Starblazer Volume 2

Interstellar Space Fiction Adventure in Pictures! Beaming down from outer space and into your hands is Starblazer Volume 2! This astronomical anthology collects two classic Starblazer issues from DC Thomson’s extra-terrestrial archives!
    Collecting two vintage issues from 1979 and 1984 and blowing them up to full-graphic novel size, this volume also features an exclusive interview with legendary artist Carlos Pino (Commando, 2000 AD’s Judge Dredd), cover gallery, and foreword by Doctor Who screenwriter and comic author Paul Cornell.  
    Reprinted for the first time are:

The Web of Arcon

Reconnaissance ships patrolled the dark recesses of the Galaxy. As these ships were largely automatic, the crew spent long periods doing nothing. But on his first deep space trip, the newly commissioned Lieutenant Janus was about to encounter The Star Queen, a spaceship long thought lost and destroyed. Well, the truth about its fate was stranger – and more dangerous – than fiction!
    First published Starblazer #12, 1979.

The Death Reaper

Mikal R. Kayn was a policeman. He was forcibly retired by the Republic of the United Worlds’ Department of Justice, Star Cops, for methods to be found in no book… and a slight medical problem – he was all but blind.
    However, being medically blind didn’t stop Kayn from becoming a Private Investigator, in fact, the Justice Department were delighted, because it got him off their backs. Well, almost… on March 23, 2284, Kayn’s old partner, Affa, still a Galactic Policeman, was in the middle of an investigation and he needed Kayn’s help!
    First published Starblazer #127, 1984.

‘The Death Reaper’ is the next issue in Grant Morrison’s Mikal R. Kayn series and introduces another famous Starblazer character of their creation, Cinnabar. Enrique Alcatena is on art duty, with Keith Robson on the cover, both doing an out-of-this-world job.
    Grant Morrison MBE is an international comics legend known for their work on Animal Man, Batman, Doom Patrol and The Green Lantern. One of Morrison’s first writing jobs in comics was for DC Thomson’s Starblazer.
    The volume is once again capped off with an astronomical cover by Neil Roberts (2000 AD, Warhammer, Commando).
    The long-awaited Starblazer Volume 2 is out on Amazon, Magsdirect.co.uk and in WHSmith stores November 1st, 2023.

DC Thomson releases

Fans of Starblazer have spent years asking for reprints of the classic pocket library title that ran between 1979 and 1991. Well, DC Thomson have now released a pair of titles as part of their new range of reprints that has so far included two volumes of Ramsey's Raiders from the pages of Commando. Unlike the Ramsey's volumes, these are not newly coloured, but reprinted in the original black & white.

Here are the details of those two recent releases... and if anyone cares to review them, I'll be happy to publish here on Bear Alley.

Ramsey's Raiders Volume Two
D. C. Thomson Media ISBN ???, 2019, 136pp, £14.99.
Commando presents Ramsey’s Raider’s Graphic Novel – Volume 2 and the return of the Special Raiding Force!
     The ragtag crew of mavericks commanded by the intrepid Captain Jimmy Ramsey are back again in full graphic novel format, its original black-and-white interior artwork reborn with dazzling colour! Plus, the Volume features the first of Ramsey’s Raiders stories by the alternative interior artist, Mike White.
     Published since 1961 by DC Thomson Media, Commando is Britain’s longest running war comic. The graphic novel brings together the third and fourth Raiders issues: #3869 ‘Ramsey’s Island Raiders’ and #3874 ‘The Raider’s Revenge’ reprinted with eruptions of colour by colourist, Scott Dunbar, and lettering by Grant Wood!
     The 136-page collection also includes biographies about the Ramsey’s co-creator and writer, Ferg Handley, interior artists; Mike White and Keith Page, and cover artist Ian Kennedy alongside Kennedy’s original covers.

Starblazer Volume One
D. C. Thomson Media ISBN 978-184535799-3, 2019, 132pp, £12.99.
Originally published between 1979 and 1991 by DC Thomson, Starblazer was the pocket-sized, Science Fiction comic, presenting action and adventure stories set throughout space and time, overflowing with alien alliances, wonderful worlds and tantalising technology. This graphic novel presents issues #45 ‘Operation Overkill’ from 1981 and #71 ‘Jaws of Death’ from 1982, refreshing and rescaling the artwork to full graphic-novel size, whilst retaining the charm of their original black and white format.
     ‘Operation Overkill’ provides a glimpse into some of British comic legend Grant Morrison’s earliest work, where Argentinian illustrator Enrique Alcatena’s artwork brings such imaginations to life in exquisite detail. Likewise, ‘Jaws of Death’ by D Broadbent showcases Mick McMahon’s instantly recognisable, clean and confident draughtsmanship. Together, they present some of the best of British Science Fiction in a highly-collectible and well considered format, appealing to a contemporary audience as well as fans of the original pocket-size publication.
     Supplemented by the original, full-colour cover art by Keith Robson for both issues, a fresh new wraparound cover by Neil Roberts brings these classic stories into a contemporary, yet familiar field.
     Bonus content comes in the form of a brief history of the well-loved cult comic with an Ian Kennedy Easter Egg in the mix, an exclusive interview with artist Neil Roberts, and insights from a conversation with Grant Morrison by Professor Christopher Murray. A must-have for Science Fiction and British comic fans alike.

