Flame O' The Forest (1970)

Cover of LION by Tom Kerr.

Lion was always a good solid adventure comic and it produced some memorable characters such as Robot Archie, The Spider, and The Spellbinder. Some strips are less well remembered, but in some cases that was due to their short runs not for any lack of quality. One such serial was Flame O' The Forest, an excellent strip which ran in three page chapters from Lion dated 7th February 1970 to the issue dated 7th November 1970.

Flame O' The Forest was set in Norman England after Harold's defeat at Hastings. The hooded Saxon hero of the title fought against the invaders by using skills including magic tricks and archery. For an IPC strip of the time it was notable in its body count, with the Flame disposing of evil Baron Corbeau's men one by one. (Although any true violence happened off panel.) The artwork was by Massimo Belardinelli, several years before he'd be drawing Dan Dare, Inferno, Meltdown Man and Ace Trucking Co. for 2000AD. Belardinelli often poured a lot of time and energy into his work and Flame O' The Forest was no exception; dynamic and crammed with detail, dripping with atmosphere.

Here's the first chapter from Lion (7th Feb 1970)...

A few selected chapters from the series...

The final episode from Lion (7th November 1970)...

I always liked the strip as a kid. It seemed a bit more dangerous than most of the other stories in Lion. The theme of the lone freedom fighter against oppressive establishment has always been a good one to use since the days of the Robin Hood legend, and later developed by Alan Moore and David Lloyd in V for Vendetta of course. In Flame O' The Forest it's more of a traditional boys adventure yarn but it still had an edge to it. Definitely a classic.