The Return of Sexton Blake

[jrdd]

While my prog reading is on hiatus until the post settles down I was very pleased to have this drop through the door, the latest in this year's specials.  I've been looking forward to this as I've never read any Sexton Blake, my only encounter being a half remembered article in the Megazine years back.

It's good to see Rebellion are digging around in the historic depths of the archive - Sexton dates from 1893, and we get prose stories reprinted from the Penny Pictorial and Union Jack of 1908 and 1925 (the latter is continued in the new line of book reprints) as well as lots and lots of vintage cover scans.

Victor Drago is reprinted from Tornado, but updated to be Sexton Blake (as originally intended) and we get a brand-new 10-pager set in the 1920's from George Mann, Jimmy Broxton and Simon Bowland, rounded off with a handful of splendid full page illustrations.  Everything's all tied together with articles giving an insight into the history of the character and the stories presented, as well as the design of the new book line.

I was a bit apprehensive about how well the vintage stories would read, but thoroughly enjoyed them, both providing a lot of character and atmosphere in only six pages.  The same can be said of the Tornado strip, and the new strip served as a good re-introduction to the character, leaving me wanting more (Jimmy Broxton's art seems perfectly suited to this character, and I thought the lettering fit the style well too).

For me this is one of the best specials out of a very good bunch.  It's beautifully designed and has a good balance of content.  I'd be very happy to see this followed up next year with another new strip and perhaps reprints of some of the other strip work from Knockout and Valiant.

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

I meant to start a thread about this, but got sidetracked. Yes, very much agree- I had precisely no previous knowledge about the character, and like the previous John Steel Steel special, expected to view it as an "extra gift" as part of the bundle and for it to be filed away, mostly unread.
However, it not only filled a whole evening- in a way that few comics and magazines do- but I thoroughly enjoyed every page.
I'm not sure how much of a market there is for this at the moment, and especially in the pits of covid despair, but I'd very much look forward to more of these.

I must just take this opportunity to say how pleased I've been with every special Rebellion have put out this year, and how glad I am to have taken advantage of the bundle offer. Every one has been read cover to cover, and the only disappointments have been the physical size of the Smash special and some of the tone of the Battle one, which largely felt to me more like a generic war comic rather than the anti-war powerhouse the original comic was intended to be.

Should Rebellion repeat the experiment in 2021 (and frankly I'm not betting the house on it, as distribution must have been a nightmare this year), I will very definitely be buying the bundle again if one is offered.

And we still have Misty and Evil Genius 2 yet to come.

SBT

[broodblik]

A very enjoyable special.  Yes, I will add my voice here and say more please

[M.I.K.]

I had some vague knowledge of the character. I think I'd seen a film or two on telly when I was very much younger but can't remember anything whatsoever about them. I just know he got stored in the same murky recesses of my mind as Bulldog Drummond and Dick Barton.

I really liked this special though. Entertaining, old-fashioned (in a good way) pipe-smoking-British-detective-who-punches-folk-a-lot stuff, and very well presented.

[maryanddavid]

Really enjoyed this too, and like other only vaguely aware of the character. A nice quarterly mix of prose and comics of Sexton, Id love it!