Scrapbook: Starblazer cover proofs

Here's something else from the depths of a box... a couple of Starblazer cover proofs. These are from issues 238 and 239 both dating from 1989. I picked up the pair at a Red Nose Day charity auction to which they had been donated. I recognise Ian Kennedy as the artist of the second image below, but the first one... anyone?

(Artwork © D. C. Thomson.)

Starblazer: In-jokes

Starblazer: In-Joke Credits
by Jeremy Briggs

Even before the current exhibition in the Lamb Gallery in Dundee, Starblazer was one of those titles that we seem to keep returning to, be it here on Bear Alley with Steve's memories of it, or on downthetubes with the ongoing foreign additions to our issue listing and the interviews with the two Bill's, Graham and McLoughlin, editor and sub-editor of the title. Even so little snippets that are worth mentioning continue to come to light.

Firstly a little background. Starblazer was DC Thomson's science fiction and fantasy digest sized title which began in 1979 on the back of the popularity of the first Star Wars film the year before and which ran until its final issue at the beginning of 1991. It was conceived by Thomson editor Jack Smith and he began the title with Bill McLoughlin as his deputy. Jack Smith retired in 1985 after which Bill McLoughlin continued on with new editor Bill Graham. Starblazer, like all DC Thomson titles of the time, did not credit its writers and artists let alone its editorial team however that does not mean that they did not get their names into it.

Being a science-fiction and fantasy title it was rare for the Starblazer covers to depict real places. However there were a few - issue 58 Pyramid Power had the Sphinx at Giza, issue 101 Forgotten World had the Forth Bridge near Edinburgh, issue 115 Liberty Goddess had the Statue of Liberty in New York while issue 155 Return To Darkland had Tower Bridge in London. Also with a London cover, issue 105 The Conquerors Of Earth showed a post-apocalyptic London street complete with shops and an underground station painted by regular Starblazer cover artist Keith Robson. Now since shops need names it wouldn't have been out of the ordinary for Robson to name one of the shops "Smith" since it is one of the most common British surnames however since he named another shop "McLoughlin and Co" I think that we can safely assume that the Smith is for Jack Smith while the McLoughlin is for Bill McLoughlin.

Issue 276 Outguard was one of the last issues of Starblazer when the title was winding down to its 281st and last issue. The internal art is by Alan Burrows and when one of the main characters needs to obtain some weapons he goes to a weapons dealership which is run by W McLoughlin and A Crook. Bill McLoughlin is obviously really William hence the "W" and we are more than happy to point out that he is not a crook. Did the writer, the late Alan Hemus, include those names in his script or did Alan Burrows add them? Without seeing the original script pages in DC Thomson's archive we may never really know for sure.

However one script that we know for certain had the production team names in it was for issue 258 Computer Killer. One of the Mikal R Kayn detective stories, the internal art for Computer Killer was by Vila and it includes a frame in which there is a list of murdered people. Top of the list is W McLoughin and second is W Graham which means that even Bill Graham got his name in print.

So how do we know for certain that the two Bill's names were included in the script and not added later? Easy. That script was written by Steve Holland.

[It was indeed. And, yes, I did put both Bills in the script as victims of the titular assassin. I think it was a coincidence that this was my last ever Starblazer—Steve]

(* Starblazer © DC Thomson and Son Ltd.)

Starblazer Memories by Tony O'Donnell

* Please give a big Bear Alley welcome to Tony O'Donnell, long-time pal and a damn fine comics' artist. Tony sent this over in the wake of my recent (and totally self-indulgent) 'Starblazer Memories' columns. This is turning into a bit of a series...

STARBLAZER MEMORIES

I still remember buying the fist issue... what excited me was the thought that actually getting to work on Starblazer seemed infinitely more possible than, say, breaking into 2000AD or even 'American Comics', this was still the 1970s and Barry Smith was still the only Brit to have achieved that feat.

Then I learned that Grant Morrison was both writing and drawing Algol the Terrible for Starblazer - and getting £500 for his efforts! This was REAL money... we were on £10 a page with Near Myths, OK it was less than £10 a page on Starblazer but they only wanted two to three pics per page.

