Commando 5959-5962

This week's Commando set includes a nail-biting sci-fi battle between Commandos and a group of alien invaders, as well as a visit from an old comrade for Private Jack Dawson, forcing him to face his wartime past. Issues 5959-5962 are on sale today, Thursday 21st May.

5959: Commandos Vs Aliens

You can’t blame Sergeant Fox Ryder and his Commando squad for feeling a tad frustrated when they are tasked with simulating a German invasion on a quiet coastal town in England. But Ryder and his men should have been careful what they wished for. Soon, their mundane mission takes on greater significance when they realise they are being evaluated by an otherworldly intelligence — the vanguard of a real invasion force intent upon conquering not only Britain, but the entire planet!

Story: Dominic Teague
Internal Art: Alejandro Garcia Mangana
Cover Art: Neil Roberts

5960: Ace Of Aces

Andy Bellamy had the DSO, the DFC and the AFC. He had also flown just about every type of Allied aircraft — British, American, Australian and so on. He was truly an ace of aces.
    So how come he found himself flying a Japanese seaplane under murderous fire from a Yank destroyer?

Story: Brunt
Internal Art: D Sanchez
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
First published 1972 as No.612

5961: Gallery Of Sin

It’s 1945, the war has ended and Jack ‘Jackdaw’ Dawson is celebrating the future with the opening of his London art gallery. But Dawson has skeletons in his wartime closet, and one has shown up on the opening night in the form of Aiden Hume.
    Thick as thieves on the frontline, Dawson and Hume’s friendship suffered a messy fallout. Now Hume has returned, and it’s time for Dawson to examine his past.

Story: Dominic Teague
Internal Art: Alberto Saichann
Cover Art: Simon Pritchard

5962: Scorching Sand
 
Sergeant Joe Dell had underestimated the North African desert, and it turned out to be a very dangerous place indeed, with sandstorms, murderous locals and the ever-advancing Germans. 
    And this time, he’d gotten in too deep, and the desert thirsted for revenge. This time, he was as good as dead...

Story: CG Walker
Internal Art: Fleming
Cover Art: Philpott
First published 1985 as No. 1866

Rebellion Releases — 20 May 2026

Rebellion Publishing’s 2000 AD and The Treasury of British Comics have been recognized by the committee for the 2026 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards in two categories. Given out every year as part of San Diego Comic Con, the Eisner Awards are widely considered to be the most prestigious awards in the industry, and recognise outstanding works in comics and graphic novel publishing across the prior year.

Rebellion’s 2026 Eisner Award nominations are:

• Best Anthology: 2000 AD Annual 2026, edited by Oliver Pickles
• Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books: Scream! The Specials 1985–2024, edited by Chiara Mestieri

With the news of the award nomination, Rebellion are offering both titles through their webshop: Buy The 2000 AD Annual 2026; Buy Scream! The Specials.

And now, this week's releases...

2000AD Prog 2483
Cover: Cliff Robinson, with Dylan Teague.

JUDGE DREDD // THE OUBLIETTE by Ken Niemand (w) Dan Cornwell (a) Chris Blythe (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
BRINK // THE CALL OF THE VOID by Dan Abnett (w) INJ Culbard (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SILVER // MALIGNANT by Mike Carroll (w) Joe Currie (c) Simon Bowland (l)
HELIUM // RED OCTOBER by Ian Edginton (w) D'Israeli (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

Judge Dredd Megazine #492
Cover: Nick Percival.

JUDGE RICO // THE BLACK TOWER by Ken Niemand (w) Nick Percival (c) Simon Bowland (l)
ATOMFALL // THE WICKED ISLE by Jonathan L. Howard (w) Anthony Williams (a) Rob Steen)
FARGO & MCBANE // FAVOURED SONS by Ken Niemand (w) PJ Holden (a) Quinton Winter (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
DEPARTMENT K // ...NO MORE by Ned Hartley (w) Mike Walters (a) Simon Bowland (l)
ROK THE WORLD by John Wagner (w) Dan Cornwell (a) Jim Boswell (c) Rob Steen (l)
MEGATROPOLIS II by Ken Niemand (w) Chris Weston (a) Antonietta Saulino (c) Rob Steen (l)

