Captain Biplane

Extract from the original monochrome version of the comic Strip
Captain Biplane is one of the more enigmatic creations of artists of the 1960s. It was a comic strip that was exhibited but never published. It was the creation of Bib Edwards, who went on to illustrate the 'Dodo' children's books. Bib worked on the project for twelve years from the mid-sixties, and it was finally exhibited in art galleries in East Anglia UK. and once described by a reviewer as 'A cross between Roy Lichtenstein and The Beano.'
The plot is a meandering 'Steam-Punk' battle between a First-world-war flying ace improbably battling a range of fantastic alien creatures flying space-ships easily identifiable as household objects such as Vacuum cleaners, soap bottles, and mowing machines. It is in full colour and breathtaking in their imagination and scope.
The Author
Bib Edwards was a pupil of the artist John Addyman, who Bib met whilst working for the gas board in the late 1950s. They met at Clacton's Jazz Club (Essex UK). Bib then worked as a professional artist for many years. Bib's most renowned work was in the East Anglian Landscape school based on the work of John Nash (artist), Addyman and, of course, Cedric Morris and the Benton End school. However, for twelve years, from 1965 to 1977, Bib laboured on a vast project of 74 large pictures, in a style inspired by 1950s comics such as the Dandy, Beano and, above all, Captain 3D. However, Bib himself gives Dan Dare as his inspiration and Edgar Rice Burroughs as his chief influence.
Attempts to publish in Print form
Bib tried for years to get the canon of work published but the colour printing process of the time could not economically reproduce the work and eventually much of the work was sold off individually as works of art and are in many private collections around the world. Bib moved into more lucrative book-illustration work before becoming an Art Master at a local independent school. He is now retired and living quietly in Bildeston, Suffolk.
All was not lost with Captain Biplane, as Bib worked on redrawing the sections of the work that he'd sold off, in the hope that, someday, the work would be seen in its entirety. It now is reconstructed and Bib occasionally gives slideshow of the work. Sadly the full comic 'Captain Biplane', has never been printed as a book and may be unpublishable due to the large size of the individual plates.. However, there are moves afoot by long-term fans of the work to publish the comic strip in all its 74 pages as a website. The entire work of 74 frames of A1 has been digitised and is soon to be made available for free access for the many Captain Biplane fans.. The entire strip was redrawn in the 1980s in monochrome, in A3 Portrait format, so it could be printed cheaply and easily for sale at comic-book conventions. This has now been tinted and the first fifty-four frames are available on the Captain Biplane site, and the first episodes have been published since June 2011 by Simple-Talk books in EBook format (See external link below).

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