Action and adventure
Action and adventure |
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Page 10 of 42 Inevitably, the subject of war was the main beneficiary of this strategy. It was a logical step for DC Thomson and IPC to launch lines devoted to the theme, since it had long been a mainstay for anthologies. As before, the Second World War was the focus. Particularly popular were: the pocket-size series Commando Library (DC Thomson, 1961); and War Picture Library and Battle Picture Library (both Amalgamated Press /IPC, 1958 and 1961 respectively), which established a formula of longer, often quite complex, stories, with above-average art (commonly by European artists). More specialist war tastes were catered to by Air Ace Picture Library (IPC, 1960) and War at Sea (IPC, 1962). All the war comics more or less continued to trade in plot lines that stereotyped Germans as Hitler-worshipping thugs, the Japanese as screeching sadists and the British as whiter-than-white warriors capable of beating off the most fearful odds (Dan Dares in uniform). This formula was never really challenged until the 1970s and the arrival of Battle (IPC, 1977), which featured more unorthodox material, such as 'Charley's War', which expressed the horror and fear of the trenches in the First World War through the eyes of a young working-class volunteer.  TV Century 21 (City, 1966), a title devoted solely to the puppet shows of Gerry Anderson. Art/script for 'Fireball XL5': Anon.  Tarzan (United Feature Syndicate, C1938). Art/script: Burne Hogarth. An American newspaper strip success that helped to establish adventure as a genre in that country. Crucially, it represented the marriage of pulp fiction and comics art. |