• 19 May. Richard Bruton interviews Chris Weston on his Rogue Trooper movie poster, created for Duncan Jones. "Duncan has delivered everything I’d want from a Rogue Trooper movie and added a couple of good twists too. I’m not allowed to go into details!"
• 13 May. Peter Hansen has begun selling off his collection and, two sales in, has already raised £252,000. The BBC has interviewed him ahead of auctions three and four which will take place in June and July.
• 12 May. Congratulations to Jamie Smart, whose Bunny vs Monkey Intergalactic Monkey Business won the Book of the Year: Graphic Novel award at the British Book Awards. You can hear his acceptance speech here. (video, 2m)
• 4 May. Various interviews from Richard Sheaf about creators who went to Lawless this year (9-10 May): Andrw Sawyers, Sam Hart, Silvia Califano. 
• 4 May. Bryan Talbot believes he'll "probably die on the job" in an unambiguous interview with The Comics Journal. "I’m planning on drawing three Hawksmoor short stories, two of which I’ve already written. They take place after the events chronicled in The Casebook of Stamford Hawksmoor but before the first installment of Grandville. They’ll either appear in one graphic novel or, if I can interest a publisher, a series of comic books first."
• 29 Apr. Scottish cartoonist Tom Gauld is the first non-French cartoonist to win Le Prix Gotlib. Tom received the Le Prix Gotlib trophy and a prize purse of €5000 during the du Festival du Livre de Paris (Paris Book Festival) held April 18. His collection La Physique pour les chats was a translation of Physics for Cats, published in 2024.
• 24 Apr. With Dan Dare promising to blast off again, Elizabeth Stanway tells us why, as a scientist, she's exciting to see the comics' return. "Despite its many reinventions over the decades, much of this premise has remained unchanged. Dare has always represented humanity’s best, and is typically shown as an optimistic exemplar of bravery, chivalry and honour. The Kickstarter page for the new Dan Dare: First Contact novel makes it clear that the current creative team respects the character’s origins."
• 22 Apr. Forbidden Planet TV's Andrew Sumner interviews Garth Ennis, John Higgins  Steve MacManus, Steve White and Rob Williams about the Action 50th Anniversary Special. (video, 46m)

Comic Cuts — 15 May 2026

While I'm waiting on news from Rebellion about a number of projects I'd like to do with them, I have been dipping into a couple of other areas that interest me. I've mentioned some research I was doing into 1950s paperbacks and checking through copyright records relating to them; well, that is just about done as I've scoured the volumes and can't find anything else of interest.

So I've switched track and have been looking at some comics from that era. Many, many years ago, I edited a magazine called Model Mart, about models and collectables, and one of the sections concerned comics. I decided that this was going to be my area and I'd write about things that interested me; that way I had something to look forward to every month. So there were pieces about Eagle, Lion and various other bits 'n' bobs. But the majority was part of a vast project I called "From Dan Dare to Judge Dredd", which was a planned history of British comics covering the previous fifty years (this, I should add, was in the mid-1990s).

Over a few years (1995-2000) I wrote... well, it must have been at least fifty articles; and with the fifth or sixth (it's a long time ago!) I decided I needed to step back further than Eagle so I could cover the independent comics of the time—the so-called "pirate" comics that would eventually lead to the horror comics crisis and the introduction of a new law in 1955.

Over the next two and a bit years I wrote about 75,000 words of material covering the likes of Gerald Swan, Arthur Soloway, Philipp Marx, and a lot of other pirates from around the UK before tackling various superheroes and spacemen. I never actually got as far as the horror comics as I gave up the editorship of the magazine in 2000 and the new editor had me writing about collectable trading cards, Gerry Anderson, a comics' news column (which lasted all of seven months), Ray Harryhausen, lots of movies from Hulk to The Matrix, and much more besides.

Some of the articles on comics were reused in a series for Jeff Hawke's Cosmos in 2003-06, and I've revamped one piece about Norman Light a couple of times in different books, but there's an awful lot that only ever saw the light of day on newsstands for a month before being replaced by another issue, and another, and another... and the series was soon forgotten. 

I've looked at it occasionally and back during the days of COVID (2020-21), I actually started re-writing a couple of sections from the beginning of the series, greatly expanding on what I had previously written (remember, the original features were for a magazine and had to fit into a limited page count). I could only get so far before other books got in the way; progress stalled for a couple of years, but I've spent the last few days on it in the hope that I can whip at least some of the text into shape.

My problem is that I'm very light on illustrations in places. If I had Denis Gifford's collection of these old pirate comics to hand, I wouldn't worry. But I don't. There may be some call-outs for help when I stumble into areas I know little about. 

I'm also not sure how far to take this first volume. There might be four volumes: Pirates, Superheroes, Space Heroes, Horror Comics. The first three are mapped out, thanks to those earlier articles; the fourth I have yet to start, although I've almost certainly got all the reference material I need... but not the comics. Again, I may need a hand there.

I have no idea when these books will appear, but I'll continue to write them when time allows and hopefully they'll see print one day. I don't expect there will be much of a market for them, but it's nice to have a "me" project that I can go to on occasion.

