First Appearances:
Sgt. Blane (The Hunted) in Warlord (D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd.) #172 (07 Jan 1978).
Charley Bourne (Charley's War) in Battle Action (IPC Magazines Ltd.) #200 (1979).
Glory Rider in Battle Action (IPC Magazines Ltd.) #200 (1979).
H.M.S. Nightshade in Battle Action (IPC Magazines Ltd.) #200 (1979).
Births:
Edward Linley Sambourne (1844); Eduardo Teixeira Coelho (1919); Eric Bradbury (1921); Ramsey Campbell (1946); Chris Bullivant Sr. (1947); David Roach (1965); Chris Weston (1969)
Deaths:
Charles Keene (1891); Grenfell 'Gren' Jones (2007)
Notable Events:
The first David Low cartoon appeared in print in the UK in The Manchester Guardian in 1915, a reprint of a cartoon from The Sydney Bulletin printed the previous year.
A creditor's meeting for Dark They Were & Golden Eyed was held in 1982. Malcolm Edwards, one of the expert valuers, cited £100,000 in unsecured debts.
Dez Skinn's Quality Communications, Limited was registered in 1982.
The final issue of Buster (cover dated 04 Jan 2000) in 2000 marked the end of Fleetway's humor titles.
David Fickling Comics Limited incorporated in 2011, becoming company no. 07481057.
Showing posts with label Eric Bradbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eric Bradbury. Show all posts
Friday, January 4, 2019
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Scream! #1
24 Mar 1984; Cover price 22p.
32 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Edited by Ian Rimmer.
Cover by UNKNOWN.
Free Dracula fangs.
Contents:
I vividly remember running around with Dracula fangs in my mouth when I first read Scream!, and the strange taste which they left in my mouth for a while after. Memories of this title appearing on the shelves of newsagents is still fresh in my mind all these years later, and coming to it after so long is... Well, it is weird. Separating the quality of contents from the memory of stories is an interesting experience, though mostly it holds up under scrutiny.
Although bringing the Count into a modern era had been done several times before (most memorably in Dracula A.D. 1972), The Dracula File manages to retain visual aesthetics of more traditional interpretations while staying conscious of the political landscape of mainland Europe since WWII. The strip's weak spot is a thoroughly uninspiring logo, which doesn't capture the cold war spirit to any degree.
Taking a uniform from an East German military base near the border, a defector disguises himself in order to make a run for the barbed wire on the western side. Guards fire at him as he flees, and, as mines explode around him, he stumbles to safe harbour. Taken to a British military hospital in Western Germany, the officers in charge determine that he is Rumanian, and ponder whether he might be a valuable defector. It is an opening which could have been inserted into a contemporary James Bond film without changing much.
The jacket he wore during his escape is checked, and the British see a row of bullet holes - he man should have died from his injuries. Computer analysis of medical reports show his body is of indefinable age, but before information can be passed along a fire breaks out. Thinking that they are in a Len Deighton novel, the British consider the possibility that K.G.B. agents might have attempted to kill the defector, not realising that danger is closer than they think.
There are a few places where the story attempts to make leaps it can't quite reach, and the final panel is a touch too on-the-nose, but there's more to like than dislike in the manner Gerry Finley Day brings Dracula back to Britain. There was one aspect of the story which seemed far-fetched at the time of publication, but which have been proven correct in intervening years - bats can cross the Channel. It was something that bothered me, but since it ha been verified I'll refrain from pointing out how unlikely they are to show up on radar.
With an audacious sense of black humour, Alan Moore opens Monster with twelve-year-old Kenneth Corman burying his father's corpse in his back garden is nothing compared to how he closes out this installment - the boy walking slowly up the stairs to a locked door. There's so little event, yet so much detail. While we don't get introduced to the inhabitant of the room, we get enough background to know that there is a secret here which been maintained for a very long time. There is real emotions at play, and a solidity of setting which is a step above expectation.
Three years before Robert Maxwell bought IPC, there was Maxwell Tower...
Max, the digital protagonist of The Thirteenth Floor, is Scream!'s star attraction. It is difficult to justify an in-universe reason for a screen representing the software, but the visual adds so much to Max's character - a crackling screen of static and electricity with a mind of its own. Jerry, his controller, isn't as well defined, but there is obviously a close rapport in the scenes they share.
