Weather-related strips!

[Robbie Moubert]

Not exactly what you're after (and you may already be aware of it) but there was a Wild Wonders storyline in Valiant that featured a weather machine. It began in issue 399 (23/5/70) and finished sometime before the merger with Smash! Most of the story revolved around rescuing its inventor but the machine is seen in action in a couple of issues (403 (27/6/70) & 423 (13/11/70)).

[matrix]

Fran of the Floods, which ran in Jinty and Lindy for a while, similar to the Great Flood of London strip.

Probably not what you had in mind, but here is Micky the Mimic, imitating the weather.

[philcom55]

One of John Burns' earliest 'Wrath of the Gods' stories in Boys' World featured the hero's dramatic confrontation with a giant who carried the the world's four winds in leather bags tied round his waist (from what I remember he looked a lot like Alan Moore!).

There was also 'The Day the World Drowned' by Frank Pepper and Ted Kearon in Lion (30th Nov 68 - 1st March 69) and a Black Archer story in Tiger where he battled a villain called the Weatherman (the latter being subsequently collected in Eagle Picture Library no.6).

- Phil Rushton

[alanultron5]

Here is the text section from my `Sparky File` re `Floating Farrells` Apologies I don't have photos!

A lovely and wonderfully bizarre strip based on the Old Testament tale of Noah’s Ark was `The Floating Farrells` which commenced in issue No 158, 27th January, ending in issue 170, 20th April 1968.

Reading it today, it doesn’t really stand up to close scrutiny in the logic or science of the storyline, but no matter; it was still great entertainment. I don’t know the identity of the artist, but he/she was one of those already working on the `Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora` strip to great effect, and would provide superbly drawn scenes here for readers of this strip.

The head of the family, Professor Farrell: while viewing deep space through his observatory telescope, espies a `space disturbance` on course for Earth. He predicts that when the `disturbance` reaches and interacts with the planet’s atmosphere it will trigger a `second flood` of world-wide proportions. The authorities, though accepting that the space phenomena `will` brush against the Earth’s atmosphere do not agree with Professor Farrells diagnosis of its effects. Now knowing that he cannot change the authorities’ views on the matter, the professor and his family begin to construct a modern-day Ark; one that is spherical in shape.

The professor, his wife and children Mark and Sara now strive to save as many land based animals as possible when the deluge begins. Seemingly, they were the only human survivors of the floods as in the duration of the strip they never once met another person during their adventures.

The majority of the strips run saw the family and their `ark` encountering various hazards as they floated right across the waterlogged planet, from the tropics to the

(64)
poles. One superb episode saw a giant squid, which looked more like an octopus in appearance, attack the ark in a weak spot (it had hit an iceberg some weeks past). The squid broke in via the weak spot and ripped open the Lion and Tiger cages. There ensued a tremendous battle between said squid and big cats which finally ended when the squid retreated. The Farrels drove the cats back to their enclosures using water hoses.

Finally, after many weeks the waters started to recede leaving the Ark atop a New York skyscraper. The family began to move themselves and the animals to the ground, bit-by-bit. As stated, the entire run of the strip no other people were encountered, leaving readers wondering were the Farrell’s really the last humans left alive on the planet?

I really enjoyed this strip, the artwork was superb and many of the stories were most inventive.

Hope this gives a flavour for you Raven!

[Phoenix]

Thanks for checking 'The Purple Comet ... ' anyway, Phoenix. Presumably it created lots of serious weather havoc as it sauntered by.

Most of the Earth passed through the tail of a comet. Few people escaped the effects of the poisonous Purple Mist, and were struck down where they were. And talk about global warming! The temperature in India was the highest ever recorded, and in the Arctic a section of the ice-field broke away from the mainland and started to drift south. On it were three white men, thirty Eskimos, a ravenous wolverine and not a lot of food. I won't spoil the ending for you but you may be interested to learn that the floating ice did reach Cardiff!!

[Digifiend]

The only one I can think of, is the Beano's The Great Flood of London from 1960, which was mentioned in the first post. It ran in Classics from the Comics a few years ago, but they missed out some episodes and of course it was stripped of it's original center-spread colour, so seek out the original version if you can.

[Raven]

Not exactly what you're after (and you may already be aware of it) but there was a Wild Wonders storyline in Valiant that featured a weather machine. It began in issue 399 (23/5/70) and finished sometime before the merger with Smash! Most of the story revolved around rescuing its inventor but the machine is seen in action in a couple of issues (403 (27/6/70) & 423 (13/11/70)).

Thanks for reminding me of that - the Valiant of 1970 is one of my favourite comics (though The Wild Wonders isn't a strip I pay too much attention to; maybe I should?), and I have most from that year. I do have the 27/6/70 issue and that's actually a very good example of this kind of thing|!

