Every now and then discussion about these books crops up on forums and suchlike, with people discovering copies of one or all of them in charity shops, comic marts etc. Readers often express their curiosity about the books so I thought I'd take this opportunity to clarify some background info about them.
Back in the 1980s Mike Higgs (known to many of you for his creations The Cloak and Moonbird) was producing books for Patrick Hawkey's company Hawk Books. Mike would edit and design the books himself, and usually came up with the concept as well.
In 1989 Mike had the idea of producing four comic album compilations. These would not be slick collector's volumes but would instead be chunky, cheap softbacks aimed at children for the summer holidays. The idea being to give them a nice long read over the school break whilst introducing them to some classic material from the archives of British comics.
Through an arrangement with Fleetway Publications, Mike set about selecting material from the collections of himself and others that would be suited to the books. Four books were to be produced at the same time, each with 288 pages in black and white, and each with their own theme.
The Giant Holiday Fantasy Comic Album
Mike Higgs designed the striking logo for the cover, and the illustrations were sourced from some of the strips within, with colour added for effect. The contents included material from the 1950s to the 1970s, including Thunderbolt Jaxon, Janus Stark, Robot Archie and Simon Test.
Perhaps the most impressive story in this book is the complete Return of The Claw serial about the Lextrons taking over the minds of children. This epic ran in Valiant for almost two years and the full 94 page epic is collected in this book.
The Giant Holiday Fun Comic Album
With a cover drawn by Mike Higgs this book is a good compilation of some of the best humour strips to have appeared in British comics. Mike includes several of his own Cloak and Space School strips, and there's also classics such as Laurel and Hardy, Denis Gifford's Steadfast McStaunch and Sammy Sprockett, Georgie's Germs, The Stealer, Me and My Shadow and more. There's even an all-new Mike Higgs strip at the back of the book, Henry the Hedgehog Goes Travelling.
Fans of Ken Reid will be pleased to hear that the book contains the first serial for Queen of the Seas in full. 24 pages from the early issues of Smash!
The Giant Holiday All-Girl Comic Album
Most of the material in this book seems to be from the 1950s and taken from various Fleetway pocket library titles. Characters include Sue Day, The Silent Three and others.
The Giant Holiday Adventure Comic Album
With another logo design lettered by Mike Higgs, this book features several of the non-fantasy Fleetway heroes such as Robin Hood, Master of the Marsh, Sexton Blake and Dick Barton.
As with the All-Girl book, the focus is mainly on the 1950s and much of the material is from pocket libraries. A Dick Turpin issue and The Island of Fu Manchu are reprinted in full.
The four books were launched with a very reasonable cover price of £2.99 each. Mike Higgs and his assistants had worked hard to a tight deadline in order to have the pages scanned and cleaned up from often yellowing original comics. The results are impressive, but there was one big letdown, - the print quality was poor. The chosen print company was more used to producing colouring books and had never printed comics before. In many areas the solid blacks had reproduced too grey and patchy on the pulp paper, and detailed work such as that of Ken Reid and Jesus Blasco was badly served by the cheap reproduction.
On the plus side, the pages that had been enlarged from pocket libraries didn't look too bad as the larger reproduction helped considerably. Also, even on the worst affected pages it was still possible to follow the strips, and the lettering was legible. It's a great shame that such a worthy effort was hampered by such poor reproduction but if you do chance upon any of these books they're still worth picking up. In more recent years IPC have shown little interest in reprinting anything from their vast archive, even to the point of selling off the original pages, so, as things stand at present, it's unlikely that similar books to these will see the light of day anytime soon.
It all seems very optimistic now. A UK publisher investing £1,000,000 to reinvigorate its line of comics. However that was the situation in May 1990 when this issue of Dez Skinn's Comics International revealed Fleetway's big plans.
Fleetway were taking a risk back then, as sales of comics had been sliding for some time. Rather than abandoning comics, they decided to try and reinvigorate what they had and launch a couple of new titles. Ah, how the comics industry was buzzing over the publication of Revolver and the new Judge Dredd Monthly (or the much-better titled Judge Dredd Megazine as it was renamed before its launch).
What high hopes we had for the 30th anniversary of Buster, which editor Allen Cummings said "deserves to be talked of in the same breath as Beano and Dandy". Little did we know then that Buster would be axed just under ten years later, and that the new publishers would focus more on children's magazines than comics.
Here then is the news of 22 years ago, when it seemed that British comics were on the verge of a renaissance. Noble thoughts, but of all of the Fleetway titles mentioned in the article, only Judge Dredd Megazine is still running (now published by Rebellion).
For those critics who think that the drop off of comic sales are a recent problem (and that modern content is to blame) it's worth considering the words of Fleetway's group managing director Terry Humphreys in 1990 when he spoke of falling sales being a "long and steady decline". The million pound investment back then was their way of trying to fight the increasing disinterest in comics, and today publishers try other ways and other investments to try and turn the tide. In some ways it may be seen as fighting a losing battle that's been waged for decades, but hopefully publishers will continue to fight and keep British comics alive.
PS: It's a good article by Simon Rogers but the bit about Tom Browne introducing comic strip narrative to the UK is quite an exaggeration. Browne was brilliant, and his style was (and still is) massively influential to British comics, but he didn't invent the comic strip.
Steve Holland is a diligent hard working researcher of old comics, story papers, paperbacks and suchlike whose articles and books are always rewarding. His latest venture, an index for the Hurricane and Champion comics of the 1960s shows all the dedication and research one has come to expect of him.
Personally I was never a follower of those comics as a child. Compared to TV21, Smash! and Marvel Comics they seemed a bit flat and outdated. However I can appreciate Hurricane and Champion far more now from a mature perspective, and even though I only have a couple of issues in my collection I found Steve's history of those comics a fascinating read. If I enjoyed it I'm sure that actual fans of those titles will be over the moon with this book.
The cover itself is a treat. Shot from the original artwork it mimics the cover design of the early issues of Hurricane and is wraparound printed on quality stock paper. Inside, the first 29 pages are taken up with a thorough history of the two comics. Both were short lived Fleetway titles, with Hurricane running for 63 weeks and Champion for just 15. This is followed by the index itself, listing every story and the length of its run and, where possible, the names of the relevant artists.
Editors names are also listed, as are the free gifts given in the issues. The book is well illustrated throughout with sharp, well reproduced sample panels from the comics. There's also a cover gallery of the annuals in the back. (The annuals continued for several years after the weeklies folded.)
Hurricane and Champion were brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-them titles that soon merged into Tiger and Lion respectively. Champion was a curious mix of new UK material and European translated reprint that never really gelled with the British market. Hurricane was the better title, but still failed to make much of an impact in the busy comic environment of the 1960s. However it's great to see this nice pocket history of those titles and I hope Steve does more. (He implies that a Jag index might be in the future, which is a comic I really enjoyed.)
You can buy a copy of the index directly from Steve at Bear Alley Books at this link:
http://bearalleybooks.blogspot.com/2011/02/hurricane-and-champion-index.html
While you're there, take a look around the site to see his other books, and then visit Steve's other blog, Bear Alley. It's an essential site for anyone interested in the history of comics.
