By Hugo Pratt, Fred Baker, Donne Avenell, Alf Wallace, E. Evans, W. Howard Baker, with Allan Harvey & various (Rebellion Studios/Treasury of British Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-83786-199-6 (HB/Digital Edition)
This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.
Born in Rimini, Ugo Eugenio Prat, AKA Hugo Pratt (June 15th 1927 – August 20th 1995) spent his early life wandering the world, in the process becoming one of its paramount comics creators. From the start his enthralling graphic inventions like initial hit Ace of Spades (in 1945, whilst still studying at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts) were many and varied. His signature character – based in large part on his exotic formative years – is mercurial soldier/sailor) of fortune Corto Maltese.
Pratt was a consummate storyteller with a unique voice and a stark expressionistic graphic style that should not work, but so wonderfully does: combining pared-down, relentlessly modernistic narrative style with memorable characters, always complex whilst bordering on the archetypical. After working in Argentinean and – from 1959 – English comics like UK top gun Battler Briton, and on combat stories for extremely popular digest novels in assorted series such as War Picture Library, Battle Picture Library, War at Sea Picture Library and more – Pratt settled in Italy, and later France. In 1967, with Florenzo Ivaldi, he produced a number of series for monthly comic Sgt. Kirk.
In addition to the Western lead feature, he also created pirate feature Capitan Cormorand, detective feature Lucky Star O’Hara, and moody South Seas saga Una Ballata del Mare Salato (A Ballad of the Salty Sea). When that gig ended in 1970, Pratt remodelled one of Una Ballata’s characters for French weekly Pif Gadget before eventually settling in with the new guy at legendary Belgian periodical Le Journal de Tintin. Corto Maltese proved as much a Wild Rover in reality as in his historic and eventful career…
In Britain, Pratt found richly adventurous pickings in our ubiquitous mini-comic books such as Super Picture Library, Air Ace Picture Library, Action Picture Library and Thriller Picture Library: half-sized, 64-page monochrome booklets with glossy soft paper covers containing lengthy complete stories of 1-3 panels per page. These were regularly recycled and reformatted, but the stories gathered here – from War Picture Library #50, 40, 58 & 92 – have only appeared once… until now…
Whilst we’re being all factual and ethical, it’s only fair and honest to state here that all these lost graphic classics have been restored by our own Allan Harvey, so if you can find him feel free to gift him with a cup of tea and a ship’s biscuit or two…
Resurrected & repackaged by Rebellion Studios for their Treasury of British Comics imprint, the quartet of gritty, no-nonsense war dramas of men against the enemy and their own flawed natures begins with eponymous oceanic saga The Crimson Sea, published in May 1960 in WPL #50. Scripted by editorial assistant Fred Baker to match tone & timbre of contemporary war films – back when he still freelanced on the side before becoming manager of Fleetway’s romance comics division – this terse taut odyssey of error and redemption is a drama-drenched family tale of brothers serving aboard the same convoy escort ship.
Baker’s writing credits include Martin’s Marvellous Mini, Skid Solo, Tommy’s Troubles, His Sporting Lordship, Skid Kids, Hot-Shot Hamish and much more for weekly titles including Lion, Tiger, Buster, Hurricane, Thunder, Valiant, New Eagle, Scorcher, Chips, Radio Fun, Film Fun, Valentine and Roy of the Rovers). Fred Baker died on 4th June 2008.
When HMS Grapnel is holed in 1942, younger sibling and junior ship’s telegrapher & W/T officer Peter Wayman is severely traumatised after being ordered – and expected – to remain at his post deep in the Destroyer’s bowels as it slowly sinks.
Lieutenant Dave Wayman is with him, secretly carrying out his panic-stricken younger brother’s duties until the end. After both are miraculously rescued, Peter descends into a spiral of guilt-fuelled self-loathing. Even though Dave does everything to help, all the younger son sees is shame and disgusting pity: forces that dog him over the following months whilst he retrains as a Landing Craft pilot, and exacerbated by big brother solicitously transferring along with him to “look after him”. Inevitably the war forces Peter to relive his worst moment, but it also gives him a chance to redeem himself in his own eyes… and he takes it…
Grittily authentic, the spectacle and scale of sea battles and harbour raids is perfectly balanced with dark passion and human frailty, and even though the yarn provides a plot twist happy ending (this is for kids, remember?) The Crimson Sea is a worthy match for any 1960s movie – especially with Hugo Pratt “art directing” at his peak…
Air war grips us for the next tale in this bumper compilation as E. Evans & Alf Wallace co-write the exploits of a displaced Australian bush pilot in ‘Pathfinder’: a tale of frustration, prejudice, battle fatigue and ultimate triumph first seen in February 1960’s WPL #40.
