Just hought I'd let u know I purchased a few old 'Warlords' for a couple of quid the other day off ebay.
For thse of you who don't know, 'Warlord' was a boys war comic from the mid-1970's. It was a direct rival to 'Battle', 2000AD's predecessor in many ways (which actually came about because of the success of 'Warlord').
Anyway its weird just how *bad* it is. I guess its like seeing a vision of UK comics history without the 'Holy Trinity' of Wagner, Mills and Finley Day (crosses himself hurridly).
For instance the oft mentioned 'Union Jack Jackson' really is absolute toss - badly written and badly drawn.
There are a few highlights - some nice art from the Ronster on 'Drake of Malta/E-Boat Alley'. There's some other good art here and there - a great story called the 'Phantom Flyer' has some lovely stuff. Overall it seems to be aimed at a lot younger audience.
But basically its jank. Its weird how Fleetway had so manuy great writers and artist (you can add Tom Tully to the Holy Trinity) and DC Thompson had feck all from what I can see.
Sorry for boring you I'm just posting some random observations.....
Now I can't imagine how you can say that when Robbie Morrison honours Lord Peter Flint with turning him into a Dante character. :-)
- Trout, limiting his comments on that fine Scottish organisation
Hey, don't just stick Tom Tully on there like a lost limpet!
Yeah, got a few warlords, and they are all I want. Basically Warlord and Victor (which I bought a small pile of for a couple of quid on sunday) were the dullest reads imaginable at the time and put me off war comics. Despite when I did read battle (and I can still remember reading it) I enjoyed it, I didn't have much time for them.
Ron Smith always perks up a dull script.
The main thing to remember about UK kids comics is that they were pretty much rubbish and very very dull for the large part. Battle Action 2000AD really did make a huge difference, as did Tully, Wagner, GFD and Mills.
Without these guys and their work, I reckon british comics would have died ten years earlier and you never really had people with the same enthusiasm taking a similar roll in british comics. Perhaps it might have been different if creators didn't have the choice to escape to the great satan :) and were stuck making a difference in british comics.
Of course, now the work is even harder as that link with comics is gone and I can't think of many companies that would want to invest in the sort of comics we saw as a kid.
Anyway, I agree, DC Thompson seemed to be very conservative at the time, while IPC could get pretty wild!
Actually if you agree that there were 4 'greats' in the UK comics writing department in the 1970's & early '80's ie Wagner, Mills, GFD & Tom Tully, its kinda weird how TT never really made it big in 2000AD (ok he wrote 'Harlem Heroes' and 'Mean Arena').
Still I guess he was writing 'Johnny Red' (Battle), 'Leopard From Lime St' (Buster) and 'Roy Of The Rovers' (ROTR) at the time.
And to be fair ROTR was probably one of the biggest writing gigs of the era I should think.
I envy Martin Kemp.
He was IN Roy of the Rovers, the lucky sod. Scored goals and everything.
- Trout
Eh ? Not the bloke from Spandau Ballet, the Krays & Eastenders ??
Tell more...
I always liked Billy's Boots, thats why I bought a pair of campers.
ROTR always seemed a little silly to me....
Yer Slippo
Honest, Marbles, he was.
I never read it at the time, but I saw a TV interview with Kemp, who said it was wonderful to be on the team.
The band were on a tax break in, I think, Ireland, and Kemp said he was incredibly bored the entire time.
The highlight of the week was receiving ROTR in the post and seeing if he'd scored a goal that week.
As an aside, I understand ROTR's bizarre sales-winning ploy was the basis of Viz's pisstake of Shakin' Stevens, when they had him play for Fulchester Rovers in Billy The Fish.
Just imagine the possibilities for 2000AD...
Gareth Gates joins the VCs!
Kylie Minogue and Judge Anderson fight crime together!
Tom Jones turns up in Strontium Dog and is finally exposed as a mutant!
Dredd arrests Chris Evans. (Err... maybe not.)
- Trout
Well they do say truth is stranger than fiction Trouty!
Now if only 2K could get the girl who plays Lana Lang in 'Smallville' to star in a photo story as Judge Vonne Hollister (Wally Squad undercover vice girl)...........
Also ok so Billy's got magic football boots that make him play well. I mean its a comic, I can accept that.
But then he finds *another* set of magic boots that make him play great cricket. I mena what are the chances of that. Its just stoopid if you ask me.
Plus if you had magic boots you'd make damn sure to remember where you left them and not keep losing them before every sodding match..
oh and
:-)
Me and the Maskreplica were talking about pitching Billy's Boots under a different name at Pitchfest, but we bottled it.