Rebellion Releases

Chief Judge Dan Francisco is back in charge of Mega-City One. This means that Judge Dredd finds himself on Francisco’s Council of Five – a committee of the Chief Judge’s most trusted advisors. But Dredd is not a desk jockey, and he longs to pound the streets of the Big Meg, enforcing the law and keeping order.

Written by John Wagner (A History of Violence), Gordon Rennie (Missionary Man), Al Ewing (The Immortal Hulk), Si Spurrier (Hellblazer), Michael Carroll (Dreadnoughts) and John Tomlinson (Judge Dredd) with art by John Higgins (Watchmen), Mike Collins (Captain Britain), Karl Richardson (Warhammer), Leigh Gallagher (Kingmaker), Paul Marshall (Firekind), Nick Dyer (Anderson, PSI Division), David Roach (Batman & Demon), Anthony Williams (Deadpool), Ben Willsher (Deadline), Andrew Currie (Ninjak), Patrick Goddard (Rogue Trooper), Brendan McCarthy (Rogan Josh), Simon Fraser (Nikolai Dante) and Cliff Robinson (Mother Earth).

Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files is the ultimate series for fans of the lawman of the future, collecting every case, in order, from more than four decades of adventures in the pages of 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine. From the groundbreaking classics to the modern masters, this on-going and best-selling series collects the stories that have made Judge Dredd one of the world’s biggest comic book characters!

And now, this week's release...

2000AD Prog 2482
Cover:  D'Israeli

JUDGE DREDD // CROSSED LINES by Ken Niemand (w) Andrea Mutti (a) Pippa Bowland (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
BRINK // THE CALL OF THE VOID by Dan Abnett (w) INJ Culbard (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SILVER // MALIGNANT by Mike Carroll (w) Joe Currie (c) Simon Bowland (l)
THARG'S 3RILLERS // POSTER GIRL by Paul Starkey (w) Paul Marshall (a) Dylan Teague (c) Rob Steen (l)
HELIUM // RED OCTOBER by Ian Edginton (w) D'Israeli (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

Comic Cuts — 8 May 2026

The most exciting bit of news this week is that I bought myself a new phone. It's not brand new; it's a refurbished Samsung A23 which is a huge leap from my old phone and it will hopefully make my life easier in certain ways: the video and audio is far better when I chat to my Mum; I'm still experimenting with what else it can do but the camera is about five times better than the old one, so fewer slightly blurry pictures of things in the distance. I'm also getting a tripod so I can use it for photographing book covers and the like from a stable position rather than my own shaky-cam efforts.

Everything about it is new, so I'm on a steep learning curve and it will be a while before I'm confidently making the next Comic Cuts video. Not that I have much news on that front as I'm still waiting for Rebellion to get back to me about a couple of projects I want to do for the summer. 

On that front I needed to rescan some of the strips because of the poor quality of the first set of scans. I hadn't taken into account the quality of the comics I was scanning from and just ploughed ahead when I had some down time while I was waiting for the Action book to print; it was only some weeks later, when I came to clean up the pages, that I realised they were going to take forever. Easier to rescan with a slightly different setting. And, I'm pleased to report, that has done the trick and made my life a lot easier without losing any of the quality of the end product. All I have to do now is clean 'em up and fix any obvious problems. Only 300 pages to go!

I mentioned last week that I had been doing a little research into the authors of a series of hard-boiled crime thrillers and was checking information from some old American copyright records. Well, I'm still checking some of the info. I've gathered and found one or two discrepancies between what was published in Al Hubin's Crime Fiction: A Comprehensive Bibliography and the source material. Nothing major, but a couple of errors none-the-less. 

It has also resolved a couple of my old "mysteries that have me mystified" columns from over a decade ago. Perhaps not so exciting for most people, but punch in the air time for me as both involve writers I was trying to research back in the early 1980s!

At the age of 20, I was writing a book called Vultures of the Void, based around a handful of essays that were commissioned by Phil Harbottle a decade earlier for Vision of Tomorrow. We also compiled an extensively annotated index to all the paperbacks and magazines published during the same period covered by the Vultures book. There had been some revelations, thanks to the discovery of copyright records, a few years earlier that had revealed, for instance, the title of John Brunner's first novel. (I remember buying a copy at the 1979 Brighton WorldCon (Seacon '79), but hadn't the courage to ask Brunner to sign it!

Every now and then, some information turns up that adds to or corrects information in the book that resulted—British SF Paperbacks and Magazines 1949-1956. For instance, there are three authors credited with writing books under pseudonyms who are themselves pseudonyms. I knew of two, but I've now discovered a third. Also, I've tracked down some info. on another author who was proving impossible to find... thanks to some wrong information I had been told way back in the late Seventies.