During the 1960s Alfred “Alf” Wallace was Managing Editor of Odhams and part of the triumvirate – with Bob “Bart” Bartholemew & Albert “Cos” Cosser – who brought Marvel Comics to Britain in the Short-lived Power Comics imprint. He apparently didn’t write much, but when he did, the results (like immortal classic The Missing Link/Johnny Future) were unmissable. Sadly, I can offer even less about his collaborator Evans here. Perhaps one day…
Commercial pilot Henri le Jeune despised Japan’s sneaky tactics at Pearl Harbor and Manila and swiftly enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force to make them pay. Sadly, his gifts were too valuable to a global war effort and he was posted to Britain, firstly as a fighter pilot and – after much unpleasantness – to Bomber Command. Boisterous, ill-disciplined and arrogant, this squarest of pegs in a succession of extremely round holes was also ridiculously unlucky, caught up in friendly fire incidents and constant squabbles with superior officers. This led to frequent Boards of Enquiry, where he was generally vindicated but somehow always remained shunned and popularly vilified…
It eventually led to Le Jeune flying Lancasters, but also into conflict with a CO who had flown too many missions and was falling apart on the job, ending in vindication of a sort following a calamitous night raid on the factories of Essen…
Author and journalist Arthur Atwill William “Bill” Baker was born in Cork on October 3rd 1925, not long after the partition and foundation of the nation of Ireland. He fought for Great Britain in WWII and, after becoming a globetrotting freelance foreign correspondent in the immediate aftermath, eventually settled in London. He became an editor for Panther Books, and wrote many Sexton Blake novels before becoming the franchise editor in 1955. As the Controlling Group Editor at Fleetway, he launched the Air Ace Picture Library line whilst continuing to write content and full stories for War Picture Library.
In 1963, when Fleetway axed Sexton Blake, Baker acquired all rights and continued the series as independent publisher Howard Baker Books until 1969, and whilst writing genre novels under many pen names, also embarked on the massive task of reprinting the entire run of classic boys story-paper The Magnet (home of Billy Bunter). He died just short of his goal in 1991, having published 1520 of the 1683 issues in hardback collections.
His script for WPL #58 (July 1960) provides rollicking, relatively uncomplicated action as ‘Up the Marines!’ follows Royal Marine Commandos on various lethal and perilous missions, employing kayaking skills and deadly combat training to harry German shipping and shore-bases behind enemy lines, and concentrates on veteran RMC Sergeant Alan Swift, who loses a comrade – and subsequently his nerve and initiative – on a raid. Highly decorated but plagued by what we now know as PTSD, Swift’s career is saved when the fallen hero’s younger brother Teddy joins his unit just in time to play a crucial role in the D-Day landings…
Final mission ‘Dark Judgment’ premiered in War Picture Library #92 (April 1961), written by Donne Avenell, who began his strips career in Amalgamated Press’ editorial department, long before it evolved into Fleetway and ultimately IPC. Avenell’s first tales were for household name Radio Fun but briefly paused whilst he participated in WWII. Born in Croydon in 1925, Avenell served with the Royal Navy, before resuming publishing: editing an AP architectural magazine whilst pursuing writing for radio dramas and romances under many pseudonyms. By the 1950s, he was back in comics on top titles including War Picture Library and Lion; scribing sagas of The Spider, Adam Eterno, Phantom Viking, Oddball Oates and more. Avenell co-wrote major international features like Buffalo Bill, Helgonet (The Saint) and Lee Falk’s The Phantom for Swedish publisher Semic and devised the Django and Angel strip, whilst toiling on assorted licensed Disney strips. In 1975, with Norman Worker, he co-wrote Nigeria’s Powerman comic which helped launch the careers of Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons. Avenell was equally at home on newspaper strips such as Axa (1978-1986, drawn by Enrique Romero); Tiffany Jones and John M. Burns’ Eartha whilst also working in television, on shows like The Saint plus their subsequent novelisations. He died in 1996.
Here, the setting is Nazi-occupied Greece in 1942 where ancient themes of suspicion and mistrust grip members of the Special Boat Section after they pick up two escaped POWs who have swum away from a prison camp on Rhodes. Able Seaman Sam Turner is stolidly ordinary and dependable, but his fellow fugitive – Richard Hasler, Lieutenant, R.N.V.R. – is decidedly odd. Some of the rescue crew have even heard him speaking German…
As the SBS officers probe the escapees for useful intel on the camp or other potential high value targets, Lieutenant Tod Fielding and his superior Major Adam Perry form diametrically opposed views on Hasler and everything he has told them. Despite fear of espionage and betrayal rife the war must go on and dramatic proof – one way or the other – can only come after the roving unit commits to a large and risky operation on Rhodes, with both Hasler and Turner employed as guides…
Dramatic and searingly tense if a little predictable, this yarn allows Pratt to make magic with his mastery of shadows and negative space with breathtaking effect.
Packed with powerful, exhilarating action and adventure and exactly what you’d expect from a kids’ comic crafted to sell in the heyday of UK war films commemorating a conflict their parents and relatives lived through, this is another bombastic artistic triumph equipped at the end with the original eye-catching painted covers: two by Giorgio De Gaspari (War Picture Library #40 and 58); one by Septimus E. Scott (WPL #50); plus War Picture Library #92’s team effort from “Creazioni D’Ami” as well the standard ads for other publications and creator biographies.
Potent, powerful, genre-blending and irresistibly cathartic, these are brilliant examples of the British Comics experience. If you are a connoisseur of graphic thrills and dramatic tension – utterly unmissable.
© 1960, 1961, 2024 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All rights reserved.