I sent samples off to IPC and DCT (Starblazer) in March 1979, I got a very nice reply from Doug Church. I will always remember how good it felt to read that letter, even though it is now lost: "of all the samples recently submitted to our office, yours were among the best."

He advised me that it would be best to broaden my range of samples as they were all SF and suggested I find a good Agent, recommending the Temple Art Agency.

Then all that was forgotten... Starblazer sent me a trial script!

Looking back, my first attempt at a Starblazer was a disaster. My infatuation with Gil Kane's Starhawks style competed with the ever present influence of Frank Bellamy and John Buscema and my inability to draw! I remember phoning the office -- the presumption! -- I was told that I was not ready yet but the spaceships were good! I was sent £10 for use of Letratone... my first cheque from a Publisher. I did not think of The SF Bookshop in Edinburgh, the publisher of Near Myths as a Publisher at that time.

It was another four years before I got to draw my first Starblazer - SPACE GHOST.

I enjoyed working on Starblazer and I regret now how often I avoided the opportunities to draw more of them...but the 'grass was always greener elsewhere' or so I believed at the time. My other regret is that my lack of confidence in my own work led to my using far too many 'embarassing ' swipes...although I can recall a Starblazer that vitually recycled the previously mentioned Starhawks strip by Gil Kane.

(* All Starblazer artwork is © D. C. Thomson. Typically, I can't find copies of Tony's earlier, more science fictional Starblazers, so these pics come from later issues: the cover is issue 197 which has interior art by Segura; the alchemist is Melthas from no. 192, 'The Face of Evil'; and the sabre-toothed beast is from no. 226, 'Prince of Fear'. Ray Aspden has kindly supplied an image from no. 152, 'DoomWorld', one of the ill-fated [and some might say ill-conceived] role-playing Starblazers. Ray adds, "I hasten to add that I'm not a raving egoist -- it was D. C. Thomson who came up with the space trooper's name! I'd originally called him Stig, as can be seen in picture 79 when Bill McLoughlin missed a bit of his sub-editing.")

Starblazer memories

Today, Bear Alley is one year old. I've already talked about some of my experiences with fanzines so it seems apt that today's column should be about my experiences as a professional comic strip writer. Because, yes, I wrote two (count 'em) comic strips way back in the late 1980s. OK, so it's not quite the glittering career that some folks have had but at least I can say that, for two whole months, comic strips I had written were on the newsstands. And this, dear reader, is how it happened...

I'm amazed at how many people remember Starblazer. It's now over fifteen years since the last issue appeared but the Starblazer pocket books appeared regular as clockwork throughout the 1980s at the rate of two new titles a month so I guess over the nearly twelve years it appeared a vast army of young science fiction fans, high on Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica, sought them out.

The series began with a single title in April 1979, 'The Omega Experiment' which had an excellent cover... it leapt out from amongst the Commando pocket libraries and I grabbed it with both hands. The artwork inside was a little less inspiring but I coughed up my 12 pence and read it on the bus home. I was about to celebrate my 17th birthday and science fiction was all I read at that time. I was frighteningly dedicated to the genre. When it came to choosing a subject for a school project, I chose science fiction magazines which began my first tentative steps as a digger at the coal face of what academics call "pulp culture". I don't want to turn this into a huge autobiographical sprawl (and I covered some of this yesterday) but it was luck that got me back into comics in the mid-1980s but my interest in research that made me stick with them.

In 1986 I was corresponding with an artist by the name of Tony O'Donnell and we put together an article about Starblazer for a fanzine called Fusion. Tony had been an occasional contributor to Starblazer since 1983 but was more regularly to be found in the pages of Buddy and Spike at that time (you can find out a lot more about Tony's early career via this excellent interview by Garen Ewing). Tony and I were both fans of an at-the-time unidentified South American artist who had been drawing stories for Starblazer since its early days whose name turned out to be Enrique Alcatena. A brilliant artist of science fiction and fantasy, Alcatena also turned his hand to some superbly drawn historical strips in Buddy and Victor, as well as a couple of SF epics like 'Sabor's Army' in Warlord. In 1988, 4-Winds published his graphic novel Moving Fortress which had originally appeared in the Argentinean magazine Skorpio, and, before long, he was inking Hawkworld for DC, his work championed in the US by Tim Truman.