Jerry permits Max to take care of new tenants moving in, Mrs. Henderson and her son. As they settle in to their new home, Mr. Kemp (an unpleasant debt collector) arrives to harangue the recently-widowed woman about money she owes him. Max, naturally, is less than pleased at this state of affairs, and decides to teach him a lesson. Despite being built without a thirteenth floor, the traditional image of death (a skeletal figure in robes carrying a scythe) greets Kemp there.
Now that Rebellion own the character, there exists the (remote) possibility that we might get a personal assistant based on Max. So much more interesting than Siri, who would never dare suggest that someone annoying be disposed of in a gruesome-yet-appropriate manner.
Horror anthologies need good hosts. Dry wits capable of lightening the tone between tales, stepping in and out of the narrative to address the reader with offhand commentary on the events. Unfortunately, despite the best of intentions, The Leper isn't a good host. Yes, he looks appropriately hideous, but his schtick is decidedly one-note. How many ways can a leprous grave-digger be worked into a story? That Scream! already had Ghastly McNasty able to perform a similar role, The Leper is doubly redundant.
The grave in preparation is for Joshuah Sleeth, the undertaker, was a thoroughly unpleasant individual, not above assisting people to the other side in his quest for money. There is a great sense of atmosphere in the telling, and even the slightly cartoony touch which Watson brings to the strip works well. That the story feels very familiar might be down to having read the issue on publication, but I'm certain that there is more to it than that.
A Ghastly Tale! brings to mind Future Shocks in 2000 A.D., bring a sequence which blazes through a slight premise in a single page, never explaining more than it has to. So brief is the strip's presence that we don't find out the names of either of the main characters, nor why, precisely, they are reduced to appearing in a sideshow. An interesting experiment in storytelling, though one which is likely to become frustrating in the long term.
Good reprints - and specifically ones which are well-chosen for appropriateness in a title - are always welcome, and Fiends and Neighbours is a classic.
At Death's Door feels like a cop-out thanks to the "it was all just a dream" ending, but the visual of the ghost with a stick is fabulous. Yes, the story is derivative and hokey, but horror stories don't necessarily need to operate on logical foundations, and the telling is entertaining. It would have been better with more background to the family situation (and why the parents seem so stiff), but it is a continuing story.
What is the deal with cats? Cats. Are. Not. Scary.
Was someone at IPC bitten by a cat as a child? I'm not sure why both Misty and Scream! were launched with stories about cats, but as figures of dread they are lacking. Rats can be terrifying (ask James Herbert), dogs can - when handled well - hold a few scares, but domestic cats are far too unimposing to present a credible threat.
Terror of the Cats is based on the conceit that cats have turned on people, attacking randomly. There's not much more going on, and at no point in the story is there a sense that the story is being taken seriously. To end on such a low point is unfortunate.
32 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Edited by Ian Rimmer.
Cover by UNKNOWN.
Free Dracula fangs.
Contents:
.2 From the Depths... text introduction (uncredited).
.3 The Dracula File UNTITLED, part one, w: Gerry Finley Day; a: Eric Bradbury, lettering by John Aldrich.
.8 Monster What was the Terrifying Secret of the Locked Room?, part one, w: Alan Moore; a: Heinzl, lettering by Paul Bensberg.
12 The Thirteenth Floor The Thirteenth Floor Didn't Exist... Yet it was There..., part one, w: Ian Holland (Alan Grant & John Wagner); a: Jose Ortiz, lettering by Mike Peters.
16 Tales from the Grave "The Undertaker", part one, w: Tom Tully; a: Jim Watson, lettering by Tim Skomski.
19 A Ghastly Tale! w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
20 Fiends and Neighbours UNTITLED w: UNKNOWN; a: Graham Allen (uncredited).
r: Cor!! (IPC Magazines Ltd.) #[182] (24 Nov 1973).
22 Library of Death At Death's Door... w: Barrie Tomlinson; a: Cam Kennedy, lettering by Mike Peters.
27 The Terror of the Cats "No Harm...", part one, w: John Agee; a: Gonzalez, lettering by Peter Knight.
31 Dare You Read Scream! Next Week? (one third page) next issue information. / Advertisements (two thirds page)
32 Presented With Scream! illustration by UNKNOWN.
I vividly remember running around with Dracula fangs in my mouth when I first read Scream!, and the strange taste which they left in my mouth for a while after. Memories of this title appearing on the shelves of newsagents is still fresh in my mind all these years later, and coming to it after so long is... Well, it is weird. Separating the quality of contents from the memory of stories is an interesting experience, though mostly it holds up under scrutiny.
