Comics UK

As most of us old fogies know, one of the selling points of the Victor was that the front and back cover were true stories of heroism. Now those of us that collect the Victor may (or may not! ) be interested in the fact that I am trying to create a database of all 1400 of these covers! I have managed to catalogue about 400 plus of these stories, but still have quite a way to go!

Now, short of robbing DCT archives, this will be down to us remaining fans putting in a bit of time and effort and synopsising the stories ourselves. Any volunteers for a bit of work?

The rewards for creating this database have been helping Nicholas Alkemade convince his grandson that Grandad did really fall 20,000 ft without a parachute as the kid thought Grandad was pulling his leg and have helped the grand-nephew of Johnny Harper present his great-aunt a copy of the Victor cover that showed how Johnny won his VC.

That attached file contains 544 entries. Is that the same file?

Rod,
It's the same one. Will have to download it again as I had managed to get it down to only 29 titles missing and some 800 plus synopsis to go, but PC fell over and have had to do a bit of reverse engineering.

Current status is 562 synopsis completed with 838 to go and 696 titles completed (from the first 765 that had titles) with 69 to go.

Getting there, but may have to contact DCT for some of the harder to find issues.

Latest update for anybody that's interested. Have now indexed 595 stories and only have 7 story titles to find. If you have a copy of the following issues, a scan of the front and back cover would be fantastic, but even a short note to say that the title was XXX would be just as good.

288, 390, 391, 504, 515, 641, 642

Will hit the 600 target tomorrow as I still have a few to index from my latest purchases. If anyone is interested in either getting a copy of the index or even helping with the index, then PM me.

Only problem is that I still have to do the same for the Hotpsur and Hornet cover stories!

Hi Col, If you still need details of some of the missing Victor cover stories just let me know and I'll supply you with details. I've got a lot of Victor stuff catalogued as one of these fine days I still hope to produce that Victor index.

Kashgar wrote:Hi Col, If you still need details of some of the missing Victor cover stories just let me know and I'll supply you with details. I've got a lot of Victor stuff catalogued as one of these fine days I still hope to produce that Victor index.

Kash, just finished cataloguing the comics that I have here and now have 795 issues to catalogue/find! If you can help by supplying the title to each of the 7 issues that I mentioned earlier.

288, 390, 391, 504, 515, 641, 642

then that would be a big help.

If you PM me, I can email a copy of the Excel spreadsheet to you and you can fill in blanks to your heart's content!

Hi Col, Missing Victor titles areas follows -
288. Bridgehead across the Rhine
390. Seek the Scarlet Circle
391. Flying Colours
504. One got through!
515. The Fire-Eater
641. The trick that didn't work!
642. The Lone Avenger
Hope this helps.

Kashgar wrote:Hi Col, Missing Victor titles areas follows -
288. Bridgehead across the Rhine
390. Seek the Scarlet Circle
391. Flying Colours
504. One got through!
515. The Fire-Eater
641. The trick that didn't work!
642. The Lone Avenger
Hope this helps.

Helps? Helps the man says. *Does The Dance of Comic Completeness* Kashgar, thanks, that has been a big help.

I now have all 765 covers from issue 1 to 765 with all their titles. Only taken 18 months to get there, but it has been worth it! Now to fill in all 795 comics where I don't have the comic or scans of the cover pages! Fingers crossed that won't take another 18 years as I pick up each copy.

Haven't done much on this project as I haven't had the money to buy any Victors until recently. But have eventually managed to square away my finances and managed to get hold of a nice 5 year (with gaps) run through Ebay from 81 to 86 and will be using that to update the project.

Now to the meat of this post, I have spoken to D C Thomson to find out if there was a criteria as to why stories were picked to be illustrated, but the current and long serving staff don't know why stories were picked and others ignored. (my source is a certain editor of a 68 page magazine that publishes 96 issues a year)

Now my pet theory is that the stories that were featured were the stories that they had reported on in The Sunday Post, The Courier etc as they were the ones that they had most detail available on. Now can anyone out here in ComicsUK land come up with a definitive answer or have a better alternative theory. (Kash, Lew, Shaqui I'm depending on you three )

Colin,I have a couple of Victors lying around.Which ones are you missing?

Let me know the issue numbers and then I can check against my master list. Let's see if I can catch up with Reker in his quest to complete a Victor collection!

1177,1179,1180 and 1181.

Interesting question Col. I think the answer is that they used reference books rather than trawling through their newspaper files though. In fact by the time Victor came along they even had a fair amount of single page features on various war heroes culled from their boy's papers Wizard, Rover etc they could use for reference and then adapt accordingly.

Did they ever cover the cricket commentator Brian Johnston?s MC? If so anyone got any details?

Kashgar wrote:Interesting question Col. I think the answer is that they used reference books rather than trawling through their newspaper files though. In fact by the time Victor came along they even had a fair amount of single page features on various war heroes culled from their boy's papers Wizard, Rover etc they could use for reference and then adapt accordingly.

That's not a bad alternative theory considering all the reference stuff that they have in the Commando office, but would love to have it confirmed. Would you care to cast an eye over the article that I am doing for Crikey and see if I have made any obvious goofs on this subject. I have tried to make it a more serious piece with physical proof rather than just 'Do you remember...' articles.

grumpy old man wrote:Did they ever cover the cricket commentator Brian Johnston?s MC? If so anyone got any details?

Haven't come across it yet, but they [Victor staff] seemed to shy away from using famous people, best bet would be to trawl through Hornet covers or the biographies that they did of famous people. The Ken Dodd one was interesting to say the least! Another comic did 2 page bios of famous sports people but the name escapes me at this moment.

Currently at 660 covers done only 740 to go! Plus have still got a pile of over 100 Victors to work through so should break the half way mark this week.