It must have been in the summer of 1987 that Tony mentioned D. C. Thomson were looking for writers who could script some fantasy stories for Starblazer. They had already tried a few role-playing titles ("where YOU make the decisions") in the wake of the hugely successful Fighting Fantasy books. I wasn't a big fan of sword and sorcery but, according to Tony, they weren't necessarily after Conan-style sword-wielding barbarians. Since the only s&s series I liked were Mike Moorcock's Elric and Karl Edward Wagner's Kane I thought that an interesting hero could be concocted along the lines of a naive young swordsman whose homelands have been overthrown and who now wanders around raising money to finance a mercenary army to retake the lands of his forefathers. The anti-Conan elements probably had their roots in Elric and, if I remember correctly, where Wagner's Kane was cursed with living forever (like the Biblical Cain), my hero would be cursed to die and would do so by the end of book three -- it was a fantasy so, of course, it had to be a trilogy!

With a hero to hand, all I had to do was cobble together a plot and send it off to Thomsons. The money was as good as in the bank.

I haven't had any luck finding that original draft but, needless to say, my literary masterpiece was cruelly rejected by the editors of Starblazer.

In the summer of 1988 I thought I'd try my hand at writing a Starblazer script again. By then I was writing regularly for the newsletter of the Association of Comics Enthusiasts (A.C.E.) run by Dennis Gifford and had written a couple of interviews for the fanzine After Image published by Ace Comics. I had articles due in Golden Fun and Biggles News (a Dutch Biggles fanzine) and, in my usual naive way, I thought I was getting somewhere as a writer despite the fact that only one of my published articles had earned me any money.

Rather than put together a new synopsis, I dug out the story I had pieced together a year earlier and started writing it up as a script. I can't plot my way out of a paper bag so it looked like the smart option -- write the story, see where it went then write the synopsis based on the finished story.

I'm not recommending this to anyone, by the way. It's time consuming and there's no guarantee you're going to see any reward for all your hard effort at the end of it. What I didn't realise at the time was that the creative process wasn't necessarily down to me singular. I had the notion that everything I wrote down on paper would be what was printed in the book, omitting any contribution that the editors or artists make. I guess until somebody tells you how much input a good editor can have you don't know. Twenty years on, and having been an editor on various magazines in the interim, I have a lot more respect for how hard editors work.

Anyway, to get back to the point, having written out most of the story, I submitted a second, fairly detailed synopsis (now that I knew where the story was going!). The title was 'Assassin of Gods'. This would be around August 1988. In September I went to UKCAC (the UK Comic Art Convention) and met up with Tony O'Donnell again (I'm pretty sure we'd met in person for the first time the year before). Tony had some very exciting news -- two of the editors who worked on Starblazer were attending the Convention and so was Ian Kennedy.

Ian Kennedy! A brilliant artist whose cover art on Starblazer was one of the main reasons I kept buying them.

Tony and I arranged to meet up with the two Bills -- editor Bill Graham and his deputy editor Bill McLoughlin -- and Ian. It was in the student bar at the Institute of Education where everyone used to meet up and I suspect it was pretty alien compared to the hallways of Albert Square, Dundee. There was a lot of noise, a lot of drunks, even during the lunchtime session, but a lot of creative energy (if you could look beyond the noise and drunkenness). I suspect Ian, at fifty, was the oldest person in the room. I may be doing them a disservice but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't totally bemused by the whole thing. Thomsons may be a fun factory, but I imagine its fairly sober fun.

It's difficult to remember what was said -- it's nearly twenty years ago, after all -- but a few things do stand out. I remember these very charming gentlemen introducing themselves and shaking hands. Our corner was a calm little oasis in the turmoil as they talked about Starblazer, science fiction and a new project they were hoping to launch. This was to be a series of graphic novels, larger in format to Starblazer with (I think) 96 pages of artwork. They had dummied up some examples using old Starblazer artwork. I presume the dummies had Ian Kennedy covers although I can't remember for sure.

Ian himself was equally charming. Both Tony and I managed to squeeze in some questions about his career but the only thing I can remember was that he told us he used to sharpen his pencil so it had a very long lead nib when he was pencilling out his covers. Why that should stick in my memory I don't know.

(Before posting this I sent a draft over to Tony who recalls that he showed Ian some of the artwork from his latest Starblazer. As it turned out, it was also to be his last. "Within a few months I was heavily involved with drawing my first Star Romance Library and then came Ghostbusters," he told me earlier today. Many years later, Tony recorded an interview with Ian which can be found at the British Comic Art website.)

However, the really important news as far as I was concerned was when I mentioned having submitted a synopsis recently and had yet to receive my rejection letter. Bill Graham then told me that he remembered it and I wouldn't be getting a rejection. They would take the story once a few problems were ironed out.

I resisted the urge to leap up and punch the air and casually accepted a pint from Ian Kennedy.


