The Valiant Book of Mystery and Magic 1976

The 1970s saw a rising interest in fiction dealing with horror and the occult. The Exorcist and The Omen in the cinema for example, The Pan Book of Horror being a popular series of paperbacks, and the relaxation of the Comics Code allowing vampires, werewolves and other horrors in American comics that were reaching more UK newsagents than ever before. Teens, adults, (and kids if they could access it) enjoyed nothing better than a good scary story. 

How could British comics join the fun? The Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955 had forbidden the production of horror comics in the UK due to alleged effects on children, a kneejerk reaction to 1950s horror comic imports (see here). However, stories of the supernatural had continued to appear in British comics occasionally, although they tended to be very tame.

In 1975, IPC decided to publish a one-off hardback edition called The Valiant Book of Mystery and Magic. The closest thing they could get away with to a horror comic without being too graphic. Most of the stories featured The Spellbinder character; the old magician who had been the lead strip in Lion weekly. (By this time Lion had merged into Valiant.) However the book also contained several one-off mystery stories illustrated by IPC's top artists.

The book had 144 pages, mostly in black and white. The full colour lead strip, The Hand of Tuthoon, written by Frank Pepper and drawn by Fred Holmes, reintroduced readers to The Spellbinder, revealing how Tom Turville had awakened his ancestor Sylvester Turville from suspended animation.

The book also included one of the Spellbinder serials from Lion, edited into a 33 page adventure. The rest of the book featured all-new material. Perhaps the most intriguing strip was The Final Victim, an early collaboration between Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun several years before they created Charley's War for Battle. In The Final Victim, Colquhoun drew himself as 'Albert Weems', a comic artist down on his luck. Presumably the comic's managing editor 'J.J. Legrun' was based on IPC's Jack LeGrand. Here's the whole story...

Joe Colquhoun also illustrated some other material in the book, including two text stories, The Red House and Nightmare and the short comic story The Man on the Road...

Other great talent in the book included Eric Bradbury...

...Fred Holmes...

...and of course Geoff Campion, the main Spellbinder artist who also contributed some art for text stories and the endpapers...

The Valiant Book of Mystery and Magic was a one-off, which suggests it either didn't sell very well or IPC decided to shy away from the subject. It's a fantastic book though, as you can see from the examples I've shown here. Well worth seeking out if you don't have a copy. 

There's one hugely important thing about it that you may have noticed; the stories all carry writer/artist credit boxes. Hats off to the editor for doing this as it was definitely not usual IPC policy at the time, and wouldn't be seen again until 2000AD started publishing credits a couple of years later. 

This week in 1978: STARLORD No.1

Saturday 6th May 1978 saw the publication of IPC's new sci-fi weekly Starlord in newsagents across the UK. The new comic was a companion to 2000AD and was originally planned as a monthly until IPC got cold feet, resulting in some quick changes before launching as a weekly. 

As one IPC editor told me a few years later, monthly comics were considered too risky back then. The concern was that the young target audience who were accustomed to weekly comics would either forget which week a monthly would come out, or even lose interest during the four week wait for the next issue. Of course that attitude changed over the years as UK publishers had to rethink the frequency of their comics in the wake of ever decreasing sales to give them a longer shelf life. These days a monthly frequency is the norm, with weeklies being the oddities.

Anyway, back to Starlord No.1. The 32 page comic was on slicker paper than its sister title 2000AD and boasted more colour and better printing. It was also a few pence more expensive at 12p an issue. What it had in common with 2000AD was its presentation of stories in a dynamic and hyperactive fashion. For example, upon opening issue 1, the reader was immediately plunged into the relentlessly fast-paced Planet of the Damned by 'R.E.Wright' (Pat Mills) and Lalia. Here's the first two pages of the six page first episode which used the then-popular story theme about the 'Bermuda Triangle'...

Next came the first chapter of Time Quake, written by Jack Adrian with fantastic artwork by Ian Kennedy. Here's the first three pages...

Next, time for a breather and for the comic's fictional editor Starlord to introduce himself with art by Ian Gibson and an editorial dripping with paranoia...

The facing page showed the six alternative free badges, one of which was randomly attached by tape to the cover. If the readers weren't already jittery from Starlord's warning of imminent alien invasion the advisory about sticking the badges onto flesh would have completely pushed them over the edge: "you could develop a skin disorder, putting you out of combat"! 

Here's one of those very badges, designed by Kevin O'Neill...

Across the centre pages, the first episode of Strontium Dog, by T.B. Grover (John Wagner) and Carlos Ezquerra. A popular character still around today in the pages of the latest 2000AD. Here's the first two pages...

Rounding off the issue was the longest story, Ro-Busters, running to 11 pages! This was one of the strips originally intended for the monthly, which accounted for its length. Subsequent chapters would be half the size.

