Jag what was it like?

Peter Gray · Post by **Peter Gray** » 20 Sep 2007, 15:02

Jag what was it like?
Don't know anything about this comic......it got mentioned on the Lion covers topic..

Captain Storm · Post by **Captain Storm** » 20 Sep 2007, 20:52

Jag was primarily a footie comic that ran for 48 issues from 4th May 1968 to 5th April 1969 before teaming up with Tiger.The only story I liked was The Indestructible Man,a story about Rodney Dangerfield,an ancient Egyptian who resurrected himself by fire every time he turned old.A few Annuals were released as well.This is just an intro....enter the experts!

Cap Haggis · Post by **Cap Haggis** » 21 Sep 2007, 13:46

I wasn't a fan of "Jag" either although I think it had the footy strip "Football Family Robinsons" which I loved in Tiger (when they "merged") - If memory serves me its was printed in a much larger format that the other comics (similar in size to Topper / Beezer was in the 60s) it went to a more traditional size later on before it merged - my best pal at the time loved Jag and bought every issue - had a variety of strips like Custer (reprinted I think) in it, but as said, was mostly sports orientated.

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 21 Sep 2007, 18:27

Jag was never "primarily a footie comic". It did have a few more sports stories towards the end, but that's because it was being retooled to merge into Tiger. In its early issues it had a good variety of non-sports strips, such as the aforementioned Indestructible Man by Jesus Blasco, sci-fi strip New Worlds For Old, war strip The Mouse Patrol, Geoff Campion's Custer, Joe Colquhoun's humour strip Cap'n Codsmouth (later drawn by Fred Baker), adventurer Thunder Bill, and school strip Snob College, amongst others.

Football Family Robinson took over the front and back covers when they arrived with issue dated 27th July 1968 but there were no other footie strip inside at that period. (A few sports features, but no footie strips.)

Personally I thought Jag was an excellent comic; tabloid size, plenty of colour, some great artists, interesting articles, but either not enough people bought it, or it was just a casualty of IPC coming along to shake up the Fleetway line.

[IMG:510:567]http://i2.tinypic.com/61tz28l.jpg[/img]

[IMG:510:653]http://i2.tinypic.com/61mc5fd.jpg[/img]

Lew

Captain Storm · Post by **Captain Storm** » 21 Sep 2007, 20:23

Thanks for that Lew.It must be great to have so many of the oldies to hand.Any knockout comics featuring Kelly's Eye?

Peter Gray · Post by **Peter Gray** » 21 Sep 2007, 21:20

Thanks Lew....you could put this feature on your blog about Jag to reach more people...

Indestructable man sounds good.....was it a bit like Kelly's eye?

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 22 Sep 2007, 11:41

Captain Storm wrote:Thanks for that Lew.It must be great to have so many of the oldies to hand.Any knockout comics featuring Kelly's Eye?

I sold one on eBay a while back for about ?20. I only have one other issue I think. Jag was the first Fleetway comic I bought regularly, (I was an Odhams fan) so any Fleetway title prior to 1968 I only have as sporadic back issues.

I'll run an item on Jag on my blog at some point. I don't have every issue, - far from it, but I have enough to give a sampling of what it was like.

Lew

philcom55 · Post by **philcom55** » 22 Sep 2007, 18:38

Whereas Champion was probably intended to have a short run all along, thereby providing Lion with a healthy circulation boost when the two papers were merged after only 15 weeks, Jag gave every indication that Fleetway were expecting it to become a major title in its own right. Looking at the first issue it's clear that all their artistic big guns had been signed up, including Eric Bradbury, Joe Colquhoun, Jesus Blasco, Geoff Campion, Don Lawrence and Mike Western. What's more the name itself indicated that Jag, with its prestigious offset printing and tabloid format, was being groomed to take its place alongside Fleetway's two other long-running cat-themed comics Lion and Tiger.

In the event its reception seems to have been nothing short of catastrophic. Pat Mills has written that the management were still reeling from Jag's failure when he joined the company and that this ultimately prepared the ground for an entirely new approach to boys' adventure comics with the launch of Action in 1976.

- Phil Rushton

Captain Storm · Post by **Captain Storm** » 22 Sep 2007, 18:43

The full solo run of Jag recently sold on eBay for over ?200!I was in on the bidding but too rich for my blood.Also the runs featuring the Tiger & Jag mergers are reaching high bids.Somebody must be trying to complete a collection of Jag!

philcom55 · Post by **philcom55** » 22 Sep 2007, 19:21

For what it's worth I can remember buying the first issue when it came out having been attracted by the dramatic cover shown below. My overall impression was that it was 'OK' but not really worth 7d! I suspect that I was particularly put off by the lack of any Sci-Fi strip (and even when "New World for Old" took over the cover three issues later it was badly handicapped by some rather ordinary Nevio Zeccara artwork).

[img:388:500]http://uk.geocities.com/philcom55/jag.jpg[/img]

- Phil Rushton

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 23 Sep 2007, 02:01

philcom55 wrote:Whereas Champion was probably intended to have a short run all along, thereby providing Lion with a healthy circulation boost when the two papers were merged after only 15 weeks, Jag gave every indication that Fleetway were expecting it to become a major title in its own right. Looking at the first issue it's clear that all their artistic big guns had been signed up, including Eric Bradbury, Joe Colquhoun, Jesus Blasco, Geoff Campion, Don Lawrence and Mike Western. What's more the name itself indicated that Jag, with its prestigious offset printing and tabloid format, was being groomed to take its place alongside Fleetway's two other long-running cat-themed comics Lion and Tiger.

In the event its reception seems to have been nothing short of catastrophic. Pat Mills has written that the management were still reeling from Jag's failure when he joined the company and that this ultimately prepared the ground for an entirely new approach to boys' adventure comics with the launch of Action in 1976.

- Phil Rushton

Interesting stuff Phil. Jag was very traditional in its approach, even if its format wasn't. The last of the traditional Fleetway weeklies, before theme comics like Scorcher came along.

So many comics were culled or revamped when IPC emerged that I suspect there was an IPC agenda to shake up the Odhams and Fleetway titles. I'm wondering if the mighty giant of IPC was more ruthless on sales figures of comics that might have continued if Odhams and Fleetway had still been running the show.

It's interesting that the merged Tiger and Jag took Jag's more expensive format, rather than continue with Tiger's newsprint style. This suggests that sales wise there wasn't much to choose between Tiger or Jag and that Tiger took dominant position only because it was the older title.

Much as I respect Pat, were IPC really still reeling from Jag's failure to inspire Action eight years later? Seems to me that IPC just cleared the decks to try out their own brand of theme comics. The first of which being footie comic Scorcher, whilst in the newly segregated humour line they launched Whizzer and Chips, Cor!! etc.

Lew

Captain Storm · Post by **Captain Storm** » 23 Sep 2007, 14:36

I can see it now- JAG-THE REAL STORY!

Seriously though,it makes for interesting reading when you consider that a few years later STARLORD despite better sold,merged with 2000ad to halt falling sales of that title and because it "sounded" better,only in that merger,the newsprint format was retained.What the heck was going on!?!!

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 24 Sep 2007, 14:01

I remember having the two football wallcharts given free with Jag Nos 2 and 3 stuck to my bedroom wall for what seemed like years. Given that the free gifts given away with the first three issues of Jag were all football themed and that the titles one and only summer special was similarly biased maybe this explains the mistaken belief that it was primarily a sports orientated comic from the start.
In its early tabloid issue days visually it was certainly the most eye-catching of the short-lived titles published by Fleetway/IPC but when it went into web-offset printing it lost my affections. I know it allowed for better reproduction of photographs etc but I just hated the paper that the process seemed to require.

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 25 Sep 2007, 01:21

I've hastily written an article on Jag here. Hope it helps:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2007/09 ... g-jag.html

Kremmen · Post by **Kremmen** » 25 Sep 2007, 10:15

Lew Stringer wrote:I've hastily written an article on Jag here. Hope it helps:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2007/09 ... g-jag.html

Indeed it does. It clears up a lot of vague memories for me. For instance I wasn't sure exactly when it changed from tabloid size to average size prior to its merger with Tiger. I didn't know there'd been a summer special, though, as Kashgar mentions. Possibly 1968? If so, that was quick, given that Jag itself was relatively new.

I know that Jag annuals appeared for a few years, which was a bit annoying seeing new strips of characters - characters I'd liked - who'd "died" never to be seen again in the merger.

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