The latter author is, or was, David Arthur Griffiths, whom I wrote about way back in 2014. In it, I said: "Griffiths was slightly older than [author E.C.] Tubb, so probably born around 1918. He would have been 20 or 21 when war was declared, and probably served the full six years of the Second World War."

I based this on something Ted told me. But it turns out Griffiths was considerably younger than Ted, and still in his early twenties when he was attending the White Horse pub, where SF fans would gather every week. Once I had his correct year of birth it was clear that Griffiths had not served and his disappearance from the SF field was most likely to be National Service rather than a deliberate career change. 

Sadly, we may never know why he abandoned SF. The cheap paperback market had collapsed, but Griffiths struck me as an interesting author who might potentially have gone on to have a career alongside Tubb, Ken Bulmer and even John Brunner. Perhaps he did continue writing and, like Denis Hughes, joined the DC Thomson treadmill. Who knows... well, maybe someone knows and they'll get in touch. Until then, I'm going to mark this mystery as partly solved.

Commando 5955-5958

This week's action-packed Commando set includes the epic conclusion to the Valiant Stormers Forlorn Hope series, a race against the clock for SAS Captain Hulke, and some old crackers too. Issues 5955-5958 are on sale today, Thursday 7th May.

5955: Dutiful Death

The epic conclusion to the Valiant Stormers Forlorn Hope series!
    The Franco-Spanish border, November 1813. As Wellington’s allied army prepares to invade France, the law-abiding Lieutenant Jones breaks the rules to save his friends.
    With the twin threats of court martial and heartbreak hanging over him, he’s going to need the help of old comrades as they head into their last fight on Spanish soil.

Story: Andrew Knighton
Internal & Cover Art: Manuel Benet

5956: The Knife

It was a very special Commando knife, presented to Private Bill Taylor to remind him of the time his strength had saved a friend’s life.
    Now all Bill’s pals were dead, murdered by an evil Nazi thug. And the knife was gone too, stolen by the same Nazi. Grimly, Bill determined to get it back — and avenge his mates at the same time...

Story: Richardson
Internal Art: Cortes
Cover Art: Penalva
First published 1971 as No.609

5957: High-Value Target

Italy, 1943. SAS Captain Hugh Hulke had been assigned to capture leading German SD officer, Olaf Metz. His team went above and beyond, bagging six SD officers on a successful raid of Metz’s hideout. But no-one had a picture of Metz, so which one was he?
    Six prisoners. One target. No second chances.

Story: Rossa McPhillips
Internal Art: Vicente Alcazar
Cover Art: Marco Bianchini

5958: Ice-Cold Courage
 
Outdated, lumbering and cumbersome — yet Fairey Swordfish, nicknamed “Stringbags”, were incredibly successful machines. They were truly great planes and great pilots flew them, like Tony Stanning, who was eager to be in action.
    But Tony was going to need all his courage on this latest mission to attack a German battleship, for the danger wouldn’t come from the enemy guns alone. It would come from the rear cockpit too, because his observer was a useless coward...

Story: McDevitt
Internal Art: Denis McLoughlin
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
First published 1985 as No. 1862

Rebellion Releases — 6 May 2026

One of the defining masterpieces of British comics, Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun’s deeply affecting and political serial from the pages of Battle Picture Weekly follows working class sixteen-year-old Charley Bourne as he eagerly signs up to fight in 1916 but then experiences the hellish world of industrialised warfare in a bitter fight for survival.

The Charley’s War Apex Edition will present a carefully curated selection of the finest pages from Colquhoun’s masterful, painstakingly detailed, harrowingly vibrant, and unflinchingly honest portrayal of the tragedy of the Western Front at their original size for the first time.

Collecting pages from the first few years of Charley’s War, and containing as many complete episodes as possible, readers will be able to fully immerse themselves in this artistic masterwork with this oversized (481×371mm, 19”×14⅝”) hardcover collection.

Out now, this new 144-page Apex Edition will come in standard and slipcase editions. The standard edition will be available through all good comic book stores via Lunar Distribution, but the slipcase edition will only be available through the 2000 AD webshop.

And now, this week's release...

2000AD Prog 2481
Cover: Toby Willsmer.

JUDGE DREDD // CROSSED LINES by Ken Niemand (w) Andrea Mutti (a) Pippa Bowland (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
BRINK // THE CALL OF THE VOID by Dan Abnett (w) INJ Culbard (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SILVER // MALIGNANT by Mike Carroll (w) Joe Currie (c) Simon Bowland (l)
THARG'S 3RILLERS // POSTER GIRL by Paul Starkey (w) Paul Marshall (a) Dylan Teague (c) Rob Steen (l)
HELIUM // RED OCTOBER by Ian Edginton (w) D'Israeli (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

Eagle Times vol.39 no.1 [Spring 2026]

For transparency's sake I'll say up front that there's an article written by me in this issue of Eagle Times. Is it the best thing in the issue? I'll have to leave that for you to decide (I'm biased!), but it does highlight something that's always worth a mention. The volume number shows that Eagle Times is in its 39th year, but there's always something new to write about when it comes to Eagle and the other related Hulton papers.

