Clash of the Guards (Alan Hebden/Cam Kennedy) - coming July 2023

[Dash Decent]

Clash of the Guards Paperback – 27th July 2023, 96 pages

[Colin YNWA]

Does anyone know anything about this its not a strip I'm aware of and can't see much about it?

[broodblik]

All I could get was that it was published in Battle in the early 80s

[broodblik]

Another thing is that it was drawn by Cam Kennedy. So for me this makes it a day one purchase

[davidbishop]

Blazing Battle Action says this of the 1981 strip:

Hebden and Kennedy were back in action with Clash of the Guards. Captain Brad Clash was a former Hollywood stuntman and speedway driver who got sent to a British platoon in Italy on an exchange scheme. His unique skills helped rescue the guardsmen from all manner of scrapes as they took on the Germans. 'He had a sawn-off shotgun,' Kennedy says, 'that was his method of delivering death. I remember his Steve McQueen scowl and the shotgun - that was a lot of fun.'

The strip returned in 1982:

In May Soldier Small was replaced with a series of one-off tales, while reprints of Rat Pack were begun. Kennedy quit drawing Truck Turpin for Battle to concentrate on working for 2000AD, so John Vernon took over as artist. Soon afterwards Colquhoun suffered a serious heart attack and publication of Charley's War had to be suspended for ten weeks. Alan Hebden and Vanyo hastily revived an old strip, Clash of the Guards, to help fill the gap until Colquhoun had recovered enough to start working again.

[Colin YNWA]

Thanks David - to my shame I only read Blazing Battle Action recently (great job by the way) but I'm old and my memory ain't what it was!

[JohnW]

This was the successor to Fighting Mann back in 1981, from the same creative team. My attitude at the time was that it was no Fighting Mann, which had been a marked change to the standard WW2 fare served to us in Battle. Clash of the Guards brought us back to the usual weekly kraut-killing, with no single overarching plot.
Absolutely superb art, mind. I could look at Cam Kennedy's warry stuff all day.

[Dash Decent]

[robprosser]

Alan's doing a signing at Forbidden Planet on Saturday 15th July.

https://forbiddenplanet.com/events/2023/07/15/alan-hebden-signing-clash-of-the-guards/?utm_source=Master+Forbidden+Planet+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c946569ab5-040723_NL_comics&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b6b45de61e-c946569ab5-666172