Rugby

Wales. June 13, 1934. It’s time to Gren and bare it. Why? Grenfell Jones is born, that’s why. Don’t know who Grenfell Jones is? Don’t worry, probably most of us don’t here in the west. But in Wales, if you don’t know who he is you probably have hidden under a rock somewhere. Likely that rock has a sheep on it with words on its side saying, he’s under this rock. After a person moves the rock to get to you, the sheep would likely have the words “Stop strip mining” written on it.

“Gren” is the legend of Welsh cartoonists. And no, I don’t mean comic books at the moment. This man put daily comic strips out in newspapers. As for the sheep, that was Nigel and then there was the strip Ponty an’ Pop. Although that may be his most famous strip he was also well known for his fanship of rugby. That also went into his strips and although he spoke about pretty much everything, he did so in a manner that wasn’t offensive.

He wrote about what he knew, as his friend John Philipin Jones suggested. That happened to be Rugby and life in the Welsh valleys. He created a town and that’s where Nigel and all lived.

If you were in a Gren cartoon you had made it.

I will mention a couple of comic book artists here as that is the focus of this series.

There is Anthony Williams, a 2000 AD workhorse penciler of sorts who is always there will called upon. Also he’s done work on Doctor Fate: Fate, Transformers, books with Spider-Man, Batman, and the X-Men movie adaptation.

Then there is David Roach, another 2000 AD guy. Judge Anderson, as well as Judge Dredd was some of his work before doing Batman and Demon for DC Comics and even Star Wars for Dark Horse Comics.