Although bringing the Count into a modern era had been done several times before (most memorably in Dracula A.D. 1972), The Dracula File manages to retain visual aesthetics of more traditional interpretations while staying conscious of the political landscape of mainland Europe since WWII. The strip's weak spot is a thoroughly uninspiring logo, which doesn't capture the cold war spirit to any degree.
Taking a uniform from an East German military base near the border, a defector disguises himself in order to make a run for the barbed wire on the western side. Guards fire at him as he flees, and, as mines explode around him, he stumbles to safe harbour. Taken to a British military hospital in Western Germany, the officers in charge determine that he is Rumanian, and ponder whether he might be a valuable defector. It is an opening which could have been inserted into a contemporary James Bond film without changing much.
The jacket he wore during his escape is checked, and the British see a row of bullet holes - he man should have died from his injuries. Computer analysis of medical reports show his body is of indefinable age, but before information can be passed along a fire breaks out. Thinking that they are in a Len Deighton novel, the British consider the possibility that K.G.B. agents might have attempted to kill the defector, not realising that danger is closer than they think.
There are a few places where the story attempts to make leaps it can't quite reach, and the final panel is a touch too on-the-nose, but there's more to like than dislike in the manner Gerry Finley Day brings Dracula back to Britain. There was one aspect of the story which seemed far-fetched at the time of publication, but which have been proven correct in intervening years - bats can cross the Channel. It was something that bothered me, but since it ha been verified I'll refrain from pointing out how unlikely they are to show up on radar.
With an audacious sense of black humour, Alan Moore opens Monster with twelve-year-old Kenneth Corman burying his father's corpse in his back garden is nothing compared to how he closes out this installment - the boy walking slowly up the stairs to a locked door. There's so little event, yet so much detail. While we don't get introduced to the inhabitant of the room, we get enough background to know that there is a secret here which been maintained for a very long time. There is real emotions at play, and a solidity of setting which is a step above expectation.
Three years before Robert Maxwell bought IPC, there was Maxwell Tower...
Max, the digital protagonist of The Thirteenth Floor, is Scream!'s star attraction. It is difficult to justify an in-universe reason for a screen representing the software, but the visual adds so much to Max's character - a crackling screen of static and electricity with a mind of its own. Jerry, his controller, isn't as well defined, but there is obviously a close rapport in the scenes they share.
Jerry permits Max to take care of new tenants moving in, Mrs. Henderson and her son. As they settle in to their new home, Mr. Kemp (an unpleasant debt collector) arrives to harangue the recently-widowed woman about money she owes him. Max, naturally, is less than pleased at this state of affairs, and decides to teach him a lesson. Despite being built without a thirteenth floor, the traditional image of death (a skeletal figure in robes carrying a scythe) greets Kemp there.
Now that Rebellion own the character, there exists the (remote) possibility that we might get a personal assistant based on Max. So much more interesting than Siri, who would never dare suggest that someone annoying be disposed of in a gruesome-yet-appropriate manner.
Horror anthologies need good hosts. Dry wits capable of lightening the tone between tales, stepping in and out of the narrative to address the reader with offhand commentary on the events. Unfortunately, despite the best of intentions, The Leper isn't a good host. Yes, he looks appropriately hideous, but his schtick is decidedly one-note. How many ways can a leprous grave-digger be worked into a story? That Scream! already had Ghastly McNasty able to perform a similar role, The Leper is doubly redundant.
The grave in preparation is for Joshuah Sleeth, the undertaker, was a thoroughly unpleasant individual, not above assisting people to the other side in his quest for money. There is a great sense of atmosphere in the telling, and even the slightly cartoony touch which Watson brings to the strip works well. That the story feels very familiar might be down to having read the issue on publication, but I'm certain that there is more to it than that.
A Ghastly Tale! brings to mind Future Shocks in 2000 A.D., bring a sequence which blazes through a slight premise in a single page, never explaining more than it has to. So brief is the strip's presence that we don't find out the names of either of the main characters, nor why, precisely, they are reduced to appearing in a sideshow. An interesting experiment in storytelling, though one which is likely to become frustrating in the long term.
