The IRON FISH

The Beano of my childhood always ran one or two adventure strips in its pages every week; General Jumbo, Danny on a Dolphin, The Q Bikes, Billy the Cat... and one of my favourites was The Iron Fish. 

It had begun as a prose story in 1949 titled Deep Sea Danny's Iron Fish, with illustrations by Jack Glass, but by the time I first saw it in 1964 it was a two page strip drawn by Albert Holroyd. Here's one of the early episodes from The Beano No.1126 (Feb,15th 1964)...

To be frank I found the characters of Danny and Penny Grey to be rather wet, if you'll pardon the pun. The big appeal of the strip for me was the wonderful design of The Iron Fish itself. It had such a distinctive look, and the 'eyes' of the craft seemed to give it an intense personality even though The Iron Fish was just a sophisticated submarine and not sentient in any way. (I liked the design so much that I remember making a little model of it out of Plasticine when I was five. I'm sure that if an Iron Fish toy had existed for Christmas 1965, myself and thousands of other kids would have gone bananas over it.) 

By 1966 The Iron Fish had a different artist; Sandy Calder. There was also a development in that Danny and Penny now had an Iron Fish each and the craft had the ability to fly. Here's an example from that series (The Beano No.1246, June 4th 1966)...

Below is an example from the next series (The Beano No.1282, Feb.12th 1967). By now, The Iron Fish design seems to have lost some of its striking appeal, particularly with the 'eyes' now drawn so small. It now looked less sinister and less dangerous than it had when Jack Glass and Albert Holroyd had drawn it, and perhaps that was the intention, but it was that original dark edge to the design that made it compelling, in my opinion. 

The Iron Fish faded from The Beano after that, but the strip was revived and revamped for D.C. Thomson's new adventure weekly Buddy in 1981. Danny Grey was now Danny Boyle and the strip went back to basics with a modern look. (I understand the scripts may have been updated ones from the old text stories.) This example is from Buddy No.61, April 10th 1982...

I still think The Iron Fish is a great little concept and a fantastic design, and in the right hands could work today as a strip, cartoon, or even a movie. No chance of that on the horizon unfortunately but maybe one day...