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!