Good reprints - and specifically ones which are well-chosen for appropriateness in a title - are always welcome, and Fiends and Neighbours is a classic.
At Death's Door feels like a cop-out thanks to the "it was all just a dream" ending, but the visual of the ghost with a stick is fabulous. Yes, the story is derivative and hokey, but horror stories don't necessarily need to operate on logical foundations, and the telling is entertaining. It would have been better with more background to the family situation (and why the parents seem so stiff), but it is a continuing story.
What is the deal with cats? Cats. Are. Not. Scary.
Was someone at IPC bitten by a cat as a child? I'm not sure why both Misty and Scream! were launched with stories about cats, but as figures of dread they are lacking. Rats can be terrifying (ask James Herbert), dogs can - when handled well - hold a few scares, but domestic cats are far too unimposing to present a credible threat.
Terror of the Cats is based on the conceit that cats have turned on people, attacking randomly. There's not much more going on, and at no point in the story is there a sense that the story is being taken seriously. To end on such a low point is unfortunate.
Sunday, October 7, 2018
Jet #1
01 May 1971; Cover price 3p.
40 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Cover by Eric Bradbury. (uncredited).
Free Trebor Bumper Bar fruit chews.
Contents:
A year before giant rabbits hopped their way across cinema screens in Night of the Lepus, giant animals were terrorizing Britain in Von Hoffman's Invasion. Both were, of course, inspired by movies of the fifties, but Jet's strip went a step further and added a mad Nazi scientist intent on revenging himself on Britain. While the story is all a set-up for the invasion, we do get to see an eel transformed into a sea-monster. It isn't Jörmungandr, but it is fairly impressive.
The quirky setting of The Sludgemouth Sloggers brings to mind Ealing comedies: thanks to a cruel geographical quirk, which is never explained, the valley of the River Sludge is a rain-trap, with a detrimental financial effect on the town of Sludgemouth. Desperate to revive the fortunes of the town, Ted Larkin, secretary of the Entertainments Committee, proposes to the council that they should enter the "What-a-Lark" competition, which offers a grand prize of fifty thousand pounds. "What-a-Lark" being, of course, a poor man's It's a Knockout.
Introductions are brief: Knocker Smith (a postman with balancing skills), Arfur Wurzel (likely named after the band, as he's a walking turnip-tossing stereotype), Charlie Anvil (the blacksmith, if you didn't guess by his name, who happens to be a strongman), and Constable 'Flipper' Finn (take a wild guess) are rounded up and sent off to compete in the first qualifying round. It is a thin script, aided some by the attractive art, but ultimately rather unremarkable.
Partridge's Patch takes place in the "peaceful little market town" of Barnleigh, to which we are introduced by way of a bank robbery. Peaceful? By what standards, the lack of giant eels eating people? The robbery happens to have taken place on Tom Partridge's beat, and he goes about solving the crime with his knowledge of rooks, salmon, and foliage. It is a decidedly rural strip, though it has the feel of the Zip Nolan stories to it.
In 1940, the British Bulldog Banner, which flew at Waterloo and the Crimea, and which is one of the British army's most treasured possessions, has fallen into the hands of German soldiers, though four soldiers have taken matters into their own hands to rectify the situation. Alf Higgs (an Englishman), Taffy Jones (a Welshman), Jock McGill (a Scotsman), and Paddy O'Boyle (an Irishman) are... Sergeants Four.
In returning the flag to British soil, they are rewarded (or given cruel and unusual punishment) by being made an independent commando force to tackle special top-danger missions. The thinking, most likely, being that if they can't be courtmartialed, then they can at least be shot by the Jerries. Sergeants Four is the narrative equivalent of a joke, though handled with a smidge more sensitivity than Bernard Manning. Barely. Even the Germans are hideously stereotyped, so at least it is equal-opportunity in its' targets.
Paddy McGinty, a young boy living in Boggymorra, wants a pet. The problem is that he can't afford to look after a pet, which is a sensible enough plot point to raise. Animals are expensive. Then he happens upon a blurry creature in the woods which claims to be from the planet Ven, and which can change shape. As you do. It may sound like the opening of a low-budget horror film, but this is the infamous Paddy McGinty's Goat, and any comparison to mainstream media is both pointless and inadequate.
