Published this Thursday here's the latest four editions of Commando. Continuing to celebrate its 50th anniversary one of the issues reprints No.2 from 1961, with a reprint of issue 1 coming next month.
There's also two stories set in World War 1 as an appropriate tie in to Armistice Day.
Here's all the info from editor Calum Laird:
Commando No 4443: Killer In No-Man’s-Land
As a soldier in the no-man’s-land between your own trenches and the enemy’s in World War One, you expected to get shot at. British soldier Alan Roux and his mates certainly did.
What they didn’t expect was to have to dodge bullets fired from their own side.
Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Vila
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
Commando No 4444: Kings of the Castle
Many strange battles were fought during the 1914-18 war but surely the strangest involved a pair of French regimental policemen, a squad of Australian infantrymen, a bunch of escaped German POWs…and a mediaeval stone tower.
Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Keith Page
Cover Art: Keith Page
Commando No 4445: THEY CALLED HIM COWARD!
“BANZAI!”
The powerful Japanese Army was island-hopping its ruthless way down through the South Seas towards Australia. Many a brave Aussie soldier, standing his ground in the green hell of the island jungles, was bulldozed into eternity by the sheer weight of the Nipponese army.
And one Englishman in the Australian army was caught up in the desperate battle.
Bob Palmer he was christened, but COWARD was the name they branded him with. Coward, the word that turns a man into the loneliest being on earth, for what soldier seeks a coward for company?
But there was no craven blood in Bob Palmer’s veins — and he proved he was ready to spill every drop as he blasted Jap after Jap into kingdom come.
Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor
A classic Commando tale this, a man the victim of a misunderstanding who has to prove his accuser wrong. And with plenty of action along the way to add some spice. That the two men are on the same side but different nationalities hardly matters nor that there’s a third character trying to be a peacemaker between them.
What does matter is the use of the emotive word Coward in the title and through out the story. It’s one of those loaded words that can’t be spoken except without venom — as amply demonstrated here by Sergeant Fettis.
Note to the 1961 Commando editor…the word Coward in the title is far too small, make it bigger.
They Called Him Coward, originally Commando No 2 (June 1961), re-issued as No 2531 (January 1992)
Story: Castle
Art: Bonato
Cover Art: Ken Barr
Commando No 4446: MYSTERY IN THE DESERT
It was going to be Captain David Poole’s toughest mission yet. Posing as a German spy he was to feed the Nazis with false information which would lead their forces into a trap.
Everything was going like clockwork until David met up with a certain Australian pilot — and then everything started to go terribly wrong.
Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor
As I recall, Ken Gentry who penned this tale was a South African newspaperman with a sideline in Commando stories. I worked on a few of his over the years. Here he weaves a web of deceit with a double-crossing British agent, a straightforward Aussie pilot and a luckless German commander.
Cecil Rigby who provided the inside art for the story had also worked on newspapers, as a very good caricaturist and he wasn’t bad at Commando either, having been in at the start.
Ian Kennedy, who provided the cover, puts himself in the cockpit of every plane he draws. I hope he made an exception with this one — that looks like a painful crash.
Mystery In The Desert, originally Commando No 1370 (November 1979)
Story: Ken Gentry
Art: Cecil Rigby
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
http://www.commandocomics.com
Back in 1985 IPC indulged in a rare moment of self-parody in the comics departments when the cover of their humour weekly Whoopee! spoofed 2000AD. For one week only the popular bad baby strip Sweeny Toddler became Judge Sweeny Toddler in a homage to Judge Dredd. Even the logo for that issue was redesigned to mimic the then-current 2000AD masthead.
Script by Graham Exton, artwork by Tom Paterson. Anyone found not laughing will be sentenced to 30 days in an iso-cube.
It's Bonfire Night and the stars are bright. Well, it's forecast clouds and rain actually but you can still enjoy the fireworks in this trip back in time to look at the pages of a couple of 1950s comics.
First up, here's the 1954 firework edition of TV Fun No.60. The cover strip featuring diminutive funnyman Arthur Askey was drawn by Arthur Martin, who would in 1971 be the original artist of Chalky for Cor!! comic.
The firework theme didn't dominate this issue of TV Fun. Including the cover strip only three of the comic's 16 pages featured bonfire night strips. Inside, Professor Jimmy Edwards is on the receiving end of more explosive fun, illustrated by Reg Parlett...
The prolific Reg Parlett was also the artist of the back cover strip, Sally Barnes. Reg of course illustrated thousands of pages spanning over a career of more than 60 years. The body language of the characters in this strip is superb, proving Reg to be a true master of comic art. Like his brother George, Reg was particularly good at drawing the curves of the female figure, something that Amalgamated Press played up in the 1950s but which Fleetway toned down in the 1960s.