You would think that a strip that appeared in the early issues would have been widely covered, but that wasn't the case when I began looking into the origins of 'Skippy the Kangaroo'—no relation to the TV show—which was assumed to be a reprint from abroad. Not so, as I quickly discovered. I'm not going to repeat the whole article here, but it involves an animation house set up by "the French Walt Disney" Andre Sarrut, two brothers from Russia who began producing films in the UK, and a good deal of post-War misfortune.

Skippy is only one of ten features in this issue. Given the detail that some of the articles goes into and that they discuss strips that may have lasted for years, it's no surprise that many of them are multi-part, so in this issue we have part 3 of David Britton's look at 'Heros the Spartan' and part 4 of his look at 'Jeff Arnold, Rustler and the 6T6 Outfit', which this time has an emphasis on the Texas Rangers and local flora. I did say that the articles could be quite diverse.

Steve Winders offers a short tribute to the late Alan Vince, a story about P.C.49 (adapting one of the radio plays), the first part of a look at 'The Last of the Saxon Kings' drawn by Patrick Nicolle, an unwelcome addition to the paper when it first appeared across Eagle' centre pages and the first part of a look at 'Ordinary people and familiar places in Dan Dare'. So half the articles are written by people called Steve... that has to be a record for Eagle Times, surely!

Jim Duckett's lead article features 'The Adventure Club', an almost forgotten series of stories by thriller writer J. Jefferson Farjeon, whose novels I have been enjoying in the British Library Crime Classics series (notably The Z Murders, an early serial killer yarn, but also locked room murder mysteries Mystery in White, Thirteen Guests and Seven Dead). And at the magazine's opposite end, Alan Candish looks at the 'Greatest Britons' survey of 2002 and how many appeared in Eagle. 

The quarterly Eagle Times is the journal of the Eagle Society, with membership costing £30 in the UK, £50 (in sterling) overseas. You can send subscriptions to Bob Corn, Mayfield Lodge, Llanbadoc, Usk, Monmouthshire NP15 1SY; subs can also be submitted via PayPal to membership@eagle-society.org.uk. Back issues are available for newcomers to the magazine and they have even issued binders to keep those issues nice and neat.

Comic Cuts — 1 May 2026

I mentioned last week that I was asked whether I could identify the author behind a certain byline as one of their books is about to be reprinted. The byline was the house name Jeff Bogar, known to have been used by more than one author, and subject to a few bits of speculation that have muddied the water further.

"Bogar" wrote gangster novels in the early 1950s for Hamilton & Co. in 1950-51, the name relaunched when Hamilton introduced their Panther Books imprint for a further series of titles in 1953-55. I have six of the 21 novels that appeared under that name. Four more books appeared in America, but these proved to be reprints under different titles. One of those reprints has yet to be identified and might even have appeared under a different byline here in the UK.

I spent most of Sunday and Monday searching through volumes of old copyright records of book imported into the USA, which Hamilton & Co. did quite regularly from around March 1952 on. There have been a few credits attached to the earlier books, including one that credits Steve Frances (Hank Janson), which is wildly off the mark. Even the masterful Crime Fiction A Comprehensive Bibliography has somehow picked up some erroneous credits.

A call-out to some friends meant that I was able to get hold of scans or photos of the opening chapters of a further four books, and last week I'd ordered a copy of a book I thought might be the Rosetta Stone: The Interrupted Wedding by Leslie T. Barnard, a Boardman hardback, although I picked up a later paperback edition. The novel is set in Sicily and is a romantic thriller in which a British tourist is kidnapped by a Romany girl at knife point and is forced to marry her; it's nothing like the tough gangster novels of Jeff Bogar. 

To be honest, I had half convinced myself that Leslie Barnard was a red herring as the book looked nothing like the works I had to hand. It was full of elipses (that little row of three dots that I sometimes overuse!) and none of the staccato writing that was typical of tough-guy thrillers. However, I'd picked out a couple of other Hamilton & Co. books to look at for comparison, and—lo and behold—The Interrupted Wedding had a number of similarities to a book entitled Franzie, published under the byline Paul Pannier.