Nothing about the story makes a lick of sense. We don't know how 'Goat' got into the woods, or managed to get to Earth for that matter, nor do we learn if others of his kind are around. There's no explanation of why this alien being feels most comfortable as a goat (disturbing suggestions aside), nor - given the final panel of the story - how Paddy is going to find the money to pay for Goat's voracious appetite.
But it isn't that kind of a story. It is the kind of story where a young boy takes an obake home to live with him, and hopes that its' tastes don't run to human flesh as well as raw turnips.
The Kids of Stalag 41 is exactly what the title would lead you to expect. Rationally it is obvious that the popular US comedy Hogan's Heroes played a part in the creation of the strip, but finding comedic elements in the notion of a group of children stuck in a concentration camp takes some doing. The strip is basically The Bash Street Kids with the trappings of WWII as scenery dressing, and while the artwork is perfectly serviceable it never overcomes the distasteful set-up.
When you're reading a comedy strip and thinking "I hope there isn't an Anne Frank joke in this," you know something has gone terribly wrong with the building blocks the strip is built on.
We aren't done yet. For such a thin comic, Jet is a wealth of tone-deaf strips.
Crazy Car Capers is loosely based on the 1968 US cartoon Wacky Races, though if that isn't enough to put a reader off, the script helpfully provides a slew of stereotypes and casual bigotry to the mix. Hiram X. Spendcash, a mad millionaire, has organised a round-Britain race for cars of an unusual design. and rather than truly original vehicle designs (such as The Addams Family's mode of transport) the designs seen are lazy and obvious jokes.
Because IPC had a rule that every title had to have a sports strip, whether it made sense or not, Adare's Anglians wastes three pages full of beautifully-drawn yet vapid nonsense about a small island's football team. New Anglia is a small island far out in the Atlantic, and the people there have decided to enter the World Cup to avenge England's defeat. If you are wondering how well this sits alongside the other strips, then fear not - there is the same mockery of foreigners present and correct.
The islanders exist in some strange time-warp, where everything looks a hundred years out of date, for no apparent reason. We don't find out how New Anglia enters the World Cup without participating in any of the qualifying rounds, which must have taken place prior. Everything about the strip is just a little bit off, and it is difficult to see why the choice to place Adare's Anglians in the title had been made. Did someone lose a bet? Was it a dare? In fact, these questions apply to Sergeants Four, Paddy McGinty's Goat, and Crazy Car Capers as well.
Thankfully there is one undisputed classic among the bunch - the first appearance of Faceache, masterfully handled by Ken Reid. The opening installment is a slight tale, yet no less amusing for that.
Kester Kidd is firmly in the tradition of Wilson, The Wild Wonders, and Master of the Marsh, with the titular character exhibiting amazing prowess at running, jumping and other athletic feats. Kester Kidd comes to the attention of Barney Grumshott, a former athlete considered the best all-rounder in his day, through assisting him fetch a television on a cart which has rolled away (which makes some sense in context). It isn't an inspiring start, and doesn't radically improve.
Watching the athletics on television, Grumshott is disappointed to see world records go to foreign athletes, and he decides to turn Kester into the greatest athletic all-rounder in history. You don't have to be a genius to fill in the blanks of what will come, but the story is handled with fine (if unambitious) art, and sympathetic dialogue. There's nothing revolutionary in the strip, but it does what it does well.
Bertie Bumpkin is a sustained joke about a country gentleman with a strong accent. Yep. That's the extent of the strip's ambitions, and reading the story now is uncomfortable at best. It isn't quite as bad as Paddywack, but there's nothing which raises so much as a wry grin. Terry Bave is so much better than this strip, and it feels as if Bertie Bumpkin is a placeholder until something more suitable can be found. It doesn't so much have a punchline as have a limited amount of space in which to expand upon a vignette.
Bala the Briton sits uneasily beside the rest of the contents - a historical epic, treated seriously, with classical undertones such as messages from the Gods, an epic sea voyage, and (in the final panel) evidence that Jason and the Argonauts has an undue influence of the scripting. While the bare bones implies Anabasis may have been the initial foundation (appropriately relocated for a British audience), the fantasy elements loom large over the strip. Not that this is, in any way, a detriment to the story.
