'The Order' collected

John M. Burns has been illustrating comics for over 50 years and his work is still of an incredibly high standard, appealing to generations new and old. Next week, Rebellion are collecting the first book of The Order, that was published in 2000AD in recent years. Here's the PR and a couple of preview pages....

• CREATIVE TEAM: Kek-W (w), John Burns (a), Annie Parkhouse, Ellie De Ville (l)
• REGIONS: UK print and worldwide digital
• RELEASE DATE: 9 March 2017
• PAPERBACK - 128 PAGES
• PRICE: £14.99 (UK) $20 (US)
• ISBN: 9781781085271
• DIAMOND: JAN171934


The Expendables meets H.P. Lovecraft as knights and robots take on a dark, hidden power in medieval Europe! In 13th-century Germany, while reading the papers of her dead father, young Anna Kohl uncovers a shocking secret - that defending Earth from an other-worldly menace is a secret cadre of warriors known only as The Order. Now she and her father's rag-tag former comrades must do battle with the sinister forces of these eldritch creatures! From Teutonic Knights with robot heads to gun-toting warriors in high speed pursuits on the streets of Elizabethan Engand, The Order is an incredible genre mash-up of medieval and Renaissance history, action movies, Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, and Hammer Horror! 

Available in print from: book stores, Amazon, and comic book stores via Diamond Available in digital from: 2000 AD webshop, 2000 AD iPad app, 2000 AD Android app, 2000 AD Windows 10 app

Christmas Comics: WHAM! (1964)

It's the final festive flashback for this year as the Blimey-Timey Time Machine settles in 1964 for the duration of Christmas. This issue of Wham! was published exactly 50 years ago today, on Monday 21st December 1964. A smashing seasonal cover by Graham Allen (who put his initials in the last panel) with a sleigh-full of Wham stars on the masthead.

Let's have a look at a selection of some of its contents. Here are The Wacks, drawn by Gordon Hogg...

On the facing page was the regular pop feature, and who better to appear in this special Christmas issue than Britain's biggest popstars The Beatles? 

Kelpie the Boy Wizard didn't have a festive theme but I couldn't resist the chance to show two pages of classic John Burns artwork...

In these early strips The Tiddlers had a teacher who was on their side called Super Sir! After a while, the strip ditched Super Sir in favour of a traditional put-upon teacher warring with the kids, which was a shame. This episode looks like it might be the work of Terry Willers...

Only one strip by Leo Baxendale in this issue, but what a strip! Eagle-Eye, Junior Spy running across the centrespread in full colour. Some of the humour is of its time and might understandably give offence now, but the artwork is top quality funny stuff...

How's about a Christmas ghost story? Here's the short and spooky Vanishing House. And for lighter fare, It's a Crazy World drawn by Artie Jackson...

It wouldn't be Wham! without Frankie Stein and here's Frankie's first Christmas, drawn by the genius Ken Reid...

Finally, a lively Georgie's Germs strip which shows that Santa even visits germs! Several artists drew this strip over the years and this one is by the excellent Brian Lewis...

I hope you've enjoyed these visits to various Christmas comics of the past. Thanks for dropping by and may I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

TV21 No.243: The return of yesterday's brighter tomorrows

The brand new issue of TV21 turned up today, just as it used to on a Wednesday back in the 1960s. Colonel White is back in charge of the letters page and all the strips begin new adventures. John Burns' Lady Penelope is particularly exciting, and it's good to see Gerry Embleton drawing Stingray.

In case you hadn't already read my earlier blogs on the subject, this issue of TV21 is a special one-off edition that is part of the package of goodies within the Supermarionation box set. The concept of this comic is that it's issue No.243 of TV21, dated September 13th 2069, - the issue that one imagines might have been published in 1969 had Joe 90 comic not merged into its pages. An issue of TV21 from an alternate reality if you like! 

The Brains behind this brilliant idea is editor Martin Cater of Network, the company responsible for the excellent box set. Assembling a team of comic creators he has constructed a 24 page comic that perfectly echoes the TV21 of yesteryear. It's even the exact size of those early editions and carries the same story logos that were designed in the 1960s. The content though is all-new! 

The strips include all the Gerry Anderson shows produced in the 1960s, so in addition to Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, and Captain Scarlet plus Zero X we also have Joe 90 (who never appeared in the first series of TV21 until the relaunched merger with his own comic) and The Secret Service (which never previously appeared in TV21 at all). There's also a pitch perfect Agent 21 strip by Brian Williamson and a Zoony the Lazoon strip by myself, plus a Project Sword prose story. Graham Bleathman is also on board with a new cutaway of the Mars Space Probe.

