The tale of how I became the owner of a drunken rabbit.

and how that person is now Richard Sheaf

A long time ago, I was wondering around the MCM London comic con with my Dad and the twins of the family (Alfie & Amy).

One of my favourite memories from that day was blowing my last £20 so my horror obsessed little brother (Alfie) could snag an autograph and a photo with Kane Hodder (a.k.a. Jason Voorhees) and of course, it involved Alfie being mock choked by him, and yes, I still feel a little guilty for the psychological damage that letting him watch horror movies at a young age may have caused. But hey, he loved every second of it!

After countless laps around the con which I am sure was annoying my father and after having spent all my money all ready, which would have been around £50 at the time for a good day pay at my saturday at the time; is where the real magic happened. I stumbled upon a small press section. Something I hadn’t really explored before. Most of the comics I grabbed that day have since vanished from my memory, but one table stood out and has been burned into my mind ever since. There behind that long wooden tresstle desk sat two brothers selling a series called Malcolm Magic, featuring none other than an alcoholic bunny rabbit. It was the Etherington Brothers, back in the days when their work was a bit less family-friendly!

I remember begging my dad for an extra £30 because I had already blasted through my budget, and it took a few circuits around the con before he finally relented. (I am pretty sure I still owe him for that :P ) so with that precious cash, I returned to the Etheringtons’ table and scooped up the entire run. Which had been printed at home on their own printer. Half the comic run in black-and-white and the other half in full color. That homemade vibe, where the ink literally soaked into the pages still makes me nostalgic. As much as I love the polish high quality printing of today, there’s something priceless about a comic produced in this way that still makes me feel alive.

I devoured this series over and over again for some time after the con.

Here is some nostalgic images of that day, Back in a time when camera phones were dog shite and we had a first iteration of a digital camera. think it has space of like 32MB lol.

Now lets fast forward a few years later and I am making my own comics and tabling at a comic convention called ‘True Believers’ in Cheltenham and while I was preparing for the con I recognised the name of the table that would be tabling next to me. It was those two brothers again. Let’s just say that younger kid came crashing out again.

So I made sure to pack the whole comic set ready for them to sign. I stood at there table for a good 20 minutes while we talked about that con them years ago and seeing the excitement when I heard the brothers did not even own a copy of these comics themselves anymore.

So of course I did what any true comic fan would do and offered to give them whole set of comics in exchange for one of the collected copies they had on the table. As the true gents they are, they refused and instead signed all my copies and gave me the collected work for free as well.

It is interactions like this that transcend the decades in-between the interactions that for me that is the magic of comics and the creators that make them.

But the story does not end here, I need to tell you how this wonderful story ends. This last year I have been trying to make more room on the shelves to handle my ever growing collection of Silver Surfer comics (A post I am sure I need to do) and knew it was time to part with these amazing comics (alongside many others) but I did not want to just donate them or throw them away. Luckily for me I know a very cool person called Richard Sheaf. A man who seems to have taken it upon himself to document the history that is UK comics on his blog https://boysadventurecomics.blogspot.com/ So I reached out to him and asked if he wanted to take this comics and add them to his ever growing archive of awesomeness.

It turns out he had already been doing a blog post on the Etherington Brothers and was indeed missing half of the issues to take images off. I packed up my issues and sent them over to him and forgot about it as I always do.

Just a few days ago Rich updated his blog post on the brothers with the images of my comics that have been around the country creating history. You can tell which ones were mine on the blog post. They are the ones with the autographs on them.

I ask you, that if you have made it this far. Can you do me one extra favour, head over to Rich’s blogpost and read all about the brothers and the comic career and while you there also explore some of the other amazing blog posts archiving British comic history. https://boysadventurecomics.blogspot.com/2025/01/updated-etherington-brothers-comics.html

Then with that I leave you a thought exercise for the comments section, what is a memory you have of the comic world that reminds you it is not all twitter dramas and attacks and sometimes its just about the art and the people that make them.

Go out there, have fun and make more comics.