It may be the beautifully clean art, or the clear and emotionally-pure desires of the main characters, which makes the strip stand out amidst the lesser material, but Bala the Briton truly is a refreshing read - the pacing is perhaps a little too slow, and the characters remain undefined save for their roles in the narrative, but it works despite everything. If there was a "readers favourites" box to pick highlights, my ball-point pen would be hastily scribbling in "Bala the Briton" (if, that is, I was born earlier).
Despite the (almost-)namesake of the strip having died in the early forties, Carno's Cadets wears its' influence large. I've made gags about Fred Karno before, and had to explain what I was talking about, so seeing that he had some influence on Brtish comics beyond custard-pie gags is amusing. Did children in the early seventies know who Fred Karno was? Or that the title was a play on Fred Karno's Army? I remain unconvinced that the cultural legacy was being appropriately maintained.
And this is the perfect example (alongside the Val Doonican reference) that the writers weren't appealing to the children reading the comic, but were actually writing from their own childhood favourites - a full generation separating the humour from its' intended audience, thus ensuring that the emotional immediacy of the material was once or twice-removed.
And yes, for the record this is about actual cadets. Zero exertion was made in coming up with the outline. The dialogue is peppered with lazy shorthand ("Fair dinkum" and "Hoots mon" appear within two continuous panels), and even the artist can't rise to the challenge of engaging or original ideas - a spaceship rendered as a giant disc looks more like a WWII helmet, and a giant robot has the appearance of cheap, stiff, plastic toys of the fifties.
Alien invasions have been done many, many times in British comics, and is almost a cliché through repetition, yet most manage to raise at least a couple of interesting twists. This feels like a strip which was held over from a decade previously, and offers nothing new or (crucially) engaging. I don't care about any of the characters, and the mild peril of a character falling down a cliff didn't raise any questions save for why these children were placed in peril in the first place.
As first issues go, this isn't all bad. There are too many shortcuts taken in getting to the story at hand, and some of the ideas are ridiculous, but there is charming artwork and a (little) touch of inspired lunacy (from Bala, primarily), but as a cohesive package the comic falls flat. The casual bigotry and reliance on tired ideas truly mars the good, and it feels rushed in a way that is hard to pinpoint.
40 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Cover by Eric Bradbury. (uncredited).
Free Trebor Bumper Bar fruit chews.
Contents:
.2 Von Hoffman's Invasion w: UNKNOWN; a: Eric Bradbury (uncredited).
.5 The Sludgemouth Sloggers w: UNKNOWN; a: Douglas Maxted (uncredited).
.9 Partridge's Patch w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Western (uncredited).
12 Sergeants Four w: UNKNOWN; a: Fred Holmes (uncredited).
16 Jest a Minute! pocket cartoons. w: Miss L. Hawkins [Lollipop], G. Downs [Car Wash], M. Campbell [Road Up], B. Smith [Long-Distance], R. Warwick [Exercise Book], I. Frazer [Removals], N. Duffield [Psychiatrist], and D. Eatwell [Marriage Guidance]; a: UNKNOWN.
17 Free in Next Week's Jet in-house advertisement.
18 Paddy McGinty's Goat w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
20 The Kids of Stalag 41 w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey (uncredited).
22 Crazy Car Capers w: UNKNOWN; a: Solano López (uncredited).
26 Adare's Anglians w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
29 Faceache w: UNKNOWN; a: Ken Reid (uncredited).
30 Kester Kidd w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
33 Bertie Bumpkin w: UNKNOWN; a: Terry Bave (uncredited).
34 Bala the Briton w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
37 Carno's Cadets w: UNKNOWN; a: Solano Lopez (uncredited).
40 Cola Rola Lyons Maid ice lolly advert.
A year before giant rabbits hopped their way across cinema screens in Night of the Lepus, giant animals were terrorizing Britain in Von Hoffman's Invasion. Both were, of course, inspired by movies of the fifties, but Jet's strip went a step further and added a mad Nazi scientist intent on revenging himself on Britain. While the story is all a set-up for the invasion, we do get to see an eel transformed into a sea-monster. It isn't Jörmungandr, but it is fairly impressive.
The quirky setting of The Sludgemouth Sloggers brings to mind Ealing comedies: thanks to a cruel geographical quirk, which is never explained, the valley of the River Sludge is a rain-trap, with a detrimental financial effect on the town of Sludgemouth. Desperate to revive the fortunes of the town, Ted Larkin, secretary of the Entertainments Committee, proposes to the council that they should enter the "What-a-Lark" competition, which offers a grand prize of fifty thousand pounds. "What-a-Lark" being, of course, a poor man's It's a Knockout.
