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Terry Wiley, Pink Elephants and Custard Creams

Published Sat, 29 Sep 2018 03:00:50 -0500

Terry Wiley's funeral and wake was held on Tuesday, in North Shields. Attended by family, friends, fans, creators and retailers, there were tears and laughter. A paper mache fugure of one of Terry's Little Happy Creatures adorned his coffin, as well as – well, what was meant to be a floral display in the shape of a kitten, but ended up looking like more of a graven idol, to which the pallbearers bowed towards. It was sad, celebratory, touching and in places utterly ridiculous, a bit like the man himself. And the attendees left to the strains of Ying Dong Iddle I Po by The Goons.

There was a buffet. And paper and pens. And comic creators working on group comics. And people looking through the files of previous small press comics shows that Terry used to attend as clockwork. And on the buffet table, pink elephant sweets and custard creams biscuits.

Those were the titles of Terry first two volumes of his Verityfair series. The collection of both collections, Pink Elephants And Custard Creams is currently being sold by Fanfare Press through PonentMon.

The publisher writes.

Terry Wiley was just 56 years-old when he died of cancer of the brain on Saturday, 8th September 2018. A sad loss to his fiancée Cindi, family, friends and lovers of fun comics everywhere. With a gentle wit and finely tuned talent he will be missed by those of you who knew him or his work.

For those of you who didn't – you are missing out so, courtesy of Cindi and Phil Hall, original publisher of 'Verityfair', we are pleased to offer copies of his book for sale so you too can delight and wonder at his work. The full retail value of the book will go to a charity of Cindi's choosing when she has had chance to say goodbye to Terry. We will bring you that once known. We have a plentiful but not infinite number of books so please don't delay – we have the jiffy bags on order!!! We will have to make a modest charge for the shipping I'm afraid but have kept it to the minimum. Also, apologies for any delay in shipping but we are only a small company. We'll do the best we can to keep you up to date.

Last year I wrote to Terry when I was listing his book on my US distributor's site. I described his internet presence as an enigma wrapped in a quandary and asked him to let me have a short bio to introduce himself. So in Terry's own words:

"Terry Wiley (from Newcastle, UK) has been drawing comics for 30 years – over 450 pages of student science fiction "Sleaze Castle" and "Petra Etcetera" in black-and white, and 170 pages of contemporary quirky actress mystery "Verity Fair" in full colour. Terry has also produced key strips for the Image Spearmint anthology "Souvenir", "Asteroid Belter" Science Comic, the Hancock Museum "Spineless", "True War Stories" WW1 comic and "Philip Arthur Brown – The Right To Learn" biography.

I can't think of a comic book that deserves to be on your bookshelf more than Verityfair. And here's a great chance to help out as well. Here are some preview pages: