I was recently culling a bunch of comics from my collection, ones that I hadn't read in years and were now just taking up space. I called a local comic book dealer and asked him if he wanted to take them off my hands.
Amongst these boxes of old comics was a stack of over 100 issues of 2000AD, a weekly British science-fiction comic which was essential reading during my high school years.
I thought these old 2000AD comics might interest this dealer, but he dismissed them as "almost worthless." He was willing to take the lot, just so he could get his hands on a few Uncanny X-Men comics from 1980 that were part of the stack.
To be honest, I was taken aback. I really enjoyed reading the adventures of such heroes as Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper and Nemesis the Warlock, who'd dominated the pages of 2000AD during what many of its fans considered to be its best period - the early 1980s.
Surely these great old British comics meant something to somebody - somewhere?
Apparently not. While American comics continue to command most local collectors' attention (and dollars), the same cannot be said for British comics. Even Australian reprints of American comics generate more interest than their UK counterparts.
Yet thinking back to my own adolescence, I remember that British comics were not only highly visible on local newsagents' shelves, but they also formed a regular part of my comic book reading.
Aside from 2000AD, I also used to read its tabloid war counterpart, Battle Action, which mixed hard-hitting World War Two heroes (such as the fighter pilot Johnny Red), with modern-day action characters, such as Jimmy Chang, a kung-fu fighter who took on the Hong Kong Triads.
I remember seeing plenty of the 'humourous' English comics of that era, such as Beano and Dandy, but I thought these were about as funny as getting teeth pulled. I hated sport at the time, so there was no chance that the long-running soccer comic, Roy of the Rovers, would make its way into my collection either.
When I scored any extra pocket money, I'd splash out on a few of those digest-sized war comics, such as Commando, Battle Picture Library and War Picture Library. Featuring 'book-length' stories, mostly set during World War Two, these comics frequently printed some top-notch black and white artwork. Sadly, as was most British publishers' custom, these great stories were printed without any writer or artist credits.
Come Christmas time, hardcover British comic annuals could be found in many newsagencies and bookstores. Even though I rarely saw their regular comic book editions, I do recall seeing hardcover annuals for such titles as Victor and Tornado.
Since then, I've realised that I was witnessing the twilight years of Britain's postwar comic book industry. Many of the UK comics I do remember seeing (if not actually reading) during the 1980s have long since vanished. The only survivors from that era appear to be 2000AD, Commando and a handful of the 'classic' kiddies humour comics.
Indeed, the only successful new British comic launched during the last decade or so has been Viz. It reads like an R-rated version of Beano and is chock-full of obscenity, sexual innuendo and gleefully anti-social characters, such as Big Vern, Buster Gonad and Sid the Sexist. Guaranteed to offend the politically correct, Viz remains one of the funniest comics I've read in years.
Yet it wasn't always this way. British comic 'papers' and story magazines featuring comic strips were popular with Australian readers as far back as the 1920s and 1930s.
With the launch of the new boys' magazine, Eagle, in 1950, starring that iconic spaceman Dan Dare, British comics bounced back from the gloomy war years and were clamouring for Aussie kids' pocket money throughout the 1950s and 60s (Eagle was even briefly republished in Australia during the mid-to-late 1950s).
The selection of titles on offer was plentiful, ranging from slick, high-quality magazines like Eagle, through to cheap 'n' cheerful black & white comic books, such as Marvelman (the revamped, British-drawn version of America's Captain Marvel), and the new generation of comic weeklies, including Lion, Valiant and many more. Girls were well catered for, too, with titles like Tammy, Girl and Swift selling strongly throughout the 1950s-1970s - although they weren't without their critics!
Even British black and white reprints of American superhero comics, particularly those featuring the Marvel Comics line, appeared during the 1960s and 70s. It was a sign of the times that by the mid-1960s, even Eagle had to resort to reprinting Marvel Comics' Mighty Thor, in order to reverse its declining readership.
This in itself should give us some insight about the diminishing appeal of British comics, not only amongst English readers, but also in other 'Commonwealth' countries where they were sold, such as Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and South Africa.
America's two major comic book companies, Marvel Comics and DC Comics, were gaining new readers amongst an older, college-educated audience, who responded to their more complex superhero characters and multi-part storylines. British comics, by comparison, remained stuck in a creative rut throughout most of the 1960s and 1970s.
There seems to have been an almost pathological resistance amongst the leading UK comics' publishers, such as DC Thomson and IPC/Fleetway Publications, to come up with the British equivalent of popular superhero characters. One such hero that did emerge, the unimaginatively named Captain Britain, was actually produced by Marvel UK. (Dez Skinn, who led Marvel's UK editorial team, went on to publish the innovative, award-winning adult comic, Warrior, during the early 1980s)
Perhaps it should come as no surprise to learn that the most popular British-made comic strip hero of the last 30 years, Judge Dredd, is actually a hard-nosed American cop, dishing out lethal justice in a post-apocalyptic New York City, renamed Mega City One! Bubbling with gallows humour, packed with violent action and illustrated by the cream of modern British comic artists (including Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons and Mike McMahon), Judge Dredd is still going strong - 27 years after his debut in 2000AD.
Where most American comics had by now switched to focussing on a single character, or team of characters, in full-length stories, British comics persisted with their outmoded anthology format, featuring between 4-6 serials per issue, in weekly episodes of 6-8 pages.
Perhaps most importantly, British comics just looked cheap, especially when compared with their full-colour American counterparts, wrapped in glossy covers. British publishers continued to print their black & white comics on cheap newsprint, with the occasional full-colour centre-spread thrown in.
It must be said that, by the mid-late 1970s, British comics were starting to loosen up, creatively speaking. Strict editorial guidelines that previously forbade any kind of swearing (even 'Damn!') were relaxed, while some new titles took the gloves off when it came to depicting violence. One such comic, IPC's Action, earned widespread public condemnation for its gritty violence, which eventually had to be watered down, before it vanished altogether. Ironically enough, many of Action's creative team spearheaded the launch of 2000AD, which was, in many ways, even more violent than its 'realistic' predecessor.
Yet it was a case of being too little, too late. While American and European comics were progressively seeking out a larger, more lucrative, mainstream adult audience, British comics were mired in the belief that comics were strictly for kids. The trouble was that, as British kids (and Australian kids, too!) grew older, they left British comic weeklies behind in search of more exciting fare.
And, like comics publishers worldwide, British publishers also had to contend with the commercial threats posed by (in turn) videocassette movies, computer games and the Internet, throughout the 1980s and 90s.
This is not to say that all British comics were universally bad - far from it. And we haven't even touched on the whole 'New Wave' of alternative British comics from the 1980s and 1990s, such as Blast and Deadline.
Yet I'm sure I can't be alone in fondly remembering such offbeat and intriguing characters as The Steel Claw, Heros the Spartan, and Robot Archie.
If there is an 'upside' to this story, it's this - for Australian readers at least, if you still enjoy and collect old British comics, you can still pick up the odd stack in op-shops and secondhand bookstores, for rock-bottom prices.However, if you're hoarding a mountain of old English comics in the hopes that it will pay for your retirement, then you might want to consider diversifying your investment portfolio!
This article originally appeared in the August 2004 edition of Collectormania magazine. Text copyright © Kevin Patrick 2004-2007. Cover image courtesy of Book Palace.
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