Fred Basset - Fred Basset Books

Fred Basset Books

Fred Basset features in many books worldwide, in the UK a long-running series of books reprints most of the newspaper strips. These are books number 1 (1963) to book 45 (1993). Later books dated by year, 1994 onwards, include the Michael Martin drawn cartoons, as well as Graham's colour ones until the Alex Graham cartoons stock had ended by the 1996 book.

During 1977, a large hardback book entitled "Fred Basset and the Spaghetti" was published by The Daily Mail. It featured a children's story, not the usual comic strips, written by Alex Graham's son, Neilson, together with illustrations by Alex.

During 1989, a compilation book entitled "Fred Basset Bumper Book No 2" was issued. The title has since caused confusion, as there is no Bumper Book No 1 as such. A book published during 1988, "Fred Basset 25 Years", a similar compilation, is considered its forerunner.

Colour strips as used in The Mail On Sunday were added from book 36 during 1984. This backlogged the black and white strips, and by book 41 during 1989 they were still using 1984 strips. The next book 42 jumped from book 41 ending with strip 6483 to strip 8159 dated 1990. The missing cartoons remain unpublished since the original newspaper strips.

The distinctive "Fred" handwriting font was supplied by Les Hulme until the early 2000s. A variant of the font is still used today.

The Michael Martin era annuals from 1994 to 2008 featured earlier Alex Graham artwork on the front, yet only featured the contemporary Martin strips inside. The 2009 annual is the first one to feature a Michael Martin front cover.

Fred Basset annuals are usually only printed in black & white, but for years 1984 (book no 36) to 1990 (book no 42) as well as the 1994 & 1995 annuals they were printed with some in colour. The current 'gocomics' online versions are usually in colour. Sadly the poor picture reprint quality that marred the 2008 volume is still present in the 2009 book. Many strips look weak and washed out on the finer detail, looking like a photocopy. The 2010 annual is still in black and white, though the printing quality is much better.

One Fred Basset book appeared in USA during 1969, "Meet Fred Basset" published as a 'Fawcett Gold Medal Book'. Several books appeared in Australia from 1979–1985 and one published in Germany.

As of 2009, Summersdale Publishers UK published the Fred Basset Yearbook and published a gift book featuring some of the cartoons from previous strips in colour. 'Fred Basset for Garden Lovers' was published in September 2009.

The 2010 Annual, released in October 2010, is unusually entitled "Fred Basset Yearbook 2010–2011", in an attempt to keep the book selling in 2011. This follows a tradition of annuals since the 1930s which were dated the next year to stop buyers thinking it was an older edition.