[Raven]

Fran of the Floods, which ran in Jinty and Lindy for a while, similar to the Great Flood of London strip.

Thanks for that one. Don't suppose you know which issues? Do you recall what caused the floods? (Were all these comics predicting global warming way back?)

[Raven]

One of John Burns' earliest 'Wrath of the Gods' stories in Boys' World featured the hero's dramatic confrontation with a giant who carried the the world's four winds in leather bags tied round his waist (from what I remember he looked a lot like Alan Moore!).

There was also 'The Day the World Drowned' by Frank Pepper and Ted Kearon in Lion (30th Nov 68 - 1st March 69) and a Black Archer story in Tiger where he battled a villain called the Weatherman (the latter being subsequently collected in Eagle Picture Library no.6).

- Phil Rushton

Ah, yes, The Day the World Drowned! I only have one issue featuring that, and it's on the front cover, and featuring "The deadly menace of the giant crabs!" In the story, a frozen pig carcase is used to lure the crab monsters away from a potential victim on a raft. Nice cover and tale - though, hmmm, I'm not sure it actually technically counts as a weather story as the floods are caused by underground earthquakes, and weather has to be related to the atmosphere, doesn't it ...?

Is the Tiger strip a Seventies one? I only have one Eagle Picture Library - number 12, which is an interesting one as the Janus Stark material filling it appears to all be new.

[Raven]

I really enjoyed this strip, the artwork was superb and many of the stories were most inventive.

Hope this gives a flavour for you Raven!

Thanks, Alan, that's really good info about The Floating Farrells; shows what a valuable resource your Sparky File be!

(Pity we don't have any images of this one as those 60s Sparkys tend to be so expensive nowadays! If only some of this stuff could be reprinted; there's some terrific adventure material in those early Sparkys.)

[Raven]

Most of the Earth passed through the tail of a comet. Few people escaped the effects of the poisonous Purple Mist, and were struck down where they were. And talk about global warming! The temperature in India was the highest ever recorded, and in the Arctic a section of the ice-field broke away from the mainland and started to drift south. On it were three white men, thirty Eskimos, a ravenous wolverine and not a lot of food. I won't spoil the ending for you but you may be interested to learn that the floating ice did reach Cardiff!!

Did the story get its own front cover at any point, Phoenix?

Incidentally, do you recall the name and period of the Victor snowball robot epic by any chance?

[Raven]

The only one I can think of, is the Beano's The Great Flood of London from 1960, which was mentioned in the first post. It ran in Classics from the Comics a few years ago, but they missed out some episodes and of course it was stripped of it's original center-spread colour, so seek out the original version if you can.

Yes, some are still up on one of Peter's old blogs - it definitely has more impact in colour than in the Classics reprints.

[Niblet]

The obvious things I've come up with are Knockout's Sonny Storm (with his magic weather stick that can control the weather: "By medicine man and sacred feather, repeat these words and ask for weather")

If I may be permitted to take this opportunity to ask a question about Sonny Storm - I recently posted an item about this character's single (presumably reprint) appearance in Cheeky Weekly. I did a little research to find out where he originally appeared, and as Raven mentioned above, it seems it was in Knockout. The thing is, as we all know, there were two comics sharing the Knockout title. Through a little (possibly flawed) deductive reasoning, based on the spot colour in the example on the site I link to in my post, I made the assumption that it was IPC's Knockout of the early 70s.

In an attempt to verify this, I downloaded 60+ issues of IPC's Knockout, but none of them contain Sonny Storm, although a couple of the IPC Knockout annuals do have Sonny strips (maybe he was restricted to annual appearances only?). Could someone please confirm in which version of Knockout Sonny first appeared. I'll update my post to credit anyone who can help. Ta!

[philcom55]

Is the Tiger strip a Seventies one? I only have one Eagle Picture Library - number 12, which is an interesting one as the Janus Stark material filling it appears to all be new.

The Black Archer was a late 1960s character - the Weatherman storyline ran from 15th April 1967 to 15th July, with art by John Gillatt.

As for Sonny Storm, I think he may have started out in Cor!

- Phil Rushton

[Phoenix]

The other one is the Wonder Man story (H K Rodd) where an arch villain is holding the world to ransom by the means of his weather machine and the Wonder Man is trying to track him down. That's in Victor circa 50 to 150.

This serial is called Return Of The Wonder Man, which appeared in The Victor 44 (Dec. 23 1961) - 60 (Apr. 14 1962). The power-mad scientist controlling the weather was a Mr Simpson, whose base was a huge Fishing Research Centre in Narvik in Iceland.