But I was still in two minds as neither book screamed Jeff Bogar. As luck would have it, another Rosetta Stone book arrived. Hoodmen's Bait, which appeared under the Bogar name in 1953 had been copyrighted in the USA and the publisher listed Leslie Barnard as the author. Here was the key, as it shared a lot of the DNA with the other titles I was reading: certain words, certain phrases, odd stylistic quirks: light switches snick, men snicker, the hero soothes and cracks his dialogue... it all added up to a recognisable group of "tells" (as they say in poker circles) that were shared by some books but were lacking in others.

And so I have been able to (at least provisionally) identify an additional four Jeff Bogar novels to Leslie Barnard, and I'm reasonably sure Francie is also by him. In some cases this is based on the opening chapter alone, but I'm pretty confident. You'll be able to judge for yourself when Stark House reprint My Gun, Her Body—what a title! Far better than Dinah for Danger, which is how it appeared in the UK.

That, a few reviews and the ongoing saga of my passport application (a story for another time) have taken up the bulk of my week, although I have been looking into a few other authors and solved two of my long standing "mysteries that have me mystified" thanks to doing the deep dive into copyright records. I can't say the work has paid the rent this week, but I do love doing this kind of research, and there will be a book of one kind or another sometime in the future where I'll get to use the information.

I did mention some while back that I was planning to do more books based around the Mushroom Jungle era of paperbacks, and I have been tinkering with a couple of introductory articles for both Scion Ltd. and Curtis Warren. No idea which one I'll get to first. I still need an awful lot of cover scans before I can consider writing those books, but I'm always doing the research (as you can see from the above) and one day I'll reach a tipping point where it will become the next project to work on. 

Men Only Magazine 1935-1963 A History and Bibliography

Under the imprint of Sports History Publishing, Chris Harte has just released his latest book, continuing a run of titles that look at men's magazines. Now, these aren't the men's magazines of my youth, but the earlier general interest magazines of the 1930s, beginning with Lilliput, continuing with Men Only and (to conclude?) with his next book on London Opinion.

These pocket books filled a gap in the market for a men's interest magazine. The editorial of the first issue (which debuted on 22 November 1935) remarked: "Until today every magazine published in this country has been produced with at least one eye on the woman reader. We, on the other hand, are not interested in women readers. We don't want women readers. We won't have women readers. There is not a single magazine or newspaper dealing fairly and squarely with masculine interests."

And what were those interests?  Initially, the magazine featured articles only (no fiction), on sporting subjects, hunting, travel, flying, driving, and women, from 'Office Wives' to 'Why Don't Girls Leave Home'. The contents were truly diverse and included the likes of Karel Capek (author of R.U.R.) writing about 'How to Make a Lawn' and Louis Golding on the 'Wild Romance of London Streets'.

It was edited for eighteen years by Reginald Arkell and within a year was selling 800,000 copies a month. The contents soon introduced photographic studies and even female writers, but Arkell was nervous about his rivals Lilliput and Readers' Digest. He also had to cope with losing writers and staff to the war effort from 1939 on. For troop morale, some issues offered photographs of nudes by John Everard. The magazine had to slim down and increase its price as the paper shortage began to bite.

Complaints from readers that the magazine concentrated too heavily on service stories were addressed in 1944, coinciding with the release of Arkell's son from detention in Paris after four years in captivity. 

Post-War, the paper shortage continued to cause troubles, but Men Only had a steady sale—enough to survive a cull of titles in the late 1940s that saw the magazine incorporate the long-running Strand Magazine. In the early 1950s, the paper lost a libel case, had issues banned in various countries; and was merged with London Opinion; eventually it lost septuagenarian editor Arkell, replaced by 60-year-old Rubeigh Minney.

Under Minney the magazine began to feature more entertainment features, more pro-British features about successful businesses and businessmen. At the same time, there were reprints of features and cartoons from American magazines like Esquire and Collier's. Men Only needed freshening up, or so said the board of directors, and it was redesigned in 1958, the illustrated covers replaced with photos, some colour pictures were introduced and editor Minney was eased out in favour of Cyril Kersh.

Behind the scenes changes, with Newnes taken over by Odhams and a merger with Lilliput, a change of printer, and another change of publisher as Odhams was absorbed into I.P.C., the vast magazine empire owned by Mirror Newspapers. Eventually I.P.C. closed the title, planning to relaunch it in a larger size with mostly pictures of women; chairman Cecil King did not want his company associated with such a publication and sold Men Only to the News of the World, who went on to sell it to Martspress and thence to Paul Raymond, who turned it into the quintessential men's magazine that I alluded to in the opening paragraph.

Chris Harte's introduction fills in many, many more details that the above sketch, and the book has his usual issue by issue listings of the magazine's contents, indexes of writers, illustrators and photographers, and books with content drawn from the magazine. There are also dozens of photographs of contributors and staff. At over 240 A4 pages, it's a hefty book on the famous pocket magazine and a worthy companion to his history of Lilliput. 

