By various anonymous and Peter Sutherland (Retro Classics/DC Thomson)
No ISBN, digital only edition
If you grew up British any time after 1960 and read our comics you probably cast your eye occasionally – if not indeed fanatically – over DC Thompson’s venerable “Boys’ Paper” The Victor. For over 100 years the Dundee-based company has been a mainstay of British reading entertainment with its strong editorial stance informing and influencing a huge number of household names over the decades.
Post-WWII, Victor was very much the company’s flagship title for action/adventure and featured amongst its grittily realistic pantheon of stars a perpetually grimy, soot-stained, incorrigibly working-class young(ish) sportsman called Alf Tupper; forever immortalised as The Tough of the Track. Gathered here is a clever compilation of early episodes from a sublimely never-ending soap opera story (sampled from the 1960s, illustrated by Peter [Mike Fink, Spy 13, Kit Carson, Battler Britton, Super Detective Library, Cowboy Comics Library, Thriller Picture Library] Sutherland) commemorating the unique DC Thomson comics experience and offering a splendid taste of the Running Man’s gritty charms.
The main tenet of Thomson adventure philosophy was a traditional, humanistic sense of decency. Talented, determined distance runner Tupper might be a poor, rough, ill-educated working-class orphan competing – we’d call it “punching up” – in a world of hostile “Toffee-Nosed Swells”, but he strives tirelessly and excels for the sheer reward of sportsmanship, not for gain or glory.
He’s the kind of man most decent folk used to want their kids to grow up into…
Friendly, helpful, short-tempered but big-hearted (and looking a little like everyman Norman Wisdom), Alf was actually created by in 1949 by Bill Blaine before featuring in a non-stop series of prose stories in “Boys Story-Paper” The Rover. The majority of those exploits were written by Gilbert Lawford Dalton with single illustrations by Len Fullerton, Ian McKay, Fred Sturrock, Jack Gordon, George Ramsbottom, Calder Jamieson and James “Peem” Walker.
As the 1950s ended the publisher was finally accepting that their readers no longer wanted all-prose periodicals, and comic strips were the way to go. Alf was retooled as just such a pictorial headliner, transferring to The Victor where he persevered if not prospered, carrying on until the title folded. His last 20th century appearance was in 1992 for The Sunday Post: training for the impending Barcelona Olympics. However, his spirit truly was indomitable and in April 2014 Tupper came out of enforced retirement, to begin a monthly page-per-issue strip in monthly international magazine Athletics Weekly…
Vulgar but decent, rowdy, earthy, barely-educated and perpetually sticking it to all those posh boys monopolising athletics, Alf was a proudly individualistic sportsman and one of the greatest natural distance runners who ever lived. He fought prejudice, discrimination, poverty and especially privilege to win races, medals and accolades. When he wasn’t training, competing or eating fish & chips (his secret weapon for success), the comic strip Alf was a welder in the northern industrial town of Greystone, originally apprenticed to shifty, shiftless Ike Smith before eventually setting up in business for himself.
Tupper was all about determination overcoming ill-fortune, adversity and even enemy action… and he just hated to be beaten. When he occasionally was, he didn’t dwell on excuses, but resolved to win the rematch…
Our True Brit sporting legend apparently had a big influence on the development of many of our actual sporting greats, such as Brendan Foster CBE, and the reason why can be seen in this carefully edited compilation of weekly episodes beginning with a race for the Greystone Harriers that ends in a fist fight with a fellow runner and Alf being kicked off the team and out of the club…
Barred from competing, Alf races along the verge of the track and beats them all…
As an apprentice welder, Alf spent lots of time in sports venues that were being refurbished and helped himself to empty tracks and unused facilities, gradually being noticed by coaches and selectors. However, every attempt to integrate him with the country’s top athletes ended in some smug elitist saying the wrong thing or even sabotaging the uppity oik; with Alf paying a working man’s penalty for it…
Further complicating Tupper’s life was his exploitative Aunty Meg, who controlled his wages, pawned his kit and prizes and generally gaslit him until he finally ran away from home – or rather the shed she rented to him…
In this brief collection, Alf’s career slowly progresses, comprising many clashes with the Greystone running elite, an on-off relationship with Olympic sporting academy Granton Hall, shoes and kit crises, high profile competitions in London, France, Belgium and beyond, hitchhiking troubles, clashes with the law and brushes with gamblers and race fixers, and dalliances with different distances and even other disciplines such as hurdles, long jump, 4X4 relay and steeplechase …and plenty of “boxing” too.
His biggest battle was against a top sports dietician who banned fish & chips and made him eat salads…
Wry and full of olde-worlde pluck, this seasoned sporting sampler is a wonderfully accessible slice of truly British nostalgia and a certain delight for every fan of classic competition and great comics.
VICTOR™ & © D.C. Thomson & Co. Associated text, characters and artwork © D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.