Lost comic strips/adventures.

[VictorHornet]

I was listening to a Radio 4 programme about fans tracking down lost episodes of Dr. Who programmes. And that led me to thinking about lost comic strips and weekly stories being scripted/drawn, but for one reason or another, never being published.

I assume there must be some? Just think, a fan believes that there are twelve weekly episodes of their particular favourite series, but in fact one adventure was never published and is hidden away somewhere! It's noticeable in Thomson comics that a series would 'finish' in order allow for a 'push' and then the remaining adventures in that particular series would appear later either in the annual or a future comic. So maybe Thomson's, Fleetway and other publishers have some stories hidden away somewhere.

Are there collectors out there tracking down lost comic series and weekly stories? If so, has anyone tracked any down? Is there one series and/or missing story (the Holy Grail if you like), that these collectors would dearly love to rediscover?

Thank you.
Snowed in and frozen in the North.

[Lew Stringer]

For decades publishers (particularly Thomsons) would commission strips well in advance and always have some in the "inventory" drawer to use at a later date or in emergency as filler. (Not to mean the strips were lower standard filler of course, just that they didn't get used for various reasons.)

It doesn't happen so much today, although it does still happen occasionally.

Then there have been the numerous dummy issues of comics that never made it, - complete or partially complete issue No.1's prepared which were rejected by management or by poor focus group results. There must be loads of these that would make a fascinating article in themselves. Here's a few I know of:

Potty - offshoot of Oink! for younger readers. Died in the ideas stage. No strips actually commissioned for it.

Spitfire - A sixth Odhams "Power Comic" that was aborted when IPC took control in 1968. Strips drawn for it included a brand new Mike Higgs character, never published, and artwork long since destroyed.

Blackjack - Aborted late sixties Fleetway comic. I believe some strips made it into IPC's revamped Smash!

Spooky - Idea for a 1990s humour-horror comic (similar to Monster Fun) that Fleetway were considering in the 1990s. No strips commissioned as far as I know. It was partially going to be reprint anyway.

Oh No!! - Great new humour comic that had great focus group results but was aborted when Egmont took over Fleetway.

Glory Glory! - New football comic planned by Tundra (I think) but never published except for the dummy issue with a small circulation.

There have been many, many others. No idea where those dummy issues are now, but hopefully they're still in the corner of the offices somewhere.

Perhaps they were all published on some parallel Earth and we still have a healthy comics industry there.

Lew

[philcom55]

Three off the top of my head would be the Mirror Group's proposed rival to Eagle for which Frank Hampson prepared several unpublished strips in the early 1960s, Frank Bellamy's colour adaptation of King Solomon's Mines (from which at least two wonderful spreads survive) and Ron Turner's story "The Diamonds of Death", produced for a seventh issue of the legendary TitBits Science Fiction Comic but only ever published in a French edition. No doubt there are countless other examples, known and unknown (along with a considerable number hidden away in DC Thomson's vaults, just waiting to be catalogued by some future archivist lucky enough to be trusted with the key to the door). Similar discoveries on a smaller scale can be made by peeling back overlays on original artwork to find entire sequences from famous strips that never saw print.

- Phil Rushton

[Peter Gray]

I like the idea of Spooky..Buster and Monster Fun summer specials were my favourite Fleetway issue..

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2007/09 ... comic.html
Cracker is a mystery comic....

[STARBOY]

I heard Ken Reid was working on a strip for 2000AD (or a similar title) based on a survivor of an atomic attack. The character was mutated by radioactivity and each episode he would mutate (or had a "growth that mutated to try to kill him) into something (keeping the horror element of Kens work going) sounds wonderfully dark- I think it was called "The Dummy" but never got approved I think a few episodes were drawn for this - .............or was I dreaming this all up? I have one of the copies of the "OH NO!" comic, pretty funny - liked the idea of SPITEFIRE (being an Odhams fan)

[felneymike]

A few Sexton Blakes are known to have never made print: http://www.sextonblake.co.uk/blakebibli ... ished.html

[AndyB]

For decades publishers (particularly Thomsons) would commission strips well in advance and always have some in the "inventory" drawer to use at a later date or in emergency as filler. (Not to mean the strips were lower standard filler of course, just that they didn't get used for various reasons.)

It doesn't happen so much today, although it does still happen occasionally.

... like the content of the cancelled last Beezer Annual, much of which has been used in Beano Max, the Beano, and the Dandy

[Digifiend]

Yes, among the contents of the cancelled Beezer Annual 2004 is the Banana Bunch strip which appeared in the 2005 Dandy Annual. One Bea the Mini-Menace strip in the weekly Beano at around that time seemed very out of character, involving Cruncher Kerr - I'm pretty sure this was a Little Mo script.

[VictorHornet]

Thank you one and all for your replies. It's always a surprise to me how much I don't know about British comics and the industry in general.

A new comic museum opened in France last autumn and the director in a newspaper review mentioned that he couldn't understand why the British Comic industry went into decline. (Comics apparently are big business in France. I have seen some French titles appearing in my local comics shop, but it is noticeable that the French stick to their own comics industry).

British comic readers do like comics just not ours. We seem to be dominated by the American publishers. But on the other hand British writers and artists working for American publishers have gone on to produce ground breaking stories and in turn have influenced and dominated the American comics scene.

Also, today the comics industry is very much an international affair. You can pick up an American published comic written by for example, a Brit and drawn by a Spaniard. Which I think is rather good.

So at least its not all bad news.