Script by Pat Mills, artwork by Carlos Pino. The war robot Hammerstein still appears today in 2000AD's A.B.C. Warriors and Savage strips, with Pat Mills having connected several of his series into one universe. 

Starlord wasn't a big success for IPC and sadly ended after 22 weeks, merging into 2000AD. Apparently 2000AD's sales were not good either, but it's thought that Starlord was sacrificed because it was more expensive to produce. On a positive note, the merger did 2000AD a lot of good, bringing in Ro-Busters and Strontium Dog which strengthened the comic.

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While I'm at it, here are the covers to issues 2 and 3, plus the free gifts. No.2 was drawn by Brian Bolland, relating to the Time Quake story inside...

...and No.3 sported a fantastic cover by Kevin O'Neill...

The free gift in No.2 was the 'Space Calculator', a cardboard slide which gave information on the planets of our galaxy. No.3's freebie was a 'Starblast' game; a variation of 'Battleships', with a wipe-clean laminated card that could be re-used. 

For more information on the background of Starlord comic, check out the book Thrill-Power Overload by David Bishop and, if you can find a copy, the now-out-of-print Beyond 2000AD from Hibernia Comics.  

Charley's War republished in huge omnibus edition

Next to Frank Bellamy's Thunderbirds strips, Charley's War must rank up there as one of the most often reprinted British comics strips. Deservedly so, for not only is the saga one of the most superbly written and illustrated stories to have appeared in UK comics it also carries important messages about war that resonate to this day.

Now, Titan Books have packaged together the early years of the strip in a huge 320 page softback entitled Charley's War: A Boy Soldier in The Great War. Many of the pages have even been sourced from the original artwork, and the reproduction is excellent, on good quality paper, making this an essential collection.

Charley's War began in the pages of weekly war comic Battle-Action back in 1979. Written by Pat Mills and illustrated by Joe Colquhoun it tackled the drama of trench warfare in World War One. A series set in the trenches was not an easy subject to turn into a gripping war story for boys, but the creators produced the most remarkable strip of its time. Thanks to Pat Mills' diligent research and Joe Colquhoun's gritty, detailed artwork Charley's War looked authentic and engrossing, but the most important aspect was that this was an anti-war strip, published by the same company that had churned out ridiculous gung-ho stuff such as Captain Hurricane. Quite a coup for the creators. 

Naturally, as Charley's War was appearing in a comic for young boys the extent of the horrors of trench warfare couldn't be fully shown, but even with such restraint, the strip contained tough stuff and pushed the boundaries further than any British war comic had before. Actually, saying the strip was aimed at boys does it a disservice. The level of the writing and artwork is high and allows Charley's War to be enjoyed by readers of any age or either gender. 

To show the tragedy and futility of the war, the strip didn't shirk on its body count, with some supporting characters suddenly meeting untimely ends. The villains of the story ranged from a particular nasty German sniper to the loathsomely sadistic British officer Lieutenant Snell. Charley is the likable everyman of the strip who suffers countless hardship. In this regard the story is written very much like a strip in a girls comic or even a Dickensian novel, playing on the emotions rather than the simplistic cliffhangers of other UK boys serials of the day such as The Steel Claw or Adam Eterno. This element made Charley a more sympathetic and rounded character which undoubtedly added to the popularity of the strip. The scope broadened even more when the story began to show the home life of Charley's family as well, including his spirited younger brother Wilf and his shifty cousin Olly. 

If the classic strips themselves were not incentive enough to buy this mighty tome (and they certainly are) the book has a few extras too. Up front, there's Neil Emery's ten page chronology of the series, which is superbly informative but is perhaps best read after the strips as it's full of spoilers. (It also covers the stories that go beyond this volume, so if you haven't already read the whole series, be aware that this reveals everything.) There's a four page article by Steve White on the evolution of the tank, and extracts from an interview that Stephen Oldman did with Joe Colquhoun back in the early 1980s for my fanzine Fantasy Express. (A note says that I granted permission for it to be used in the book but as I've always maintained, the copyright of the interview rests with Stephen Oldman. I merely published it.) 

In the back of the book, Pat Mills has written an eight page commentary on the stories. This gives a great insight into the creation of the strip and shows Pat's huge respect for the incredible drawing skills of the late Joe Colquhoun. 

Big as this omnibus is, it only covers less than half of the full Charley's War saga. Titan have previously published the entire series in 10 hardback books, and this collects the first four volumes. Personally I prefer this format to the hardbacks and their easily damaged dust-jackets, and I hope the whole series is collected in more giant softbacks such as this. 

Charley's War: A Boy Soldier in The Great War is a bargain at £19.99 for 320 pages. It's stitched, not glued, which is a bonus as the pages can be opened wide with no fear of splitting the spine. If you've never read the strip before, this is definitely the book to get. And if you have read it before, this chunky, durable book is a great accessible format to read and read again. 

ISBN: 9781781169148