Introductions are brief: Knocker Smith (a postman with balancing skills), Arfur Wurzel (likely named after the band, as he's a walking turnip-tossing stereotype), Charlie Anvil (the blacksmith, if you didn't guess by his name, who happens to be a strongman), and Constable 'Flipper' Finn (take a wild guess) are rounded up and sent off to compete in the first qualifying round. It is a thin script, aided some by the attractive art, but ultimately rather unremarkable.
Partridge's Patch takes place in the "peaceful little market town" of Barnleigh, to which we are introduced by way of a bank robbery. Peaceful? By what standards, the lack of giant eels eating people? The robbery happens to have taken place on Tom Partridge's beat, and he goes about solving the crime with his knowledge of rooks, salmon, and foliage. It is a decidedly rural strip, though it has the feel of the Zip Nolan stories to it.
In 1940, the British Bulldog Banner, which flew at Waterloo and the Crimea, and which is one of the British army's most treasured possessions, has fallen into the hands of German soldiers, though four soldiers have taken matters into their own hands to rectify the situation. Alf Higgs (an Englishman), Taffy Jones (a Welshman), Jock McGill (a Scotsman), and Paddy O'Boyle (an Irishman) are... Sergeants Four.
In returning the flag to British soil, they are rewarded (or given cruel and unusual punishment) by being made an independent commando force to tackle special top-danger missions. The thinking, most likely, being that if they can't be courtmartialed, then they can at least be shot by the Jerries. Sergeants Four is the narrative equivalent of a joke, though handled with a smidge more sensitivity than Bernard Manning. Barely. Even the Germans are hideously stereotyped, so at least it is equal-opportunity in its' targets.
Paddy McGinty, a young boy living in Boggymorra, wants a pet. The problem is that he can't afford to look after a pet, which is a sensible enough plot point to raise. Animals are expensive. Then he happens upon a blurry creature in the woods which claims to be from the planet Ven, and which can change shape. As you do. It may sound like the opening of a low-budget horror film, but this is the infamous Paddy McGinty's Goat, and any comparison to mainstream media is both pointless and inadequate.
Nothing about the story makes a lick of sense. We don't know how 'Goat' got into the woods, or managed to get to Earth for that matter, nor do we learn if others of his kind are around. There's no explanation of why this alien being feels most comfortable as a goat (disturbing suggestions aside), nor - given the final panel of the story - how Paddy is going to find the money to pay for Goat's voracious appetite.
But it isn't that kind of a story. It is the kind of story where a young boy takes an obake home to live with him, and hopes that its' tastes don't run to human flesh as well as raw turnips.
The Kids of Stalag 41 is exactly what the title would lead you to expect. Rationally it is obvious that the popular US comedy Hogan's Heroes played a part in the creation of the strip, but finding comedic elements in the notion of a group of children stuck in a concentration camp takes some doing. The strip is basically The Bash Street Kids with the trappings of WWII as scenery dressing, and while the artwork is perfectly serviceable it never overcomes the distasteful set-up.
When you're reading a comedy strip and thinking "I hope there isn't an Anne Frank joke in this," you know something has gone terribly wrong with the building blocks the strip is built on.
We aren't done yet. For such a thin comic, Jet is a wealth of tone-deaf strips.
Crazy Car Capers is loosely based on the 1968 US cartoon Wacky Races, though if that isn't enough to put a reader off, the script helpfully provides a slew of stereotypes and casual bigotry to the mix. Hiram X. Spendcash, a mad millionaire, has organised a round-Britain race for cars of an unusual design. and rather than truly original vehicle designs (such as The Addams Family's mode of transport) the designs seen are lazy and obvious jokes.
Because IPC had a rule that every title had to have a sports strip, whether it made sense or not, Adare's Anglians wastes three pages full of beautifully-drawn yet vapid nonsense about a small island's football team. New Anglia is a small island far out in the Atlantic, and the people there have decided to enter the World Cup to avenge England's defeat. If you are wondering how well this sits alongside the other strips, then fear not - there is the same mockery of foreigners present and correct.
