Comics UK

philcom55 wrote:Weren't there some female Russian pilots in Battle's 'Johnny Red' series - or did I imagine it?

- Phil R.

From Wikipedia:

The Night Witches had appeared in the long-running British comic strip Johnny Red. Writer Garth Ennis, a childhood fan of the strip, would later write a three-part comic book mini-series called Battlefields: The Night Witches

I've been fascinated by them since I heard a BBC radio documentary about them a while ago. I'm just boggled that no one has made a movie about them yet.

philcom55 wrote:Weren't there some female Russian pilots in Battle's 'Johnny Red' series - or did I imagine it?

- Phil R.

No, you did not imagine it. They are in the 1978 issues and they are flying the archaic biplanes. I do not have the comics to hand but the female squadron team up with Falcon Squadron when Johnny fears that he is losing his sight while the fight rages over Stalingrad.

I just did some digging and, as far as I can tell, this is Johnny's first meeting with Captain Nina Petrova of the 7th Night Bomber Squadron - known as the Angel of Death. (Artwork, of course, by the legendary Joe Colquhoun)



I agree with Mari that somebody really ought to make a movie about these amazing women!

- Phil Rushton

Thank you Phil. That is exactly who I meant. I know I have the comics somewhere as I was reading them before we moved, but I am beggared if I can find them right now. I knew it was 1978 as it was Joe Colquhoun's work. Because John Cooper took over Johnny Red in early 1979.

I've only got odd issues of Battle but looking through those it seems that Captain Petrova's squadron reappeared several times over the next couple of years. On occasion they even enjoyed the lioness's share of the action while the strip's nominal star kicked his heels on the sidelines - a quite remarkable state of affairs in one of the most testosterone-drenched titles of them all. Here's an example from November 1980 with art by John Cooper.











- Phil Rushton

Only recently found out that Monster Wrestlers comics existed, and today I found out I'd lost on the bidding on eBay for issue 1 of them. Ah well!

Oops, I won that auction, sorry!

Ha ha! No worries, these things happen. Sure I'll find some eventually.

I was considering trying to go for these (I'm only really interested in the Joe 90 comics), but bidding really took off on the last day!

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =598865463

And today I was bidding on the 1965 Christmas Wham issue, but didn't manage to get it.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230990765014? ... 1423.l2649

I was watching a rather battered copy of the 1948 Beano annual on eBay, then when I went to check out how high the bidding was going, I found that the seller had cancelled the listing due to 'an error in the listing'. Ahh well, I guess this just means I'll have to look out for a better copy of it now :/

Had a scout around the web for either the Hawk Books or Titan reprints of Operation Saturn, the fourth Dan Dare serial. However they are all silly money, even the recent Titan book is racing past the £75 mark!
Oh well, maybe I'll get lucky with a charity shop, or unsold copy in a bookshop.

I made a really silly mistake and forgot to bid on a copy of the Dandy Book 1960. Nobody else bid on it either, so it would have been very cheap if I'd remembered!

[quote][/quote]Had a scout around the web for either the Hawk Books or Titan reprints of Operation Saturn, the fourth Dan Dare serial. However they are all silly money, even the recent Titan book is racing past the £75 mark!
Oh well, maybe I'll get lucky with a charity shop, or unsold copy in a bookshop.

I have found the same problem getting hold of that story arc, anyone know why?

Maybe people were collecting the Titan series "as it went along", and the publication of the two parts coincided with the start of the recession, so they either printed fewer copies, or people put off buying it. Then possibly all snapped them up later when things improved a little. So the poor people who had to wait longer for that improvement have all "stalled" at Marooned on Mercury, and now the demand for Operation Saturn is greater than the supply (or at least, the suppliers are charging silly money so the demanders are just not reading it!)