Comics UK

Just doing a bit of research and hoping I may probe the comic super-minds of the forum. I'm pondering classic UK comic strips (not story paper material) which were strongly centred around weather.

The obvious things I've come up with are Cor!!'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"), Beano's The Great Flood of London, Buster's The Frozen Summer - reprinted as Valiant's When Britain Froze, the I Spy strips featuring Mr Tempest and Dr. Deluge, the weather-controlling baddies, and Sparky's family-in-an-ark-epic The Floating Farrells (was a page from this ever posted on that fantastic 'The Sparky File January 1965 - January 1969 thread? I don't think so; I'm not sure I've actually seen this, but it sounds good), and then wasn't the later The Jungle Ark a similar concept?

There were also, of course, some good individual one-offs reflecting the seasons - Sid using Slippy Snake as a toboggan through the snow, etc. - but am I missing any weather-based strips from the old weeklies?

* EDITED to correct the comic Sonny storm was in.

The weatherman from Bananaman..

Peter Gray wrote:The weatherman from Bananaman..

Oh, yes!

Mind you, I'm more after strips where weather was a part of the central concept.

I don't think this is quite what you're looking for, but in the early Calamity James strips in 1980s Beanos, James usually had a cloud above his head (to symbolise his bad luck). It was used as a plot point in some stories, such as one I've seen where it wrecks his attempts to play various games, as well as in the Henry Davies sample strip shown in The History of the Beano.

Not really because, as you say, it's a symbol of gloom rather than yer actual weather.

I may have come up with them all - though I'm expecting Phoenix to pull at least fifteen long-forgotten classics from Victor and Hotspur out of his sleeve ...

I hope to do a strip set in the great storm of '87 one day... but that'll be a while yet!

A very good and timely idea for a thread, Raven: last week, my world was turned upside-down due to freak weather conditions!

I don't think I added imagery of the Floating Farrels onto the site: Alan Smith [Aluntron] is your best bet on this score--I bet he's familiar with this story. Glad to see you are aware of the late 1969 I SPY Mr Tempest story [he also reappeared in a cameo villain role in early summer 1970]: did you find this out through the original Sparky comics?



One of the best weather-related weather stories I read was a 1984 JUDGE DREDD two-parter about a Mega-city warped genius who unleashes a symphony of Terror onto hapless onlookers at a Hollywood Bowl-styled event: very spectacular and quirky, that one.

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:A very good and timely idea for a thread, Raven: last week, my world was turned upside-down due to freak weather conditions!

Eep! What happened?

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:I don't think I added imagery of the Floating Farrels onto the site: Alan Smith [Aluntron] is your best bet on this score--I bet he's familiar with this story. Glad to see you are aware of the late 1969 I SPY Mr Tempest story [he also reappeared in a cameo villain role in early summer 1970]: did you find this out through the original Sparky comics?

No, I read about it on that Sparky 1965-69 thread, which was such a revelation about those enigmatic early Sparky adventure serials. I'm not sure if I've actually seen any full I Spy strips featuring those weather villains, though I recall at least a panel appearing on that thread!

The earliest Sparky I have is August 15th 1970, and I don't think I Spy appears. The first Sparkys I'd have read as a kid would have been a bit later on than that, with I Spy in colour in the centre pages.

Don't forget the Phantom Viking who was doomed to lose his super powers 'when the wind from the South doth blow' - something that could be particularly awkward if he was flying at the time!

- Phil Rushton

I'm trying to remember the name of the strip (from the Victor) when snowball robots (I kid you not) tried to take over the world by freezing it for their masters. Drawn by Philpott, I believe, but I am beggared if I can remember the name of it. The artic weather robots were defeated by the means of sonic waves.

Snowball robots?! Now this sounds good! But ... but ... how can a robot be made of snow, etc.?

Raven wrote:Snowball robots?! Now this sounds good! But ... but ... how can a robot be made of snow, etc.?

Does not compute, I know, but it is brilliant madness! 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. And then there is the villain that can whip up a storm at sea at will via his Tornado machine. Beautifully lush art by Matias Alonso. That was in the 1970's and was reprinted in the 1980's.

I am sure that there are more weather weirdness in the DCT stories. But for now, that should keep you going.

Raven wrote:I'm expecting Phoenix to pull at least fifteen long-forgotten classics from Victor and Hotspur out of his sleeve ...

I doubt whether there are that many, Raven. In fact, the only one I could think of offhand was The Purple Comet Passed This Way, which appeared in The Hornet in the early weeks of 1968 but, when I checked it out, I realised that the serial was in text form. I'll have a look up my sleeve over the weekend.

colcool007 wrote:

Raven wrote:Snowball robots?! Now this sounds good! But ... but ... how can a robot be made of snow, etc.?

Does not compute, I know, but it is brilliant madness! 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. And then there is the villain that can whip up a storm at sea at will via his Tornado machine. Beautifully lush art by Matias Alonso. That was in the 1970's and was reprinted in the 1980's.

I am sure that there are more weather weirdness in the DCT stories. But for now, that should keep you going.

Thanks for those. (If anyone has any more precise issue numbering, or - thrillingly - an image or two ... especially of the snow robots ... do please pipe up!)

Phoenix wrote: I doubt whether there are that many, Raven. In fact, the only one I could think of offhand was The Purple Comet Passed This Way, which appeared in The Hornet in the early weeks of 1968 but, when I checked it out, I realised that the serial was in text form. I'll have a look up my sleeve over the weekend.

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