, the studio behind the Bubble and Squeek cartoons of the fifties. Bear Alley has a post about him; one of the replies is from an animator who worked for Moreno in the sixties and speculates that some of the artwork credited to him in fifties comics was actually ghosted by members of his studio

The Bear Alley post mentioned above identifies this series, starring a character named Polly-Copter, as being illustrated by Moreno; however, in this annual the only credit is for Dorothy Dee, presumably the writer. As far as I can tell Polly-Copter was created specifically for TV Comic.

And just to round things off... clowns. Because clowns are always favourites!

Bubble & Squeek annual (1950?)

The Bubble and Squeek series from George Moreno's British Animated Productions studio never really took off, lasting for just four shorts and one spinoff from 1947 to 1948. But it did spawn at least three annuals, only one of which I own.

I'm not sure when it was published; the only date in the book, 1950, was written in by a previous owner. That doesn't necessarily mean it was published in 1950, although as I'm not familiar with the average shelf-life of children's annuals at the time I can't vouch for the likelihood of it being published earlier.

If it was indeed published two years after the series it was based on ceased production then it would seem likely that it was the final Bubble and Squeek annual. However, it opens with the story of how the title characters first met, implying that it was actually the first in the series - is it possible that Moreno and his company were trying to revive the characters in the field of children's books after they failed to catch on in animation?

Aside from the frontispiece, which is signed "Cal", the illustrations in the book are credited to Moreno himself. That said, in the comments section of this blog post about Moreno (which is itself well worth reading) one poster, who worked for Moreno in the sixties, speculates that some of the artwork credited to him in fifties comics was actually ghosted by members of his studio.

Here are the covers of the only other Bubble & Squeek annuals that I know of: