Comic Cuts — 14 March 2025

Time for the big reveal.

I have been dropping hints for a couple of months that I was working on something big – and I do mean literally BIG – but I wanted to play my cards close to my chest until I was close to completion. Well, I'm close enough and confident enough to want to finally pull back the curtain. And if you're wondering why I'm rabbiting on, it's so that when I cross-post this column to Facebook, there's enough text to make sure the surprise isn't spoiled.

So... Bear Alley Books is reprinting the whole of MYTEK THE MIGHTY across four volumes. Each volume is 180-200 pages, with the first two volumes to be released together as the opening three stories were epics that ran for a total of 25 months, with artist Eric Bradbury turning out 2 1/2 pages of astonishing artwork every week.

Because the second story ran for a year, I've had to split it in two, and juggle some additional material – stories from the Valiant Summer Special and the Valiant Space Special, and some introductory material. Volume one has a foreword and the first part of a biographical essay on Tom Tully, while the second has part two of Tully and a second essay on the career of Eric Bradbury. The Tully is (like the early Mytek stories) a bit of an epic, the first substantial look at his career in and out of comics, I believe.

I would also add that there are some fascinating details about Eric Bradbury's life thanks to the opportunity I've had recently to talk to his daughter as well as drawing on a couple of chats I had with Eric himself back in 1993/94.

Moving on, we then have volumes three and four drawn by Bill Lacey. This has some of my favourite stories because it was during this period – Bradbury had moved over to House of Dolmann – that I started reading Valiant. There's one story in particular that you'll find in volume four that utterly blew me away when I was seven years old and had only recently discovered the joy of reading comics. (I should say here that I had corrective eye surgery when I was seven, so everything became a lot clearer!) The Steel Claw was battling The Scarecrow, Tim Kelly was battling Genghis Khan, Sexton Blake was battling a character known as the Black Vulture... The Shrinker, Raven on the Wing, The Wild Wonders, The Secret Champion, Bluebottle & Basher, Sporty, Billy Bunter, The Crows and The Nutts... every page was glorious!

And alongside all of these, was maybe my favourite of all... the story of Mytek the Mighty on the planet Umbra, tracking down two lost astronauts who have crash-landed on the planet. Almost immediately after landing, Mytek's shadow comes to life and creeps away and squeezes into a cleft in the rocks before Mytek can chase after and catch it.

Just WOW!

I hadn't read or seen anything like that before and you can never recapture the thrill of those early boyhood moments. I still remember the first episode of The Steel Claw that I read, the first episode of Thunderbirds I watched. I still love The Steel Claw (and Thunderbirds) today with a passion that's undiminished by the years.

Hopefully, if you read Mytek as a kid, having the entire collected saga in your hands will bring back those intense memories from childhood, and if you didn't get a chance to read the whole five year run back then, there are some "just WOW" moments ahead of you.

The four books are with Rebellion, awaiting approval. I have printed proof copies on the way (it usually takes a couple of weeks), so we should have some release news in the not too distant future. Phew!

Commando 5835-5838

Football in a Commando? Just when you think we can’t go any more left field! We can’t wait to see how many other curveballs we throw you in this set! Issues 5835-5838 go on sale from Thursday 13th March 2025!

5835: Leagues Apart

Footballers Jimmy Harris and Danny Meggs hated each other’s guts. They were bitter rivals on and off the pitch, but things all came to a head at the qualifying match for promotion to the next division. With talent scouts watching, Danny performed a devastating tackle on Jimmy which landed with a sickening crunch.
The injury caused Jimmy to be out of the beautiful game… but with World War Two looming, he wouldn’t be out of action for long!
    Remember Football Picture Story Monthly? Well this is those classic football stories mixed with Commando! You know we love to have a ball, so we’re kicking off this set with a truly original story from the champions Dave and Jim Turner. Hopefully our two sporting heroes can succeed in giving those Nazis a red card!

Story: Dave and Jim Turner
Art: Paolo Ongaro
Cover: Simon Pritchard

5836: The Death or Glory Mob

There had always been a Wild in the Wessex Rifles — always an officer from this family who proved to be as courageous as his ancestors and earned for himself the glorious name... “The Wild One”.
    Major Jason Wild was the man who carried on the tradition in the Second World War, and he was as tough as any of the others. And then, for the first time in history, there appeared a Wessex officer even braver than The Wild One.
    This is his amazing story...
    This set’s Gold issue is quite the wild ride! Thrills, chills and derring-do – and dare we say… a ghost? There’s more than meets the eye to this classic story, and we’re not just talking about the amazing artwork!

Story: Motton
Art: Franch
Cover: Penalva

5837: Looters!

France, 1915. As trench warfare rages on between British and German forces, the stretcher-bearers are busier than ever. But while the casualties continue to pile up, fallen soldiers’ valuables have started to go walkabout – there are looters on the line! Enter Corporal Philip Baker, assigned by the top brass to go undercover and track down those responsible. But he soon finds out the trouble runs deeper than he could have ever imagined!
    We had loads of great puns for this issue, but they were stolen. Seriously though, this is one story you abso-LOOT-ly won’t want to miss! With Alejandro Garcia Mangana’s art gracing the cover and interior, you’ll want to keep your copy under lock and key – it really is a steal!

Story: Colin Maxwell
Art: Alejandro Garcia Mangana
Cover: Alejandro Garcia Mangana

5838: The End of the Line

Who was really responsible for the terrible train crash in the Boivert tunnel? Was it Marcel Lebrun, or was it the man who actually went to jail for the crime?
    Some years later, in the French Resistance, Marcel lay waiting for an enemy arms train speeding towards Boivert. But a lonely figure clutching a rifle lay patiently in wait for him.
    Here’s an a-TRACK-tive offering - nothing like a French resistance railway drama to let off some steam.  An ENGINE-ious story of betrayal and revenge, with an incredible Jeff Bevan cover – this issue is really off the rails!

Story: CG Walker
Art: Ibanez
Cover: Jeff Bevan

Rebellion Releases — 12 March 2025

Garth Ennis on the 50th anniversary of Battle Picture Weekly:

The very first issue of Battle Picture Weekly went on sale fifty years ago this month, dated 8th March 1975. It continued under various titles, most notably Battle Action, for roughly the next decade, before being merged to death some time in the late eighties. Which means the issue you hold in your hands is the latest incarnation of a comic that’s been around for half a century.

The phrase been around is doing some heavy lifting there. For fifteen years there was little beyond the occasional annual or special, or a run of reprints now and again. Then Titan Books acquired the license and started putting out nice hardcover editions of the classic strips, thus proving there was still an audience for Battle. There followed some new material, then, when Rebellion bought the whole back catalogue, more collected volumes and new Battle and Action specials. At which point someone had a bright idea… which more or less brings us up to date.

By now the saga should be familiar enough: in the mid-seventies comic sales were slipping, so IPC publisher John Sanders brought in young hotshots Pat Mills and John Wagner to shake things up. The success of Battle led to Action, which led by a roundabout route to 2000 AD. At some point Alan Moore noticed. The Yanks noticed him, and others like him. And lo, there was Watchmen, Swamp Thing, the Vertigo imprint, all the rest.

Back in the day the editor was Dave Hunt, to whom Battle’s creators handed the reins. He employed writers like Tom Tully, Alan Hebden and Gerry Finley-Day, not to mention Mills and Wagner themselves; the art was by Joe Colquhoun, John Cooper, Mike Western, Eric Bradbury, Mike Dorey, Pat Wright, Carlos Ezquerra, Cam Kennedy, Geoff Campion, many more. Now you’ve got Oliver Pickles, Rob Williams, Dan Abnett, Torunn Gronbekk, Keith Burns, Chris Burnham, PJ Holden, John Higgins, Paddy Goddard, Dan Cornwell, Henry Flint, and- among others- Wagner and Dorey again.

In its classic era, Battle was smarter, grittier, livelier, that bit less well-behaved than the comics that came before it.  Alan Grant described 2000 AD around the same time as being very obviously for kids, but with a clearly identifiable adult sensibility behind it. The same is true of its big brother. A war comic first and foremost, of course, and that was why we loved it, but in amongst all the shot and shell there was something else going on.

Charley’s War said that war is evil, not just hell, and that the establishment might just possibly not have our best interests at heart. In Darkie’s Mob we saw that the underdog could be every bit as bad, and that vengeance was a kind of madness, sometimes born of self-hatred. HMS Nightshade had men fighting on when hell froze over, with no choice but to forge on into the nightmare, while Hellman never flinched from the truth that behind the German war effort lay a thing beyond all horror. In my personal favourite, Johnny Red, we witnessed the sacrifice that the Russian people made for victory, in the service of a regime of monsters undeserving of such devotion. And we learned that women fought, too.

Such is Battle’s legacy. Kept alive in fits and starts, often dormant, for a long time unknown to most and only half-remembered by many. But still the greatest war comic ever published, still the beginning of a genuine revolution in the medium. Something we who continue that legacy with Battle Action will never forget. So fifty years, albeit kind of on-and-off: that’s not too bad.

That’s not too bad at all.

— Garth Ennis, Blighty, January 2025

Rebellion are celebrating the anniversary of Battle Picture Library with the release of brand new t-shirts and other merch. They have also published a reading list of reprints that Rebellion have published over the past few years that gather some of the best stories that appeared in Battle, including Charley's War, The Sarge, Major Eazy, Rat Pack, Hellman and others.

And now, this week's releases...

2000AD Prog 2023
Cover: Tiernen Trevallion.

JUDGE DREDD // THE SHIFT by Ken Niemand (w) Nick Percival (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
FULL TILT BOOGIE // BOOK THREE by Alex de Campi (w) Eduardo Ocana (a) Giulia Brusco (a) Simon Bowland (l)
PORTALS & BLACK GOO // A QUORUM OF FIENDS by John Tomlinson (w) Eoin Coveney (a) Jim Boswell (c) Simon Bowland (l)
FUTURE SHOCKS // LAST CHANCE TO SEE by Paul Goodenough (w) Luke Horsman (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
FIENDS OF THE WESTERN FRONT // WILDE WEST by Ian Edginton (w) Tiernen Trevallion (a) Jim Campbell (l)

Judge Dredd: The Movie by Andrew Helfer, Ken Niemand (w) Carlos Ezquerra, Richard Elson (a) Michael Danza (c)
Rebellion ISBN 978-183786433-1, 12 March 2025, 80pp, £15.99. Available via Amazon.

“I AM THE LAW!”
In the Third Millenium, the world changed. Climate. Nations. All were in upheaval. Humanity itself turned as violent as the planet. Civilisation threatened to collapse. And then… a solution was found. The crumbling legal system was merged with the overburdened police, creating a powerful and efficient hybrid. These new guardians of society had the power to dispense both justice and punishment. They were police, jury, and executioner all in one. They were the Judges!
    When Mega-City One erupts in violent block wars, there’s only one man Justice Department can rely on to suffocate the flames of rebellion. His name is Judge Dredd.
    But when the city’s brightest beacon of justice is convicted of breaking the very law he’s been entrusted to uphold, he’s sentenced to spend the rest of his life rotting in the Aspen Penal Colony.
    In order to clear his name, Dredd must escape captivity, make his way across the toxic Cursed Earth, break back into the city, and find the familiar foe that framed him. All in a day’s work for Judge Dredd.
    Featuring art by legendary Judge Dredd co-creator Carlos Ezquerra (Preacher) and a script by Andrew Helfer (The Shadow), this is the official adaptation of Judge Dredd, the 1995 movie written by William Wisher, Jr. (Terminator 2: Judgement Day) and Steven E. de Souza (Die Hard).

Comic Cuts — 7 March 2025

With any luck I'm close to finally announcing the title of the four-volume set that I have been hinting at for the past few months. All four books are almost done. The internal pages are now with the copyright holder to be checked over to make sure they're happy and we're not accidentally using something that is not theirs to license. 

I'm working on the covers. I had volume one ready to go, but I wasn't happy with what I'd done with the rear cover. I had a chance to play around with it on Wednesday and came up with something that works with the various logos that have to be included. Selling direct to customers, even through eBay and Amazon, means that I don't have to worry about a barcode. And it saves a pound per book because to buy a single ISBN costs almost £100 and I can only license books in limited numbers.

To take Phantom Patrol as an example of this perilous form of publishing, say (for ease of the maths) I make £10 per book and license 100 copies. The license plus the cover cost me £550. So you have to write off the first 55 copies, after which you make your profit. I've sold about 70 copies, so for the six weeks or so that it took to scan, clean and retouch, write introductions, design, and negotiate a price that was affordable to readers, I've made £150.... but that's not quite the case as I had to supply the copyright holder with a number of printed copies and sent some to Chris, who did the beautiful cover, and there are a couple of proof copies sitting on my shelf that can't be sold, so my profit on the book is closer to £100 to date and I'm looking at a total of £400 by the time the license runs out.

I would not recommend getting into publishing! I must be mad.

Anyway, expect an announcement in the next week or two.

We had a cheerier week this week, with friends over from Canada and a trip out to the Colchester Arts Centre to see Andy Zaltzman (The Bugle, The News Quiz), who I have wanted to see for years. It topped off what had been a little bit of a miserable week (funeral, low levels of enthusiasm) with a bit of political satire, pun-filled gags and general silliness of a kind that hit just the right note. Oh, and there was a stuffed penguin sitting on a suitcase on stage for over half the set. A penguin in a tinfoil hat. This is why I love Andy Zaltzman. And should he stumble across this (I don't know if he Googles his own name), please send Alice Fraser.

