2000AD publisher buys Egmont archive including Roy of the Rovers

[Judge Dredd]

Loki having some killer knowledge on old school British comics, Charley's War should be a must read for all comic fans such a good series. They have a couple Best of Battle books out, Garth Ennis is a massive fan of Battle and does intro for one of the books. They have hardcovers for Rat Pack and Darkie's Mob I assume these will get prints from Rebellion as one has art from Ezquerra and the latter is written by John Wagner.

[Vic Vega]

A lot depends on the kind of stories you are looking for. British titles being weekly anthologies for the most part means that writers really did try all sorts of concepts, some of which worked better than others. Some titles were complete mixes of story types, others focused more on humour strips, others more on adventure tales. There were also themed titles (2000AD is an example of this - one of the SF themed titles), with the basic theme being things like war stories (Battle), sporting (Score, Scorcher, Roy of the Rovers), girls comics (Jinty, Sally, Misty), etc. However, within those themes, you'd find quite a mix of stuff, as they didn't want the stories to be too similar.

There's a decent list of what has ended up with Rebellion here:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=33494

For my personal money, and starting with a few stories either already available in reprint or due soon:

Charley's War - from Battle, written by Pat Mills (Slaine, ABC Warriors, Nemesis, etc.) and drawn by the incomparable Joe Colquhoun (not so well known in the US, so I'll let some of his art speak for itself) Attachment 39466 The story of a World War I soldier in the trenches of Europe, a tale that ran for seven years in the comic and covered the conflict from pretty much the start right to the finish. At times incredibly bleak Attachment 39467, it's widely considered one of the greatest stories ever produced in British comics, and thus it has been one of the few stories outside of the 2000AD canon to remain available in reprints.

Monster - from Scream, a horror-themed title of the 1980s. Recently reprinted by Rebellion, written by Alan Moore and John (Judge Dredd) Wagner. This article covers it better than I could https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...riginal-panels

Anything from Action - this was a title that came out a couple of years prior to 2000AD, and without which 2000AD might not have existed. http://downthetubes.net/?page_id=33280 It was considered so violent and visceral that questions got asked about it in the British parliament, and famously one issue got banned http://downthetubes.net/?p=22473.

Black Max - from Thunder. Black Max is the villainous star, a World War I German scientist and flying ace, who has created a special weapon to dominate the air with - giant bats powerful enough to down planes. Attachment 39471 If they do release this one, they could do worse than get Christ Weston to do a cover, given this commission he did for a fan site a few years ago. http://i2.wp.com/downthetubes.net/wp...size=618%2C927

I could literally spend all day suggesting strips - there are loads of them worth checking out. But the above are decent places to start, and I'll leave it for the moment for others to make their own suggestions.

One last bit, following up on

While I was hunting out the above links, I spotted the following quotes:
In the article about Monster: “Finding good quality copies of Scream! has been difficult as the original film of the story has long since disappeared, but we have substantial experience with 2000 AD collections of restoring neglected comics back to how they looked in the 1970s and 80s,” said Molcher.

In the article about Action's banned issue: "IPC later destroyed all the file copies of every issue, leaving only a scant few in the hands of the comps list."

Interesting. Thanks for the info!

I will have to see if I can find Charley's War on Amazon.

I never heard of Hookjaw. See, I always thought that "Kids Rule, OK" was what got Action banned.

I read in a interview with Pat Mills (I THINK it was Mills. This was ages ago...) where he explained that Action had gotten a new editor from a
kids line of comics and while prior Editors knew where to draw the line, this fellow in trying to do a good job went too far, no fault of his own.

Action might of gotten away with the actual content of the story but the cover of a chain swinging teen having seeming done for a Policeman was what did it.

Or so I had read.

[codystarbuck]

Charley's War is one that could potentially sell here, in the bookstore world. , much like Jacques Tardi's work. It's an excellent piece of work that rises above its contemporaries.

I daresay some of the works will not appeal as well to a US audience as others. Some are very Anglo-centric, others are a bit more universal.

[Judge Dredd]

Interesting. Thanks for the info!

I will have to see if I can find Charley's War on Amazon.

I never heard of Hookjaw. See, I always thought that "Kids Rule, OK" was what got Action banned.

I read in a interview with Pat Mills (I THINK it was Mills. This was ages ago...) where he explained that Action had gotten a new editor from a
kids line of comics and while prior Editors knew where to draw the line, this fellow in trying to do a good job went too far, no fault of his own.

Action might of gotten away with the actual content of the story but the cover of a chain swinging teen having seeming done for a Policeman was what did it.

Or so I had read.

Here is a good link for Charley's War hardcovers, they have 10 of them collecting Pat Mills run, each are like 100 or so pages, but very very good stories.

https://www.bookdepository.com/searc...arch=Find+book

[Digifiend]

They've now bought TI Media's archive as well, reuniting both halves of the IPC/Fleetway archive.
https://downthetubes.net/?p=101020

[DavidRA]

Great news. I look forward to supporting titles featuring the characters from my youth.

[iron chimp]

whats the deal with Misty? - I am sure I have read more than once that this had pretty heavy stories behind the girls comic facade

[Digifiend]

Yeah, Misty was a horror comic aimed at girls. You can see all the covers here:
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/misty/4050-33890/

[iron chimp]

Yeah, Misty was a horror comic aimed at girls. You can see all the covers here:
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/misty/4050-33890/

Some rough looking covers amongst that lot. Girls horror comic is an interesting premiss though and Pat Mills!. Do boys and girls comics even exist anymore or is it all unisex?

[allforgeeks]

Here is a good link for Charley's War hardcovers, they have 10 of them collecting Pat Mills run, each are like 100 or so pages, but very very good stories.

https://www.bookdepository.com/searc...arch=Find+book

Rebellion have also now released three Charley's War compendiums which include re-mastered colour pages, the 10 book series was only re-printed in black and white. I have the complete run of Battle from 1975 to 1986, the 10 book series mentioned above and I'm going to be buying the three book new series as well!

https://allforgeeks.com/?s=charley%27s+war

[Digifiend]

Some rough looking covers amongst that lot. Girls horror comic is an interesting premiss though and Pat Mills!. Do boys and girls comics even exist anymore or is it all unisex?

Most traditional comics no longer exist. 2000AD is now marketed at adults. Beano, which I think is the the last survivor of it's children's humour anthology genre, was always unisex. The majority of kids magazines now don't include comic strips. Those that do (which tend to be licensed characters, with the exception of Toxic, and mostly aimed at boys) only have maybe 10 pages of comics out of 32-40.

[allforgeeks]

Most traditional comics no longer exist. 2000AD is now marketed at adults. Beano, which I think is the the last survivor of it's children's humour anthology genre, was always unisex. The majority of kids magazines now don't include comic strips. Those that do (which tend to be licensed characters, with the exception of Toxic, and mostly aimed at boys) only have maybe 10 pages of comics out of 32-40.

I went back to the UK last month and took a look at The Beano, I would barely even classify it as a comic now, just a tacky looking magazine half full of adverts and product placements with about a dozen free gifts attached to it :-(

[DavidRA]

At least Commando is the same as it has always been. Mind you, not many shops stock it now.

[allforgeeks]

At least Commando is the same as it has always been. Mind you, not many shops stock it now.

There IS something very comforting about that! Not sure why they have made them so much thicker though, I'm going to need a lot more book shelves!
It's great that WH Smith still carry them at least