1989 British National Science Fiction Convention programme cover – Don Lawrence

When I was in primary/junior school (ages 5-11) I knew a boy who did not seem to read comics. This was a bit unusual when you consider how thin on the ground indoor entertainment for children was in the 1970s. I would not be so bold as to suggest that the boy was forbidden or even discouraged from reading comics but I got the impression that one of his parents, who was a higher education lecturer, thought that comics were for subliterate morons – y’know, people like me – individuals who would not read an extended block of text without a pretty picture to entice their eye into doing so. One time I remember the parent asking me (someone who was still in single digits of age) to name any books I had read. Off the top of my head I blurted out Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, two books which to this day I have not read, and every time I walk past our bookcase where the single volume of both books is standing I can feel two pairs of eyes looking at me disapprovingly. At the time of the questioning I thought I had gotten away with it but looking back I realise that the parent empathetically did not want to embarrass me in front of their son which they could have by asking me just which were my favourite parts of those books, which would have resulted in me turning bright red. “Beetroot, beetroot,” as children were wont to say in the ’70s. “Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to,” as a certain famous author once wrote.

One children’s weekly periodical that my friend did take was called Look and Learn, which you can possibly guess from the title was not a barrel of laughs/whirlwind of action and adventure that most homegrown British comics of that era were. That publication had features on and illustrations for such subjects as the Russian Revolution and the combustion engine. That seemed to me more like school homework than recreation, and the picture to text ratio was much lower than you would find in a comic. It was little wonder that my friend was unfailingly always top of the class whereas I was at best a mid-table pupil. Look and Learn did have one two-page comic strip and that was up to then one of the most beautiful comic strips ever published – The Trigan Empire, drawn by Don Lawrence, which was a sci-fi strip whose protagonists were dressed in Roman Empire garb. It was hard to get into as there was no concession with a recap to anyone who did not read it from the start. But whether or not you could follow it did not matter because the art was so pleasing to look at and comprehension of the storyline took a back seat to that. They did reprint longer segments of Trigan Empire in a British comic called Vulcan in the mid 1970s but that comic lasted less than a year. I remember enjoying reading it at the time because the first issue started Trigan Empire from the beginning to ensure understanding. Even so, I today remember nothing about the details of those stories.

It is because I am so unattached to the Trigan Empire storylines that I am happy to have as my one example of Don Lawrence’s art something which is not related to that title. This is the wraparound cover of the programme for the 1989 British National Science Fiction convention that was held in Jersey that year, and at which Don Lawrence was one of the guests. Every year the con is given a polysyllabic literary term; that year it was Contrivance. I did not go to that con as even if I was aware of it taking place it was predominantly for readers of science fiction prose novels – not enough or indeed not any pictures to entice my eye into reading them. Other guests of honour were Ann McCaffrey, John Harrison, Avedon Carol, Rob Hansen – I have heard of only one of them, and that says more about me than it does about the calibre of guest attending the convention.

This piece of artwork was sold to me by Mark Spencer and featured in his CAF gallery up until July of this year. Although there is a slight bend in the bottom right corner of the board the wrinkle just to the right of centre running all the way down is not a defect but just where the two scans I made have been spliced together. The slight defect on the board may be the reason why I did not face a lot of competition for the drawing – fortunately I am not fussy/picky about things like that on OA especially when it results in a bargain-priced purchase.

Contrivance took place the year after I met Don Lawrence at UKCAC ’88 and luckily when I queued up to take his photograph he did not embarrass me by asking which particular sections of his books did I enjoy most as this would have resulted in a “beetroot, beetroot” moment.

My thanks to fellow British CAF member Mark Spencer for passing this drawing on to me.