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Heap & Trotwood Ltd

 
 
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Strip 3678 was published in the Evening Standard in January 1973 and in More Bristow
Mr. Tasker reviews Bristow's latest offering

Unfortunately for the distinguished old firm of Heap and Trotwood, "publishers of fine works", Bristow has chosen them as his intended publishers. The hapless Mr. Tasker, the firm’s reviewer, must wade through each one of his offerings. He always seems to get them on a Friday afternoon and has to ruin his weekend deciding how best to reject them. Then he comes in on Monday, is invariably greeted with "Good Morning Mr Tasker nice weekend?" and invariably utters a heartfelt groan and a "Don't ask", before venting his disgust on the offending manuscript.

Somehow his interlocuter always gets the wrong end of the stick and makes wild guesses about the books just from the titles. A few choice examples:

  • The Finish of the Fat Man: not a detective thriller with a Sidney Greenstreet-type villain
  • The Balloon goes up: not a heroic story of Branson-type antics high over the Atlantic
  • The Green Pestilence: not a science fiction epic about rampaging plants
  • Goal!: Not the inside story of the World cup, 70,000 throats roaring around the emerald turf

  • The whole appalling range is listed in Bristow's writings.

    Tasker knows better. He recoils whenever one of Bristow’s dog-eared manuscripts arrives and he winces at every word. Quite why he bothers to read them at all is a mystery. The question is not will he reject but how will he do it. Perhaps a threatening letter or a poem as excruciating as one of Bristow's own. Or maybe just stoke up the old fire strip 5010
    Strip 5010 was published in the Evening Standard in November 1977 and in Bristow vs. Chester-Perry. This scan is from the Sydney Morning Herald November 1977

    Incidentally it is not always clear just who Mr. Heap and Mr. Trotwood may be. But If you look carefully at strip 5010 you may make out two portraits on the wall. The one on the right marked "Trotwood" seems to resemble Mr Tasker's companion, so it is Mr. Heap who is the missing partner in the firm.

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