It could've been great!
- Trout
heh-heh. what miserable cowards we are ;)
But then he finds *another* set of magic boots that make him play great cricket. I mena what are the chances of that.
Hang on, didn't he (bizarrely) just paint the footie ones with whitewash to play cricket? Seem to remember Billy having a panic when the stuff came off.
I bought it up till then.
PAH yer all philistines. Thats brilliant. Boots painted white for cricket, you just cant get plotlines like that anymore.
Yer Slippo
Oh no! This means i'm gonna have to trawl ebay for old issues of 'Tiger' to get to the bottom of the great 'Billys Boots' debate...
I'm sure he had seperate boots for each sport. At the start of every Cricket season he put away his footy boots and couldn't remember where he'd left his Cricket one's from the previous year.
I can feel another web page coming on ....
But what we really need to know is whether he wore them a size too small, in case he had doubts about his sporting career...
- Trout
Satchmo knew the answer to this, I have a few tigers, I'll have a look.
I have very fond memories of Warlord which I read as very young juve between Beano and Tooth... so I'm keeping well away from it now as I don't wont my memories spoiled!
Yeah when Kempie was on R&J they showed clips from the comic... Hilarious! I too never realised that Shakey's appearence in Billy the Fish was based on fact!.
Oh and comic Kemp was dropped for some reason in the FA Cup Semi-final... Real life Kemp said he was totally gutted by it!
Huh, If I'd known you were go off like this I'd never have sold 'em ya ;)
Glad you got 'em okay tho.
To be honest, yeah a lot of Warlord was juvinile pants, but it did pave the way for greater things to come, and did contain some good stuff along the way. These were duplicate's I sold which is why they were so cheap) and I'll always have a fondness for these early issues of Warlord!
Alan!
Yeh the ones you sold me have a really nice story in it called the 'Phantom Flyer' which was a favourite of mine when I was a kid, so I was well chuffed with that. Another story about a WW1 pilot called 'Spider Wells' is a pretty good story & nice art.
But really the overall standard was nowhere near 'Battle'.
Oh I can't argue with that! When it came to quality, Battle was head and shoulders above Warlord (not free giftes mind), tho there were one or 2 good stories along the way (Spider Wells being one of my favourites too). Without Warlord tho there may not have been a Battle. To me Warlord is the link between the old scholl British comics like Valiant, and the new style 70's stuff (Battle, Action, Tooth etc). It was also the first all-war comic, and we'll never know if Battle would have been released in the form it was had Warlord not proved there was a market for these comics.
Alan!
Does anyone remember a story, I can't remember which comic it was from, called 'Limp Along Leslie'.
As I typed that I realised just how offensive it is. It was about a boy (what a great title for a book) who, obviously, had a limp, but dremt of playing football, but in a superbly surreal twist, he also had a passion for sheepdog trials.
It must have been true, you couldn't make that up.
I think it originally appeared in "Wizard" but I couldn't swear to it, however it was resurrected for "Buddy" in the eighties.
I can't remember 'Buddy', so it may have been in 'Wizard' I saw it. Forgive my ignorance, but when are we talking about for this comic?
"Wizard" was from the mid to late sixties as I recall.
I ain't that old. Best I can figure then, is probably old copies laying about, probably in my Gran's house (my youngest uncle was only a few years older than me). Or maybe copies pick up at a jumble sale.
Karne waves his magic GOOGLE and a quick search reveals...Link: Ooh! I'm off to look at this myself.
Wasn't Warlord printed on molecule thin paper? Or did it really have only four pages? Or was that Victor?
There was another football strip about a kid who got run over, which deformed his feet (a rather macabre setup in retrospect). Fortunately, this gave him the ability to make a football loop the loop and corkscrew all over the place, much to the continued annoyance of the opposing team. I recall that he was forever losing his specially made boots too.
Anyone care to spare my sanity and tell me the name of this strip?
Dear me, Karne. And here was me thinking you were all knowledgeable about obsucre British comic stories, and all thw while you were juat reading it!
I feel violated.
Fugitive... yeah I can sorta remember that one? 'Jinky' comes to mind... but given the times it was printed it is just as likely to be 'Crip' or 'Spazmo'...
Ah, fret no longer dear little Rac, for my knowledge of British comics, obscure or otherwise is indeed large (my loft also contains enough of them to be a serious fire risk).
Unfortunately I also need to remember other stuff such as "don't go to the toilet until you get out of bed" and "the food goes in this end" so naturally I sometimes need to clarify that the knowledge in my head is the same as the actual facts.
Hope this helps you sleep better at night,
karne.