#NOISE005: "The Diary of Rock & Pop" comic strip.

Debuting in U.K. national The Daily Star in 1987, my first daily comic strip was probably unlike anything that had gone before!

There had been sports strips. It wasn’t unusual to see soccer, golf or tennis comics on the sports pages of British newspapers, usually offering technique do’s and dont’s. The Daily Express had even run a strip on fishing tips for anglers! But when U.K. national The Daily Star launched my daily comic strip “The Diary of Rock & Pop” on February 2, 1987, it was a ground-breaking move. For the first time, a serious look at rock and roll was part of the “funny pages” each day.

In the mid-1980s, British papers were, for the most part, still printed in black and white. The Daily Star had just become the first to experiment with color, with a few pre-printed pages inserted into each edition. They assigned one of those full color pages to launch “The Diary of Rock & Pop,” calling it “the most sensational series ever!”

The story behind how the strip came to be picked up by The Daily Star underscores a mantra that I always stress when I give talks at schools or to aspiring creatives – it doesn’t matter how talented you are, you have to be proactive. You have to knock on doors, rather than just cross your fingers and hope that one day those doors will just magically swing open.

By late 1986, I’d been working with The Daily Star for five years at that point and had contributed a lot of material – from center spreads on soccer tournaments to front page illustrations of political leaders, from a Steve Davis snooker series to courtroom sketches of major criminal trials – so I was in the paper’s Manchester headquarters on a frequent basis.

The Daily Star’s most popular comic strip was the very funny “Beau Peep” by the team of Scotsmen Roger Kettle and Andrew Christine, which had been a mainstay since the publication’s launch in 1978. When the pair came up with a second strip in 1985, the paper had jumped at the chance to carry “The Devils.”

I’d become friendly with Roger and Andrew, who were both based in Dundee, during their occasional forays south of the border. Just before Christmas, Roger made one of his occasional visits to The Daily Star’s offices, which gave us an excuse to enjoy a few pints and a game of snooker together in The Press Club. Roger told me that he had just informed the Daily Star’s editor that he wanted to discontinue “The Devils” as he felt that the strip, which was based around the wacky world of Satan, had run its course during its 18-month run.

Flanked by Andrew Christine and Roger Kettle

My freelancer radar immediately began to flash blue lights! I’d had an idea for a strip that was essentially “on this day in popular music” and had worked up a couple of examples. It was just a vague idea that I was playing around with, butRoger’s news gave me all the added impetus I needed. The next day I worked up another couple of samples, devised a handwritten logo and called the editor’s secretary. I was due in the following day to drop off the art for weekly sports illustration I did and asked her if editor Lloyd Turner, who had been a great champion of my work, had a window in his schedule where I could stop in and see him for a couple of minutes.

The next day , I popped in to see Lloyd, showed him the samples and he immediately offered me the slot that would soon become vacant. Lloyd said he loved the look and idea of the strip and felt sure it would resonate with readers … and I’m guessing that, crucially, I’d just saved him the headache of searching for a replacement for “The Devils.”

We agreed on a 12-month contract, a start date and a generous fee. There was only one potential stumbling block. When British newspapers commissioned a strip, they traditionally demanded all rights. When I received the proposed agreement in writing, the contract for “The Diary of Rock & Pop” required me to give up the rights to parent company Express Newspapers, owners of The Daily Star, and to assign the feature to the company’s syndication arm on a 50/50 royalties split basis.

I told Lloyd that I couldn’t agree to that and explained my reasons for declining. I recounted the case of the classic British strip “Andy Capp,” which was not owned by creator Reggie Smythe but instead was the property of the Daily Mirror. Effectively, by signing, I could put myself in the position of being sacked from my own creation and replaced by another artist … and, on principle, I just wasn’t going to agree to that. Furthermore, I wanted to try and place the strip in the U.S. so I was reluctant to enter into a syndication agreement with a British agency, as that would be just another layer of complication.

I was understandably concerned that my stance was a potential deal-breaker, but I was determined to stick to my guns … even if cost me the gig. Luckily, Lloyd conceded my point and all rights remained with me! I’d previously worked with Express Syndication on my World Cup soccer features and was on good terms with everyone over there, so I think they were happy to step aside in the interests of mutual goodwill.

That insistence on keeping my copyrights would subsequently have a huge impact on my career and on our young family, as I’ll explain later.

With ”The Diary of Rock & Pop,” I made a conscious decision to use as much solid black in the art as possible. My rationale in those pre-color days was that, by virtue of its heavy inking, my art would dominate the strips page and be the first thing the eye was drawn towards … and as this John Lennon strip hopefully demonstrates, I think my hunch was correct.

Within days of the launch, I was getting letters from readers telling me that they were clipping the strip and collecting them, which was great to hear.