It's good to see my old friends Mike Collins and Bambos contributing good stuff, and Antonio Barreti's Secret Service is a spot-on sixties homage, but I'm sure they'll forgive me when I say the highlight for me was the centrespread strip, - Lady Penelope by John Burns! The veteran artist is still a master of his craft and these pages look so authentically 1960s that for a moment I felt I was back in that decade. Rest assured though that this is definitely brand new material! 

John Burns isn't the only veteran artist involved, as Martin Asbury has contributed a two page Captain Scarlet strip and Gerry Embleton is back at the helm of Stingray! Embleton's style may be a little looser than it was but the skill is as sharp as ever. This is good stuff!

The comic even comes with a free gift in the form of six postcards of TV21 covers for the following few issues! Sadly those issues do not actually exist, but wouldn't it be great if they did? 

Lest we forget though, this issue of TV21 is only available as part of Network's Supermarionation box set and the main content of that set are the blu-ray discs with a brand new documentary, selected episodes in High Definition, and Stephen La Riviére's book Filmed in Supermarionation. For the full details see Network's website here:
http://networkonair.com/shop/2038-supermarionation-box-set-pre-buy-5027626708146.html

It's been an absolute pleasure to contribute to the history of TV21, - my favourite adventure comic of my childhood, and certainly my favourite comic of this year! For one day, the brighter, optimistic 21st Century is with us once again. 

Strips 78 booklet

Art by DAVE GIBBONS

In the days before Internet social networking, the Society of Strip Illustration (SSI) was an ideal organization for bringing comic creators together to socialize and promote the comics industry. I was a member myself in the 1980s, but a few years earlier, in 1978, the SSI held their first event, Strips 78, in London. Here are a few pages from the accompanying A5 booklet, with artwork rarely seen before outside of the SSI membership. 

Firstly, an introduction from Dennis Hooper, who was the Chairman in 1978 and, as no doubt you'll know, previously the editor of Countdown and art editor of TV21. This is of particular interest as it explains the origins of the SSI and how it grew from the Comics 101 event that Denis Gifford had organized in 1976. (Click to see it larger.)

Now here are some of the pages drawn by SSI members exclusively for the 52 page Strips 78 booklet...

BRIAN LEWIS

BILL TITCOMBE

MARTIN ASBURY

GEOFF CAMPION

DENIS GIFFORD

JOHN M. BURNS

JOHN RICHARDSON

KEVIN O'NEILL

LEO BAXENDALE and BRIAN BOLLAND

MICK McMAHON and DICK MILLINGTON

Finally, the centrespread, showing the names of the editors on the IPC weeklies at the time...

40 Year Flashback: TV ACTION takes over

On this day in 1972 Polystyle's Countdown comic had a complete makeover and was re-titled TV Action.

Countdown had launched in 1971 with high production values and top class strips based on sci-fi TV shows and features about science and technology. Ironically, for a comic that dealt in science fiction strips, it was a bit behind the times because by 1971 the space race was over and many kids had diverted their interest elsewhere. During the course of its run, Countdown gradually broadened its focus, running a cover strip based on light adventure thriller The Persuaders TV series and tweaking its title logo to become 'TV Action in Countdown' and 'Coundown for TV Action'. Finally, with issue 59 came the major revamp into TV Action (or TV Action + Countdown as it was for the next 40 issues or so).

With the license to publish Doctor Who strips being its greatest asset since Countdown No.1, TV Action put the strip on the cover with superb artwork by Gerry Haylock. Inside, readers could win a 17" colour TV if they won the Draw Your Enemy competition. As you can see, I designed my monster but never sent it off. therefore The Clawhawk remained in limbo... until today! (Somehow I don't think I'd have won anyway.)

Interestingly, this competition is currently at the root of one Doctor Who fan's legal claim that he created Davros, which he alleges the BBC imitated right down to every switch and shoulder pad. Considering competition entries were sent to Polystyle and not the BBC, and that Terry Nation wasn't a judge, I have my doubts (to put it mildly).

If new readers picked up TV Action thinking it was a new comic they may have been a bit disappointed to find that so many of the strips continued from Countdown. The sophistication and space politics of the Countdown strip could go over the heads of regular readers sometimes so new readers must have been particularly confused. Nice artwork by John M. Burns though.


One of the new strips debuting this week was Hawaii Five-O, based on the highly popular Friday night TV series. One of the good things that TV Action carried over from its previous incarnation were the use of artist's credits. This was highly unusual for the period, when most artists for rival comics were still prohibited from signing their work. (Polystyle also allowed artists to sign their pages on companion title TV Comic.)