And that's where I'm going to leave it for this evening. More Starblazer memories soon, including how 'Assassin of Gods' became 'The Cursed Land' and how I killed Bill Graham and Bill McLoughlin.

(* The images above are from Starblazer and are © D. C. Thomson. From the top: Enrique Alcatena's second Starblazer, artwork from no. 16 'The Secret of Soma'; the cover of issue 1 by Friza (well, that's what the signature looks like); a page from Tony O'Donnell's last Starblazer, no. 230, 'A Plague of Horsemen'; and the cover for same by Ian Kennedy. You can find out more about Starblazer in Jeremy Briggs' 'Blazing Through the Secrecy'.)

Starblazer memories II

New readers start here. When we last met our gallant author he was in a bar having a pint. Now read on...

In early October 1988, a letter from Starblazer deputy editor Bill McLoughlin arrived outlining some of the problems with the original MS for 'Assassin of Gods'. "It is an intriguing notion with a couple of really outstanding elements (the werewolf town and the pool of water-gateway), but overall the tale has too many imponderables. Firstly, Terol is too naive... he's not a fool, but he walks into an obvious trap. Why should he be branded a coward? He's stupid, not a coward. I don't like the retired nun and the wolves..."

The retired nun? Sadly, I don't have the original draft of the story so I've got to rely on memory. Since the story involved wizardry, I suspect the original version of Keri was meant to be an outcast priestess from a convent school of witchcraft with wolves as familiars. The set-up was that she would be responsible for saving the story's supposed hero, Terol, proving to be the stronger character in the end. That strength would rub off on the 'hero' as the storyline progressed into the second and third books until he really was a hero.

Unfortunately, that meant making Terol a bit of an ass who needed his hand held at every turn. His heart was in the right place and his motivations were beyond reproach but he didn't -- at that point in his journey -- have the street smarts to carry out his actions, something that Keri would bring to the team.

Replying to Bill a few days later, I see I put in some serious thought.

The basic plot was still intact: Terol, the hero, comes to do battle with the evil wizard, Grandin, and beats him before a pathway can be opened up between this world and the wastelands of the Dark Gods; the big story arc over the three books was that Terol was raising money in order to raise an army to overthrow the warlord who had taken control of his homeland.

In the revised version of the story, Terol would now become more of a hardened mercenary and freebooter and his naive past would be shown in a flashback -- a failed attempt to assassinate the warlord, Serak, which was how Terol was introduced in the original draft of the story.

Keri's companions, originally two wolves, would become large dogs... I'm amazed to say that even this early (before I even had a suitable plot for the first story) I was already mentioning that one or both the companions would be killed in the second story!

Bill's cautious reply came a few days later ("Thanks for the revised ideas... it seems pretty well in order") requesting 35-40 frames "to see how things pan out."

At the time I was working in a factory making ball-bearings. In late October 1988, they announced that the factory was going to shut down and we were all to be laid off. Jobs would be phased out along what was effectively a production line as and the factory closed when the final orders were completed. I was at the far end of the line, using a massive lathe to grind out the inner racetrack of the outer casings before the various elements went to be checked, so my job was safe for a few months. However, some people were being made redundant almost immediately so there was a huge panic going on and it was three weeks before I finished putting together the first 60 frames. (As I explained to Bill, it wasn't through bloodymindedness that I was submitting more than requested, just that a chunk of around 20 frames was straight out of the first draft and I wanted to show him how I was changing the story following the editorial input.)

Back came the reply requesting the next chunk of story and, on 12 December came the news that the final chunk was accepted and payment (£185 for the script's 150 frames) would be put through as soon as I'd signed the contract. "I'd prefer another idea at the moment rather than another in this trilogy," Bill added. "It's not that I don't like the idea, just that I'd rather get this one drawn first before deciding what to do."

I went down the pub and put a huge celebratory dent in my earnings.

Meanwhile, Bill was turning my script into something publishable. A bit of beefing up here, a bit of explanation there... the submitted scripts were then retyped on flimsy paper (I've seen a couple of scripts, although not my own) that then went off for translation before being sent out to artists around the world. One thing I know will have happened is that my long, detailed panel descriptions would have been chopped down quite considerably to save the translator a lot of unnecessary work. My scripts weren't as good or as entertaining (by a long shot) as, say, Alan Moore's, but I knew what I wanted to see and made the same basic mistakes as all novice writers do -- far too much detail and far too much going on. At least I didn't make the common mistake of mistaking a strip for an animated cartoon and having things move and change in a picture (like, for instance, having your hero look both right and left down a corridor in a single panel). The script for 'Assassin' clocked in at 36 A4 pages for 150 frames. I don't know if that's especially long but it was something that Bill would later pick up on.