In those days, the golden ring of strip cartooning was U.S. syndication, so once I had a few weeks of samples, I put together submissions to the big three American syndicates and mailed them off. The response was immediate … I got rejection letters from all three.

Undeterred, I rang a friend of mine in California and outlined my new plan of campaign: If the syndicates didn’t want me, I’d simply form my own syndicate. He was intrigued by the idea and agreed to partner with me on the venture.

I figured that a new syndicate needed more than one feature, and I already knew from chatting to Roger that Beau Peepwasn’t running in any U.S. papers … so I phoned my contacts at Express Syndication and asked if they had assigned the U.S. rights to anyone. Perhaps because there was already a successful U.S. comic strip based around the French Foreign Legion – “Crock” by Bill Rechin and Brant Parker - no U.S. entity had picked up the “Beau Peep” rights. Convincing the Express folks that they didn’t have anything to lose, I persuaded them to grant the North America rights to me!

I designed a tri-fold sales brochure for “The Diary of Rock & Pop” and Roger and Andrew, who were enthusiastic about trying to break into American papers, designed one for “Beau Peep.” My friend bought a mailing list of newspapers, had the brochures and and letters printed up and we took out an ad in the newspaper bible, Editor & Publisher.

In hindsight, we did incredibly well. Although there were no takers for “Beau Peep” from that initial mailing, we managed to place “The Diary of Rock & Pop” with a number of newspapers, including majors like The Philadelphia Inquirer and The San Diego Union-Tribune. Now that I’m a grizzled veteran of decades of syndication, I understand just what an accomplishment that was, right off the bat … but at the time, I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t attract more clients!

Unfortunately, there were storm clouds on the horizon.

In July, The Daily Star lost a libel action brought by politician and author Jeffrey Archer, who had been accused by the paper of visiting a sex worker. Archer was awarded unprecedented damages of £500,000 … and six weeks later, Lloyd Turner was sacked. It later transpired that the stories were actually true. Archer was imprisoned for perjury and perverting the course of justice in 2001, and Express Newspapers recouped the original damages and more … but by that time, the vindicated Lloyd Turner had been dead for five years.

Worse was yet to follow. At the end of that summer of 1987, the paper was placed in the hands of porn baron David Sullivan. The Daily Star had never been particularly highbrow … but now it immediately hurtled so downmarket it was practically subterranean. Content was dictated by a man who had made his fortune as the owner of sex shops, publisher of pornographic magazines and founder of a paper infamous for its fabricated stories and headlines, the Sunday Sport. The mission statement from new editor Mike Gabbert … and I kid you not … was to publish pictures of “the biggest boobs possible.”

People began bailing out of the plummeting vessel as fast as possible. With plans afoot to relocate the operation from Manchester to London, most of the editorial staff took the voluntary redundancy packages that were on offer. So, in a short space of time, I had lost an editor who championed me and most of the colleagues I worked with, including the sports editor and art director.

Dismayed at the change of direction, Andrew and Roger let it be known that, with their current contract expiring soon, they were going to look for a new home for “Beau Peep.” I’m not exaggerating when I say that this threat caused alarm bells to ring at the highest levels. The strip was broadly recognized as the most popular thing in the paper and, with circulation figures plummeting precipitously, losing it to a rival was a prospect that couldn’t be countenanced.

A “Beau Peep” promotional tour of holiday camps that summer, which had been organized under the previous regime, was culminating in a lavish extravaganza at Stringfellows nightclub in London. I was invited and decided that, even though it was being held 200 miles from Manchester, it might be smart to attend and get a sense of the new hierarchy, seeing as the majority of my income at that time came from The Daily Star. I hopped on an afternoon train and was in London by early evening.

The party was great, Free booze, tons of celebrities, lots of laughs. I met the new editor and his team and they were cordial but clipped and distant. I saw them again, a short time later, huddled in deep, animated conversation with Roger and Andrew. I say “conversation,” but really they appeared to be doing all the talking, while Roger and and Andrew were doing the listening. I soon learned that, in a determined effort to keep “Beau Peep” on board, they had offered the guys a huge increase. I may be wrong, but if memory serves it was something like double or triple the money! Porn baron or not, that kind of dough was too good to turn down.

And so, a short time later, I found myself on the “milk train” … the first train out of London Euston to Manchester that morning … with a lot to ponder. My allies were gone, circulation was nosediving, costs were being slashed … and what budget was still allocated to comic strips had just been hoovered up by “Beau Peep.” As Bob Dylan said, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows …

Next time in Art of The Noise, in part two of the story of “The Diary of Rock & Pop,” I’ll explain how every cloud has a silver lining, how being pig-headed paid off … and trace the sequence of events that changed the course of McGarry fortunes and brought us to the new world. Hope to see you here!

Cheers!

Steve