The book is available from Dodman Books (sales@dodmanbooks.com) and should be available in all the usual places shortly.

Men Only Magazine 1935-1963 A History and Bibliography by Chris Harte
Sportin History Publishing ISBN 978-1898-01023-4, 2026, 243pp, £25.00. 

Rebellion Releases — 29 April 2026

The 2000AD website has posted an obituary for Barrie Tomlinson.

"Probably one of the most successful editors of his time, Barrie combined a deep knowledge of and passion for comics with a salesman’s eye for publicity. Thanks to him, Roy of the Rovers remains a household name while generations of readers have been thrilled, educated, and scared in equal measure by titles he launched and championed."

Continued here.

2000AD Prog 2480
Cover: Joe Currie.

JUDGE DREDD // SILENT WITNESS by Ken Niemand (w) Nick Dyer (a) John Charles (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
BRINK // THE CALL OF THE VOID by Dan Abnett (w) INJ Culbard (a) Simon Bowland (l)
SILVER // MALIGNANT by Mike Carroll (w) Joe Currie (a) Simon Bowland (a)
THARG'S 3RILLERS // POSTER GIRL by Paul Starkey (w) Paul Marshall (a) Dylan Teague (c) Rob Steen (l)
HELIUM // RED OCTOBER by Ian Edginton (w) D'Israeli (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)

Charley's War Apex Edition by Pat Mills & Joe Colquhoun
Rebellion, 29 April 2026, 144pp, £100.00. Available via the 2000AD webshop.

Charley's War began serialisation in Battle in 1979, and as written by Pat Mills it is one of the greatest strips in the history of British comics, a serious look at how the First World War affected Britain's working class. Complementing the story was the artwork of Joe Colquhoun, fresh off the immensely popular Johnny Red, Colquhoun pushed himself even further detailing the wartime travails of Charley Bourne, producing stunning artwork each and every week.
    This book collects pages from the first few years of the series, including many complete episodes, printed at their original size so you can appreciate Joe Colquhoun's mastery of the artform!
    A webshop exclusive (£120.00) adds a slopcase

Comic Cuts — 24 April 2026

It has been a week of fun and frustration in unequal measures. After a couple of weeks of scanning and cleaning artwork I was asked about a book originally published under a house name (a name used by more than one author) that is to be reprinted in the USA, and thought I would be able to help with the identity of the author. But while I was waiting for a copy of the text, I discovered that some of the scanning I'd done wasn't really up to scratch. The original comics weren't in the best of condition and when I started working on the pages on Sunday, I was having to spend a lot of time on every page, a mixture of ink splashes, poor lettering and heavy inking showing through from the reverse of the page.

There was only one solution, and on Monday I started re-scanning the whole strip—about 250 pages. I did a couple of test pages and I could get them cleaned up in a third of the time, so in the long run it probably won't have cost me too much time. But, y' know, frustrating to have to re-scan everything none the less.

My book collecting Spidey senses had been tingling for a few days as a friend of mine has been thinking of downsizing his collection and he definitely has some books I want. Quite how many we shall see. I'm not rolling in money, so I did a careful inventory of some of the books I had and made a wants list: no upgrades, just filling gaps. And limited to 50 books. And if he doesn't have them, so be it... I'm not allowed to rework the list. 

I've mentioned over the past month that I have been buying books to fill gaps, mostly in my SF collection. I bought a couple of Colin Kapp novels to complete the Cageworld series, and a couple by Edgar Pangborn novels from Star to complete the four novel set that they published. I put up a Colin Kapp cover gallery, and Pangborn will follow soon.

I also had to buy a book for the "identify the author" project mentioned above. I had been dipping in to a couple of books that I thought might be by a certain writer and thought I might have spotted his work. Well, the arrival of the Rosetta Stone book that I know to be his threw everything into doubt, and I've had to downgrade one of the books I was looking at from "author?" to "unknown". Just when I thought I was getting somewhere...

In the meantime, I had another inquiry about an obscure British comic strip. I know very little about it as it appeared in a magazine, not a comic. The only thing I do know about is the scriptwriter. I'm looking at my notes, and I think I need to do some deeper research... so that's something else I need to look into, whether for the comic reprint or just for myself.

Over at "find the author", I pulled a couple of books off my shelf for comparison to the Rosetta Stone. And one of them looks promising, so I may have two of this guy's books for comparison to the title that's being reprinted. I have emails out to a couple of other people in the hope that I can get more samples before I knuckle down and read the various texts.

