The Greys

This is our third comic for “Aylesbury Town Matters” magazine, this time focusing on an iconic figure to residents of the town: the statue of John Hampden.

Hampden was a 17th Century politician who was born near the town, and represented the nearby village of Wendover, followed by a period sitting as MP for Buckinghamshire as a whole. A more extensive biography can be found on Wikipedia.

The statue was sculpted by Henry Fehr in 1912, and is such a recognised figure in the town that Aylesbury Vale District Council have adopted a stylised version as their logo. Henry Fehr sculpted a number of different busts, memorials and other works for a number of British towns; there is a website dedicated to his works, set up by his great great granddaughter.

This comic is about as sci-fi oriented as we are going to get with our strips for Aylesbury Town Matters. Usually we try to keep these comics more Aylesbury oriented than sci-fi oriented, but as the statue is so iconic in the town we felt that we needed to feature it. The Star Wars reference was the most obvious gag to use. Hopefully it’s not too obscure for the magazine’s usual readership.

There is something of an anachronism with this comic, in that our characters are still based in the 1960s (having landed in 1966 in the first strip for the magazine), but we’ve drawn the statue in its current location at the top of the Market Square. Unfortunately there is a lack contemporary pictures online, so it was easier for us to work with the current position of the piece.

Click here to download the SVG source for this comic