A few years earlier Radio Fun had featured a couple of firework-themed strips in its 1950 issue. The AP comics were going through a bad patch at the time. Due to what the editor termed "production difficulties" (industrial action by the printers) some comics skipped several weeks. When Radio Fun did reappear its cover showed a combined numbering (No.627/8/9/30) and combined dates on the page headers (Oct. 14/21/28/Nov. 4, 1950) even though it only had the usual 16 pages.
Obviously this meant that scheduling a theme issue was difficult in case the comic didn't appear that week (subsequently there was only one Christmas themed strip in the late December issue of that year). Therefore only two firework themed strips were in the Radio Fun of 1950. Here's cockney spiv Arthur English "The Prince of Wide Boys". (Artwork was, I think, by Alex Akerbladh.)
From the same 1950 issue here's Douglas Cardew Robinson (drawn by Reg Parlett) indulging in more firework tomfoolery. You'll notice that all of these strips involve characters coming into direct contact with exploding fireworks. Something that UK comics eventually stamped out in later years for fear of presenting dangerous explosives as toys.
However, this week the firework fun is back in the pages of The Dandy and The Beano (and a half page strip in Toxic)! Here's Postman Prat living up to his name in the current Dandy, drawn by me from a script by David Mason...
Wherever you are, have a happy and safe November 5th!
After delays outside the publisher's control the first issue of the new British adventure comic Strip Magazine has finally arrived in comic shops.
It's an impressive debut. Kicking off with an eye-catching cover by PJ Holden we're treated to 68 glossy pages for a mere £2.99. Considering that most US comics now cost around £2.20 for 20 story pages Strip Magazine is a definite bargain. (There's also a free gift in the form of an A2 sized Mirabilis poster.)
The comic is packed with brand new comic strips and a few features about UK comics, plus, by arrangement with Egmont, the return of Hook Jaw (from the notorious Action weekly of 1976) in colourised reprints with new lettering by Jim Campbell (replacing the flat typeface used on the original).
Intended for an all-ages readership Strip Magazine features an emphasis on action-adventure rather than a reliance of talking heads or gore. The strips move at a fast pace but still cram a lot in to establish the characters and plots. Subsequently that can lead to a bit of overload in places, somewhat like being introduced to loads of new people at a party and expecting to remember everyone's names while the music's blaring out. This is particularly evident in the lead strip Black Ops Extreme, which is a brilliantly lively opening for a new comic but might need a couple of re-reads to remember who's who.
Every strip in the new comic has good things going for it, from the aforementioned fast moving Black Ops Extreme and Recovery Incorporated, to the humourous touches of the alternate-Earth complete story On Her Majesty's Hush-Hush Service. There's an interesting supernatural element to Warpaint (and a great cliffhanger), and some very nice John Ridgway artwork in Age of Heroes.
Above: A panel from Hush-Hush by Keith Page.
The articles in the first issue include an interview with Black Ops' artist PJ Holden, a feature on the history of Action by Moose Harris, and items about Print Media's graphic novels. There's also a couple of humour strips; Cosmic Patrol by Mauricet and Janssens, and Autospy & Ape by Toxic's John Rushby.
If I have any criticism it's that, as yet, there's not really one strong standout character that could be the next Dan Dare, Judge Dredd, or Steel Claw. However it's possible that Mia Raven of Recovery Incorporated might prove me wrong after a few issues. (Personally I'd have simply called the strip Raven. Strips with the names of the hero tend to be more memorable than the organizations they work for. I doubt Roy of the Rovers would have had the same impact had it been titled Melchester Rovers for example.)
It's early days yet though and Strip Magazine is off to a great start. There's not a dud strip in the comic and all the stories contain action and intrigue. What more could you ask for? Comparisons to 2000AD and CLiNT will be inevitable, but perhaps unfair. 2000AD has had over 30 years to build up its fanbase and its characters, whilst CLiNT is deliberately post-watershed and ultra-violent. Strip Magazine has its own approach and is closer in spirit to all-ages traditional UK comics such as Lion but uses contemporary storytelling techniques and attitudes. Let's hope this is the beginning of a long and successful new era for UK comics. Issue 2 is scheduled to be published on December 1st.
Strip Magazine No.1 is available from comic specialist shops such as Forbidden Planet (not newsagents). It's also available to download on the iPad, and postal subscriptions will also soon be available. See the official website for more details:
http://stripcomicmagazineuk.blogspot.com/