I've had a doctor's appointment this week (just a regular check-up), had to go to Tesco's to do a "big shop" (usually when I buy a lot of tinned goods, which I don't like to leave to Mel to drag back on the bus), and today (Friday) I have an appointment with the dentist (again, just a regular check-up)... so you can't say life isn't exciting. I've been out more times this week than I have the past month! 

I have to end on a sad note and mention the passing of Barrie Tomlinson. I spoke to Barrie irregularly over a period of many years, whenever I had questions about his career at Fleetway/IPC. He responded to the best of his memory—which he claimed was poor, but he always seemed to have an answer. He contributed an essay to my Lion index (Lion: King of Picture Story Papers) in which he talked about his early days at Fleetway, which he joined in early 1961 as a sub on that paper. In 1967 moved to Tiger where he established himself as editor two years later.

It was under Barrie's watch that Roy of the Rovers was given his own title. Barrie realised that he could create newspaper stories around the character, as Roy and Melchester Rovers were so firmly ingrained in the British psyche and by then known to two or three generations. Whether it was the birth of a baby, getting a kiss from Suzanne Dando, or being shot by a mystery intruder, Barrie was able to generate many column inches in newspapers that kept Roy and his Rovers in the public eye.

In 1978, Barrie became group editor, overseeing Battle and 2000AD amongst others, and over the next few years he was behind the launches of the new Eagle, Scream!!, Speed, MASK, Ring Raiders and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, amongst others. Wildcat was one of his favourites, quite an innovative anthology title where all the stories were linked, with four characters all exploring the same alien planet while the Wildcat spaceship sought a new home for Earth's surviving population.

Under the banner of Creative Editorial Services, Barrie continued to work for Fleetway Publications creating Hot-Shot and Toxic Crusaders, etc. As titles disappeared or were taken back in-house, he expanded to edit titles for Grandreams and Reginald Taylor, as well as writing the daily football strip 'Scorer' for the Daily Mirror (1989-2011). He contributed to the short-lived Fiz, published by the Daily Star, which drew on his sense of humour (inspired by The Goons) to answer problems as 'Pansy Pratt' and the cartoon 'Percy Puzzler'. He also wrote other strips, some books for Ladybird and Golden Books, and two volumes of autobiography, Real Roy of the Rovers Stuff (2016) and Comic Book Hero (2017).

Barrie's humour continued to thrive on Twitter, where he kept in touch with many fans, sharing crazy captions to photographs as well as his memories of working in comics. 

(* Scorer © Reach PLC. Can I remind all my readers not to rely on the "AI Overview" that you get when doing a Google search, as it is often wrong...

... as in the result I got while checking the copyright on the strip. A lot of people will assume that's correct, will use that information, and will only further confirm to the AI that the strip ran in The Sun. It didn't.)

Commando 5951-5954

To commemorate ANZAC Day on the 25th April, we have a special set of Commandos featuring the heroic exploits of the brave Australian and New Zealand military personnel. 

5951: Humpback Heroes

Australian Captain Tom Best and his men were veterans of the war in the desert, fighting on the front line and defending Tobruk from the Germans. 
    When they were pulled out for some much-deserved rest, they thought they had it made – that was until they were roped into a mission deep behind enemy lines to destroy an Afrika Korps fuel dump! 
    And to get there? Well, they’d have to ride camels in complete disguise. They were to become heroes on humpback!

Story: Brent Towns
Internal Art: Jaume Forns
Cover Art: Simon Pritchard

5952: Company of Heroes

 “Now that I’m in India, I’m going to fix up a nice, cushy desk job.” 
    Those were Lieutenant Brian Lawson’s words when he arrived in the barracks of the famous Hyderabad Fusiliers, and for a while it looked as though they might come true. But then came the war with Japan, and for Brian Lawson nothing could ever be the same again. For he was part of the… Company of Heroes! 

Story: Eric Hebden
Internal & Cover Art: Gordon C Livingstone
First published 1971 as No.610

5953: Terror Train

Tunisia, 1943. A German military supply train cuts through North Africa, delivering vital supplies to the German lines. Equipped with vicious anti-aircraft guns, making it impossible to attack from the skies, the behemoth train threatens the Allied stronghold.  
    Tasked with destroying it, Captain Mike Lambert and his New Zealand Long Range Desert Group unit must fight carriage to carriage to wrest control from the Germans and destroy the supply line once and for all.

Story: Rossa McPhillips
Internal Art: Jaume Forns
Cover Art: Keith Burns

5954: Spring the Trap
 
When Commando officer Richard Adam was ordered to lead his expert team into the Italian mountains to blow up a vital dam, he didn’t expect this mission to be much different from any of the others he had tackled. 
    Boy, was he in for a surprise...

Story: McDevitt
Internal Art: CT Rigby
Cover Art: Jeff Bevan
First published 1985 as No. 1864