Relegated from the front cover, The Persuaders still had two pages inside the comic, and with Harry Lindfield on the art it was still impressive stuff.

One of the best artists of the time was Brian Lewis, who had contributed many pages for Fleetway and Odhams in the 1960s. Drawing the latest UFO serial Let The Aliens Land, Lewis was able to take advantage of the high production values and embellish his work in a grey wash.

Other Gerry Anderson strips included new Thunderbirds adventures drawn by Don Harley and a Stingray reprint from TV21. There were also several intelligently written articles including one on the then-proposed Thames flood barrier. Like Countdown, TV Action tried not to dumb down to its readers. I doubt an article this in-depth would appear in a children's comic today.

On the back page, the comic's token humour strip Hanna-Barbera's Autocat and Motormouse drawn by Peter Ford.

Of the comic's 24 pages, 17 featured strips, two of which were reprint. The rest were taken up with articles and "filler" as some might call it today. Yep, it wasn't 100% comic but we didn't care. Like Countdown before it, TV Action was an excellent comic but, outside of fan circles, it never really caught on in a big way. Nevertheless, the revamp as TV Action gave it a good boost and it carried on for over another two years, finally ending with issue 132.

My earlier blog post on Countdown No.1:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/40-year-flashback-countdown-no1.html

Comic oddities: ARROW

Those of you who grew up on comics of the 1960s, as I did, will be familiar with the titles published by Odhams. There were of course the five 'Power Comics', Wham!, Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic, and Terrific, and the company was also publishing Eagle by then, along with Boys World, Arrow, Robin...

Hang on. Arrow? Has history been rewritten? Where did that comic come from?

The full title of the comic was Gibbs Ivory Castle Arrow (although it was simply called Arrow in the editorial) and, as you'll have guessed, was a promotional publication for Gibbs toothpaste. According to the late Denis Gifford's Complete Catalogue of British Comics 11 issues were published from 1963 to 1966. I knew nothing else about the comic but I recently bought the issue above on eBay, which is No.10 from Summer 1965.

Researching a little more, I found this blog which gives plenty of background info on this almost-forgotten comic: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/archives-sunday-comics-gleaming-white.html

What's interesting is that this isn't a typical advertising agency job done by designers trying to mimic a comic (as often happens), but is a proper comic illustrated by some of the top artists in the business. The cover strip, Steve and Susan, is drawn by John Burns, who back then was drawing Kelpie the Boy Wizard in Wham! and various strips for DC Thomson's Diana (and is still very active today as one of the artists of Nikolai Dante for 2000AD.)


The comic only had 8 pages, but half were in full colour. It had glossy photogravure printing like Eagle and the early issues of Wham! and resembled a mixture of those two comics in its layout.

The first strip that greeted readers inside was, as you might expect for a comic promoting toothpaste, a half pager telling children to Look After Your Teeth. I only have this one issue but I would guess this sort of thing was the standard for all of them.


On the next page, a less educational and more fun strip with Lord Stoney de Broke (years before IPC used Tony Broke as a name). Artwork by Stan McMurtry (Edit: or possibly Dick Millington 'ghosting' Stan? See comments.)


Below the strip was an educational photo feature about cycle maintenance (presumably in case they needed to get to a dentist quickly) but over the page, the colourful centre spread soon brought the fun back into things.


The Siege of the Ivory Castle was an allegory about protecting your teeth from decay as the Wicked Giant Decay tried to wreck the castle walls with sticky toffee. Never fear, Sir Gregory Gibb was there to fight back. Smashing artwork from Gordon Hogg, one of the Odhams regulars.


Hamlet the Happy Hamster was another strip set long ago. Drawn by Philip Mendoza, it saw Hamlet help a friendly giant escape a tree trap by gnawing through the trunk of each tree. Don't try this at home kids!


On page 6 was a complete text story, The Secret of Abbey Towers. At the foot of the page, a strip that's sure to interest fans of Reg Parlett - Toothy! Perhaps his rarest strip?


Had enough teeth-related strips by now? How's about broadening our horizons, like to... the ears for example? Ear you go then: Ear in a Bottle - "one of history's strangest tales". Or not so strange in certain pubs on a Saturday night.


You may have noticed there was no cover price on Arrow. As a promo item, the comic was apparently sent to dentists for them to give to children free. (I never saw it at my local dentists.) What did the dentist get out of it? More patients, if they imitated Hamlet the tree-gnawing hamster.

All in all, a very nice item, showing not only the high quality of 1960s comics but indicating how popular comics were back then that a major manufacturing company would utilize them for advertising.