Mike Noble in TV Comic

Before his long run illustrating Fireball XL5 and Zero X (plus a few Captain Scarlet stories) for TV21, Mike Noble was a regular artist in TV Comic from 1960 to 1965. Westerns were still very popular at the time and Mike illustrated The Lone Ranger in 1960/61. (Mike had also previously drawn the strip for Express Weekly in 1958 to 1960.) The above example is from TV Comic No.467, dated 26th November 1960.

After The Lone Ranger, Mike was commissioned to draw a similar strip, The Range Rider from 1961 to 1964. This example is from TV Comic No.579 (19th January 1963). It looks as though Mike was experimenting with a different inking technique on this one, with bolder outlines on the characters...

Here's another Range Rider page from TV Comic No.588 (23rd March 1963)...

...and another one from a year later, published in TV Comic No.634...

Personally I prefer his TV21 strips, full of explosive action, marvelously coloured, but it's interesting to see that Mike's early work also had his identifiable dynamism and excellent figure work. Definitely one of the greats, and, as always, my favourite UK adventure strip artist.