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Wednesday, November 21, 2018

STEEL COMMANDO joins the Treasury of British Comics line-up for 2019

Rebellion have announced their line-up of books for 2019, including collections of contemporary 2000AD stories and classic tales from British comics. A surprising new addition is Best of Steel Commando, which will reprint selected stories featuring the WW2 robot that originally appeared in Thunder in 1970. Unlike other books in the Treasury line, Best of Steel Commando will be in a smaller, digest format. Even the cover, re-using a Geoff Campion painting from Lion Annual 1977, has a logo that seems to homage D.C. Thomson's Commando digest comic.

Returning next year will be The Leopard from Lime Street in Volume 2 of his adventures reprinted from Buster of the 1970s. Bella at the Bar also returns for Book 2 of reprints from Tammy, and there's another Ken Reid book in the form of World Wide Weirdies, reprinting the marvellous back covers from Whoopee! 

Another classic collection brings us Dr.Mesmer's Revenge, reprinting the fondly remembered horror series from Lion in the early 1970s. 

Other books include titles I've mentioned in previous posts such as Sweeny Toddler, Wildcat, Fran of the Floods, and Death Wish.

I'm sure that's whetted your appetites for more information and you can find out all the details of these books, - and more, - by visiting the 2000AD site here:
https://2000ad.com/post/4628


7 comments:

Peter Gray said...

interesting the Steel Commando...might be a quick way to produce quick books..of course love the vol 1 ones...

Lew Stringer said...

Sorry, Peter, I'm not with you. What do you mean by quick books?

Peter Gray said...

I didn't say it very well....they can produce these books quicker than the other books..maybe they can do other characters like this like a comic library...a Commando type..the best of Joker..best of creepy car...maybe the costs are cheaper...

Lew Stringer said...

Regardless of the difference in page size, it takes just as much time and work to scan and remaster the artwork. Printing will take the same length of time too. It should be a bit cheaper to produce a smaller book, and that's reflected in the price. I don't know how many pages it'll have yet though.

It would be nice to see some humour books in that format, but I can't see there being enough people out there who'd buy Joker or Creepy Car. Anyway, we'll see how things turn out in a few years time. The important thing at the moment is them building an audience for these classic books, - not just of the few hundred older fans but thousands of children too.

It can't be easy when a modern generation is more accustomed to superheroes, Manga, and flashy 3D graphics to convince them that the traditional British humour style still has merit. It can happen though. I've met children who enjoy my 30 year old Combat Colin strips, so I'm hopeful that they will enjoy the Treasury books, if they're aware they exist. That's the first hurdle.

Paul Mcscotty said...

Steel Commando does seem like a strange choice for a book as he was not (a far as I am aware) the most poplar of characters back in the day - Sweeney Toddler is for me the stand out book here and I will get that - not keen on the rest I'm afraid but will check Dr Mesmer as I cant fully remember that strip but it rings a bell the art was pretty good and it was a fun story.

Lew Stringer said...

Hi Paul, I posted an example of Dr.Mesmer a while ago but you may have missed it. Here it is at this link:

https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2012/10/this-week-in-1971-lion-and-thunder.html

Dale Brown said...

Looking at the 2000Ad site, Fran of the Floods sounds pretty cool. A bit like disaster 1990 with a female lead.

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