Nigel Parkinson, Cartoonist

Nigel Parkinson, Cartoonist
Me at a Comic Con

Thursday 23 September 2010

Back to The Shed part 2


22 years ago Fleetway started publishing Scouse Mouse Monthly. Our small team led by George Nicholas (in his 'shed') worked in a more or less random way- one day one of us would have an idea for a strip, another would pencil it, another would ink it, another would colour it- another day, half of a story would be done by George, the rest by me- and any possible configuration thereafter. Except George would never do the lettering, that was the only rule! His spelling was never 100% reliable, and his search for an appropriate sound-effect had been known to lead him into onomatopoeic obscentity, quite unintentionally.

This 'Stunt Man' story is drawn by George but unusually it was written by me after the phrase "The Emperor's New Clothes" suggested something a little more dramatic.

The first two issues of Scouse Mouse were printed together at the same time. Our Shed was up North but I happened to be in London when they were printed and I took the first printed proofs back up on the last train, reading and re-reading them with my friend Trish, hoping there were no glaring errors or screw-ups. She turned to me after an hour or two and said "yeah, they're OK". Phew!

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