However, a lot of the description survived as you can see from the opening frames of the story: the original script (below) asked for weirdly decorated candlesticks and that's what I got; whether the smoke is being disturbed by a gentle breeze (!) I'll let you decide.

The artist assigned to the book was a Spanish artist called José Maria Sauri who had drawn horror strips for Skywald in the 1970s (Dracula, Nightmare Yearbook) via the Selecciones Ilustradas agency. He'd also drawn for Heavy Metal, adapting 'The Odyssey' in a strip called 'Odesio' which has since been reprinted as a collection. He had already drawn one Starblazer (no. 133, 'Death Came Silently') and would go on to produce a third (no. 270, 'The Warrior Quest') so he seems to have carved a little niche doing fantasy strips for Starblazer. I thought he made a pretty damn good job of my script considering the limits that the pocket book format put on an artist.

Bill, kept me in touch with progress on 'Assassin' during correspondence as I worked on a second story, determined to prove that selling one script wasn't a fluke. 'Assassin' eventually appeared -- as 'The Cursed Land' -- in December 1989, a year after the script had been accepted. Another excuse to head down to the pub and drink away the profits of my literary achievement.

Mind you, eleven months earlier, I was beginning to wonder if my 'achievement' wasn't a one-off. But for that little episode you'll have to wait until tomorrow so I can remain in the pub, celebrating for a little longer, all unaware that the plot I'm busily dreaming up between drinks is going to get rejected.

(* The images above are from Starblazer and are © D. C. Thomson. Artwork from 'The Cursed Land' is by Jose Maria Sauri, the cover is by Ian Kennedy.)

Starblazer memories III

New readers start here. When we last met our gallant author he was in a bar having a pint or three. Now read on...

Having sold 'Assassin of Gods' in December 1988, published a year later as 'The Cursed Land', I was determined to prove that it wasn't a fluke. To do that I needed to write a second publishable script. And, believe me, the idea of earning money from writing was very attractive to someone facing redundancy within the next few months.

One of my favourite Starblazer characters was Mikal Kayn, a private eye character created some years earlier by Grant Morrison. Grant was a regular contributor to Starblazer, producing his first story for no. 15 ('Algol the Terrible') which he also drew. Kayn first appeared in Grant's third story, no. 45 'Operation Overkill'. The original Kayn was a fomer "top member of the star corps. At present he is an investigator working in his own company." At first he was more of a galactic cop and there was no mention of what was to later become one of his trademarks: an accident had left Kayn with eyesight that could see in the infra-red and he had to wear special shades in order to see normally. The shift came with no. 173, 'The Vegas Murders' (written by my old pal Syd Bounds), which was a more Earth-bound adventure. The changes may have been introduced by Grant in his fourth Kayn story, 'The Midas Mystery' (no. 177) which, I suspect, was intended to appear before Syd's story since 'The Vegas Murders' seems to take it as read that Kayn had this ability to see in the dark.

A female warrior called Cinnibar had been introduced in the second Kayn yarn (no. 127, 'The Death Reaper') and her brother, Rulf, in the third (no. 167, 'Mind Bender'). However, they were soon to fade out when Alan Hemus took over as the main writer of the series with no. 199, 'Nether World', which began by establishing that Kayn was based in the city of New Moscow and the tone became more like a futuristic Philip Marlowe. Cinnibar and Rulf were spun off into their own series, also written by Alan.

In no. 211 ('The Dream Machine'), Alan introduced a character called Pop Perz, who "built toys and... things" in the original but would become the general go-to guy when Kayn needed any technological help. Pop had a robot cat whose name was never referred to but who was going to be one of the stars of my Mikal Kayn yarn.

Being a fan of Raymond Chandler as well as science fiction, I thought the Mikal Kayn stories were the best thing Starblazer were publishing. There were quite a few continuing characters in Starblazer (Carter, Grok & Zero, The Robot Kid and a few others) but Kayn was the only one that I wanted to write. As far as I knew, all the characters were being written by the authors who had created them... but Kayn I knew was sharecropped out to other authors because Syd Bounds had told me he'd written one a couple of years earlier.

In January 1989, Bill McLoughlin asked for an expanded synopsis based on an idea I'd had for a Kayn story. When I asked about the continuity of the stories he was rather surprised: "I think you're possibly getting too involved with the detail and background to Kayn. The location of New Moscow has never been specified but I'd always seen it as an urban sprawl in Northern Europe. Kayn (although obviously a Philip Marlowe type) is an anti-hero, the Harry Palmer of Ipcress File fame. Somebody who reluctantly gets involved with big time crime, usually while doing something innocent ... I don't like Kayn getting too technical with weapons and suchlike -- Kayn is broke and only takes the jobs he can afford. I've no objection to human baddies or non-human goodies -- it is a reasonably new angle."