The islanders exist in some strange time-warp, where everything looks a hundred years out of date, for no apparent reason. We don't find out how New Anglia enters the World Cup without participating in any of the qualifying rounds, which must have taken place prior. Everything about the strip is just a little bit off, and it is difficult to see why the choice to place Adare's Anglians in the title had been made. Did someone lose a bet? Was it a dare? In fact, these questions apply to Sergeants Four, Paddy McGinty's Goat, and Crazy Car Capers as well.
Thankfully there is one undisputed classic among the bunch - the first appearance of Faceache, masterfully handled by Ken Reid. The opening installment is a slight tale, yet no less amusing for that.
Kester Kidd is firmly in the tradition of Wilson, The Wild Wonders, and Master of the Marsh, with the titular character exhibiting amazing prowess at running, jumping and other athletic feats. Kester Kidd comes to the attention of Barney Grumshott, a former athlete considered the best all-rounder in his day, through assisting him fetch a television on a cart which has rolled away (which makes some sense in context). It isn't an inspiring start, and doesn't radically improve.
Watching the athletics on television, Grumshott is disappointed to see world records go to foreign athletes, and he decides to turn Kester into the greatest athletic all-rounder in history. You don't have to be a genius to fill in the blanks of what will come, but the story is handled with fine (if unambitious) art, and sympathetic dialogue. There's nothing revolutionary in the strip, but it does what it does well.
Bertie Bumpkin is a sustained joke about a country gentleman with a strong accent. Yep. That's the extent of the strip's ambitions, and reading the story now is uncomfortable at best. It isn't quite as bad as Paddywack, but there's nothing which raises so much as a wry grin. Terry Bave is so much better than this strip, and it feels as if Bertie Bumpkin is a placeholder until something more suitable can be found. It doesn't so much have a punchline as have a limited amount of space in which to expand upon a vignette.
Bala the Briton sits uneasily beside the rest of the contents - a historical epic, treated seriously, with classical undertones such as messages from the Gods, an epic sea voyage, and (in the final panel) evidence that Jason and the Argonauts has an undue influence of the scripting. While the bare bones implies Anabasis may have been the initial foundation (appropriately relocated for a British audience), the fantasy elements loom large over the strip. Not that this is, in any way, a detriment to the story.
It may be the beautifully clean art, or the clear and emotionally-pure desires of the main characters, which makes the strip stand out amidst the lesser material, but Bala the Briton truly is a refreshing read - the pacing is perhaps a little too slow, and the characters remain undefined save for their roles in the narrative, but it works despite everything. If there was a "readers favourites" box to pick highlights, my ball-point pen would be hastily scribbling in "Bala the Briton" (if, that is, I was born earlier).
Despite the (almost-)namesake of the strip having died in the early forties, Carno's Cadets wears its' influence large. I've made gags about Fred Karno before, and had to explain what I was talking about, so seeing that he had some influence on Brtish comics beyond custard-pie gags is amusing. Did children in the early seventies know who Fred Karno was? Or that the title was a play on Fred Karno's Army? I remain unconvinced that the cultural legacy was being appropriately maintained.
And this is the perfect example (alongside the Val Doonican reference) that the writers weren't appealing to the children reading the comic, but were actually writing from their own childhood favourites - a full generation separating the humour from its' intended audience, thus ensuring that the emotional immediacy of the material was once or twice-removed.
And yes, for the record this is about actual cadets. Zero exertion was made in coming up with the outline. The dialogue is peppered with lazy shorthand ("Fair dinkum" and "Hoots mon" appear within two continuous panels), and even the artist can't rise to the challenge of engaging or original ideas - a spaceship rendered as a giant disc looks more like a WWII helmet, and a giant robot has the appearance of cheap, stiff, plastic toys of the fifties.
Alien invasions have been done many, many times in British comics, and is almost a cliché through repetition, yet most manage to raise at least a couple of interesting twists. This feels like a strip which was held over from a decade previously, and offers nothing new or (crucially) engaging. I don't care about any of the characters, and the mild peril of a character falling down a cliff didn't raise any questions save for why these children were placed in peril in the first place.
As first issues go, this isn't all bad. There are too many shortcuts taken in getting to the story at hand, and some of the ideas are ridiculous, but there is charming artwork and a (little) touch of inspired lunacy (from Bala, primarily), but as a cohesive package the comic falls flat. The casual bigotry and reliance on tired ideas truly mars the good, and it feels rushed in a way that is hard to pinpoint.
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