David Wright had a facility for drawing women that quickly caught the eye of both agents and clients, so the man who had aspired to be a technical illustrator, by the outbreak of World War II became Great Britain's foremost pin-up artist. His pictures of beautiful women came to be called “lovelies” and were an immensely popular feature of "The Sketch". He later became highly sought after fashion illustrator and then comic artist.

Wright's brilliance at drawing and storytelling art permeates every frame of Carol Day, his comic strip masterpiece featured in The Daily Mail, which he worked on until his passing in 1967. He would pencil just enough to establish the positions of his characters, then go directly into the art with a #2 sable brush. When this was finished, he would begin the process of building the complex and varied layers of ink textures and cross hatching that described the final image in a sort of visual tone feast. Prior to the last 2 years of the strip, he eschewed the American comics method of glued down zipatone in favor of hand creating these rich surface textures.

Here is the original art for Carol Days #397-398, 2 early examples from Problem Child, one of the two most popular stories with Carol Day collectors along with Lance Hallam. Problem Child is the fifth Carol Day story, beginning on November 2, 1957 and concluding on Feb 22, 1958. It comprises strips #357-451.

In this story, Carol helps Paul Egan and his daughter Jennifer cope with the difficult relationship between them and Paul’s sister, who has been chiefly responsible for Jennifer’s upbringing following the death of Paul’s wife.

Size of each is about 18.125 x 7.625 inches. Image size of each is about 16.875 x 5.125 inches. Excellent condition with just minor soiling/smudgies in the margins. Dialog is pasted up.

If you want to read a story, the "Lance Hallam" story is considered one of the best and it is available on-line on the Carol Day website. At one time, Roger had the Carol Day stories available as e-books through Amazon. Dropping a line at the above website might lead to them being reissued.

Click here to read a brief history of David Wright and the Carol Day strip.

I'm not sure what I can add to the above. This is simply one of the best strips ever and Problem Child is my favorite story. I'm not sure how I first found out about Carol Day, but the image that hooked me is this one from the CAF gallery of Aaron N. (Strip #419). Click to embiggen:



I like my pair because it has good images of Carol and Jennifer. I love Jennifer's body language in the third panel of the #398 and the expressiveness of her face. Of course, the careful work with lighting and shading is wonderful.

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