I had my synopsis in the post the same day. Two days later...

Let me pause for a second and interrupt my own story for a quick word of praise for Bill McLoughlin and Bill Graham. Having worked on a variety magazines over the years I know how hectic things can get, especially when you're about to go to press. Correspondence is the first thing to go to the wall. I never appreciated at the time the fact that the Bills always responded to my letters incredibly quickly, usually the same day they arrived or within 24 hours of receipt. I've no reason to doubt that they treated everyone with the same consideration and that was incredibly important for a novice. They were also very gentle when turning down your lame-brained ideas.

Which is what happened two days later: "It isn't a story, merely a neat idea with a few good touches loosely connected," said Bill McLoughlin and catalogued a few of the flaws in the plot.

I've said before that I can't plot my way out of a paper bag. I had precisely the same problem with the first script I'd tried on Starblazer: submitting a synopsis just didn't work for me. As I wrote out the scripts I could see where the problems were and make the appropriate adjustments as I went along.

But, and this is what I meant when I said that Bill McLoughlin was a considerate editor, he ended his rejection with "I'm afraid the plot here is not up to the standard you set yourself with Assassin. There is a story here but I'd suggest you put it on the back boiler while coming up with a new notion. This idea will bubble away until properly cooked."

A few weeks later I had another new notion and this time I decided to return to my previous method of writing -- write the story so I knew exactly what was going to happen and then submit a synopsis along with the first 40 frames. The story was called 'Headcrash'.

Bill's response was mixed. Although he liked the basic premise I'd spent too long introducing a killer-for-hire at the beginning of the story so that Kayn was only introduced on page 7; and, worse, Kayn wasn't doing much actual detecting (he was a detective, after all). "Your synopsis is imaginative but undisciplined. However, we are here to keep unruly authors in line..."

Bill sent down a revised plotline, devised with Bill Graham, that ironed out a lot of the problems and, after I'd argued a couple of points (seriously, I argued that they'd suggested Kayn do something that I felt was out of character! I'm so embarrassed...!), I hammered out the script which was finished two weeks later despite being interrupted by helping to put together an auction for the very first Red Nose Day.

Headcrash was sent into the Starblazer office and was accepted at the end of March. I'm still quite proud of it as it crammed in quite a few fun ideas: computers were still new (I was just about to buy one) and contacting assassins on computer bulletin boards seemed to me to be something new; I killed off the villain halfway through the story which I thought was pretty daring; and the dialogue was the best hardboiled I could manage. And there were quite a few in-jokes: I named Pop Perz's cat Vienna after Rigsby's cat in Rising Damp and gave him a little bit of a starring role; the guy killed in the opening few pages was named after a friend of mine and Bill McLoughlin and Bill Graham, the editors, were named as recent victims of the assassin. It was a tradition in Starblazer to sneak names in -- Grant Morrison had done it in one of his early Kayn stories; John Smith, the founding editor of the series had gotten a mention at least once, and I'm sure the two Bills made regular appearances in one guise or another.

In early April I worked up another Kayn yarn but the synopsis was "too ethereal, confused and unconnected to assess properly... it sounds as if Kayn is about to be involved with aliens wanting to invade Earth."

I haven't a clue what it was about! I don't have a copy of the synopsis and the plot is lost to the mists of time... and it sounds like it deserves to be!

Around this time, Ransom, Hoffman & Pollard, the ball-bearing factory which for many years had been one of Chelmsford's major employers, was slowly winding down and my day job was about to disappear. Many of the friends I'd made were gone, some to new jobs, some to the dole. It was a pretty miserable time all round because there was very little decent employment to be had, despite the fact that Chelmsford is the county town of Essex. I was eventually turfed out in June with a handy sum of redundancy money which I'd already spent on a computer two months earlier.

Down at the dole office they asked me what I wanted to do career wise. I said, "Anything with a desk and a swivel chair. Maybe a secretary, too." They suggested the Britvic bottling factory or working in a junk yard five miles out of town. In those days you had to apply for two jobs before they would even consider giving you any unemployment benefit, so I dutifully sent off applications. The junk yard position was already filled thank God and, according to Britvics, I was overqualified for their production line. So I got my unemployment money.

During July I began working up a story to feature another Starblazer character called Carter, an emotionless cyborg ex-cop created by Mike Knowles for the story 'Carter's Law' (no.191). I thought I might have a better chance with Carter than with Kayn since stories were appearing almost monthly at that time with new tales appearing in March, April, June and July 1989.