Mel is away at a convention, so I'm thinking of doing a binge watch of something or try to catch up on some movies. The calm before the storm. Hopefully I'll have some news next week.

Rebellion Releases — 5 March 2025

2000AD publisher Rebellion are having a big sale on collections of British comic book classics in the Treasury of British Comics sale!

You can get 75% off.

Choose from some of the finest comics from the Rebellion archive, including House of Dolmann, Adam Eterno, Karl the Viking, The Steel Claw, Concrete Surfer, The Best of Cat Girl, Tammy & Jinty: Remixed, The Best of Jane Bond, Spell of Trouble, and the Cor! Buster Bumper Fun Book!

Plus there’s up to 80% off issues of Monster Fun!

And now, this week's releases...

2000AD Prog 2422
Cover: Cliff Robinson / Dylan Teague.

JUDGE DREDD // THE SHIFT by Ken Niemand (w) Nick Percival (a) Annie Parkhouse (l)
FULL TILT BOOGIE // BOOK THREE by Alex de Campi (w) Eduardo Ocana (a) Giulia Brusco (a) Simon Bowland (l)
PORTALS & BLACK GOO // A QUORUM OF FIENDS by John Tomlinson (w) Eoin Coveney (a) Jim Boswell (c) Simon Bowland (l)
HAWK THE SLAYER // THE LAST OF HER KIND by Alec Worley (w) Simon Coleby (a) Gary Caldwell (c) Annie Parkhouse (l)
FIENDS OF THE WESTERN FRONT // WILDE WEST by Ian Edginton (w) Tiernen Trevallion (a) Jim Campbell (l)

• 10 Mar. British cartoonist R.E. (Becky) Burke has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during her four-month backpacking trip around North America. She tried to cross the border into Canada on February 26, but was denied entry due to a visa issue. Returning to the US, she was arrested as an illegal alien and has been held in detention in Tacoma, Washington. Her father has written an urgent appeal (available at the second link). "Burke is known in the comics community, setting up at Thought Bubble, writing for Broken Frontier and making some pretty good comics." An update has revealed that her troubles began when she mentioned at the Canadian border that she was staying with a family "in exchange for doing light household duties", which constituted work under the letter of the law.
• 5 Mar. More on the Neil Gaiman allegations as he tries to have the court dismiss the case. "[His accuser, Scarlett] Pavlovich filed her lawsuit to district courts in Wisconsin, New York and Massachusetts; Gaiman filed the motion to dismiss in Wisconsin."
• 3 Mar. Frank Quitely has been drawing a series of illustrations based on myth for Bowmore since 2021 which are used across labels and boxes for their whisky.
• 25 Feb. Geek Retrospective has an interview with Mike Collins who "has worked for some of the biggest names in comic publishing (Marvel, DC Comics, and 2000 AD). He has illustrated such characters as Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Judge Dredd, Sláine, and Rogue Trooper. As well as a series based on Star Trek, Doctor Who, Transformers, Zoids and… Well the list goes on and on!" (video, 46m)
• 24 Feb. Bill Morrison has posted a fascinating article about the highs and lows of his adaptation of Yellow Submarine (Titan, 2018), first mooted for publication on the film's 30th anniversary, later expanded for the 50th anniversary and still missing pages from a planned expanded version. "I decided that if I could make certain pages of the book resemble psychedelic posters in their design, I might be able to create an adaptation of Yellow Submarine that would be faithful, but also offer Beatles fans something new and exciting."
• 18 Feb. A look at Steven Appleby's latest exhibition. "Steven has had many solo shows but this is the biggest to date and covers all aspects over such a long and varied career."
• 16 Feb. Keir Starmer has said that his favourite "book" was Roy of the Rovers, while visiting a Ukrainian school. "It's a fabulous book—well known in Anfield. I love football, so all my books are about football."
• 16 Feb. Want to know some of the financial details about Diamond Comic Distributors (UK), formerly Titan Distributors... their 62 staff distribute comics and other goods to 400 accounts in the UK, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. More at Rich Johnson's Bleeding Cool website.
• 15 Feb. Martin Rowson explains why he is cutting back on his committments to The Guardian and announces a new subscription service to obtain prints of his cartoons. "Given that half the UK’s national daily newspapers now no longer publish a daily political cartoon, the Guardian’s commitment to and support for cartoons needs acknowledging, as does their quiet nurturing of new and diverse cartooning talent."
• 14 Feb. Forbidden Planet has bought out Mega City Comics from retiring Martin Kravetz. The Camden Town store will close briefly for a refit before reopening in a few week's time as Forbidden Planet Camden.