I fell back on my previous method of writing the story first before submitting the synopsis as that seemed to work. The Carter story, 'Pyrokine', was the first I'd written straight onto the computer, making the story up as I went along without notes. Which meant I had no idea what the story was really about: the story opens with Carter resolving (in his own inimitable fashion) a hostage situation in a tower block. There's a mysterious explosion. By then I was 40 frames into the story and I could imagine what the Bills' reaction would be: condense the whole opening and get on with the actual story you're trying to tell! The problem was, I suspect, that I didn't really have a story to tell at all, just an opening scene.

'Pyrokine' fizzled out and at the end of July I submitted another Kayn idea based on what I thought was the neat idea of Kayn smashing a drug-running operation only to have the drug runners plant a bomb in his head and force Kayn to carry drugs for them. But there was a twist that I didn't mention. The guy in charge was hiding out in Tibet, a mysterious, unseen figure who was believed to control a vast crime network. And this character, in my mind, was Wilson, the wonder athlete from the pages of Wizard back in the 1940s.

You see, it was revealed in the stories that Wilson was born in 1795 and his remarkable physique was down to living wild on Ambleside Moor and living off the land. My notion was that Wilson was still alive at the time of Kayn's escapades and was addicted to these life-preserving drugs to be found in the wild plants growing on Ambleside Moor. Whether any of this was going to be made clear I'm not sure but that notion was always in the back of my mind and I know I intended having the main villain wearing a black one-piece.

In went the synopsis ("too bloomin' detailed again!" said Bill) and back came the rejection ("too close close to another notion"). Part of the problem was that some elements of my story were similar to one they were just about to publish, no. 247 'Kayn's Quest', about stolen relics.

And that was pretty much the end of my career as a Starblazer scriptwriter. After being offered two dead-end jobs by the unemployment benefit office, I decided to sign up for a college course in computers. As it turned out it was a good move, even if the course didn't turn out to be quite what I expected -- it was more geared towards former secretaries who needed to learn about word processing. However, it put me in touch with a guy called Frank Power who ran a one-man company in London called City Sports. In September it became a two-man company and I became a commuter. I had a desk and a swivel chair. And, that December, I even had a secretary, albeit a temp, while Frank was away on holiday.

The commute to London didn't leave much time for writing and I was often working late, running the office while Frank was on the road. 'The Cursed Land' (originally 'Assassin of Gods') came out in December 1989, followed in February by 'Computer Killer' (originally 'Headcrash'). In spare moments and weekends I started writing up the story 'What Little Girls Are Made Of' which I'd put on the back-burner at Bill's suggestion and mapped out the second story of Terol, 'Assassin of Assassins'. I had most of the latter finished when I learned that Starblazer was to fold and was not accepting any more stories.

All my correspondence and notes went into a folder which I've only recently re-discovered, prompted by the news that Starblazer is to be revived. It's a new century and it's being revived in a completely different medium. Hopefully there will be more news of this soon.

My memories of Starblazer are incredibly happy ones. Even the rejections taught me something. Mostly to get my act together before submitting a synopsis. The fact that I sold them two stories proved (to me at least) that it wasn't just luck. Although my plotting was as woolly as all hell and, towards the end even I could spot when something was going completely off the rails as happened with 'Pyrokine'. So I'd learned something.

Would I be a better scriptwriter now? Probably not. That skill comes with practice and I've not even thought of writing a script for many years. I did write an opening for a Commando in 1991 which was rejected and I've written one or two little things since but nothing intended for publication.

To bring this little Bear Alley birthday series to an end I thought I'd publish this little squib that I found tucked away in my Starblazer folder. Around the time I was submitting ideas, Starblazer was running a couple of more humorous series featuring Grok & Zero (a pair of mismatched cops) and The Robot Kid. So I thought, What about a multi-tentacled alien private eye?, and scribbled down the following opening:

They call me Spade

My real name has 72 letters, 4 hieroglyphs, 23 hand postures and involves growling, so you'll probably want to call me Spade too.

That's as far as it got. I like to think it would have been the greatest story Starblazer ever published. Truth is, it's probably the dumbest idea that Starblazer (thankfully) never published.

(* The images above are from Starblazer and are © D. C. Thomson. From the top: Mikal Kayn's first appearance in no. 45 'Operation Overkill', written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Enrique Alcatena; the same team for no. 167 'Mind Bender' -- Grant Morrison slips his own name into the dialogue; the various covers are all by Ian Kennedy; the extracted panel from 'Computer Killer' is drawn by Vila whose first name I unfortunately don't know.

I'd like to shout out a big Thank You to Bill Graham and Bill McLoughlin, unheralded heroes of Starblazer and many other Thomson papers. Without them, none of these columns would have been possible. A heartfelt thanks, guys, from Starblazer's most undisciplined writer.)