Thursday 30 March 2017

Comics: Vulcan

The format of Vulcan gives it a fair claim to the title of the the greatest British comic of all time, despite being a reprint book. Throughout the sixties especially IPC Fleetway had experimented with fantastical stories more in line with the American industry, albeit the majority employing a peculiarly British slant to the concept. However they never really muscled aside the war and football stories which made up the backbone if the weeklies and gradually moved out of print, defiant innings from 'Robot Archie' (effectively a mascot for Lion) and the Steel Claw (who got a sequel strip, 'Return of the Claw' in Valiant) notwithstanding. It took until the seventies for superheroes to take much of a grip in the UK, when Marvel set up a British division and launched the Mighty World of Marvel, soon followed by Spider-Man Weekly Comics, The Superheroes, The Titans and The Mighty Avengers as the industry briefly boomed. Fleetway took note and responded, merging their library of existing strips into a single fantasy/superhero title - the original Magnificent Seven being 'The Steel Claw', 'The Spider', 'The Trigan Empire', 'Kelly's Eye', 'Mytek the Mighty', 'Saber - King of the Jungle' and 'Robot Archie' - made up the arsenal of Vulcan, edited by Geoff Kemp.

'Mytek the Mighty', created as a full-colour strip by Eric Bradbury for Valiant in 1964, concerned the antics of the titular giant robot ape. The thing had been created by one Professor Arnold Boyce to dupe dangerous tribesmen who worshipped a giant ape but was promptly stolen by his dwarf assistant Gogra who took Mytek on a globe-trotting rampage, pursued by Boyce and gamekeeper Dick Mason. While the latter was the heroic lead it was the giant robot and its' insane operator that caught the imagination.

'The Spider' was similarly villain-orientated; originally created by Edward Cowan and artist Reg Bunn in 1965, the Lion serial followed the antics of a crimelord of mysterious origins with an array of gadgets as he kept one step ahead of the American police. The story was then taken over by Superman creator Jerry Siegel a year later, who had the character switch to catching criminals purely because he found it more entertaining, with his arrogance and spiky anti-authority personality kept largely intact.

'Saber, King of the Jungle' was a more conventional Tarzan rip-off, and had started in Tiger in 1967. His thick native companion Umbala was the butt of most of the jokes and usually in need of rescue and, despite some fine art from Joe Colquhon and then Denis McLoughlin it's the least satisfying of the Vulcan strips; it was given a rest at one point to give 'The House of Dolmann' a brief run-out but sadly returned.

There are still plenty of British men of the right age who get misty-eyed at the mention of 'The Trigan Empire'. Don Lawrence's lush art, fully painted, first graced Ranger in 1965 before the title merged with the educational Look & Learn, going on to provide many children with a few pages of relief among cutaway diagrams of volcanoes and histories of stevedores. An epic history of Elektron, a planet influenced by Roman mythology but daubed with technology, the story was actually still running in Vulcan's day but Mike Butterworth's scripts and the beautiful art of Lawrence and later partner Ron Embleton made reprints of the old strips welcome; a measure of the title's popularity can be taken by the issuing of collected editions in 1973 and 1978, long before trade paperbacks became a proper thing.

'The Steel Claw' was another strip drawn by Valiant, having been there since the launch of that particular blockbuster in 1962 alongside the likes of 'Captain Hurricane'. Conceived by Ken Bulmer, it told the story of Lewis Crandell, an embittered lab assistant since his employer, Doctor Barringer, had lopped off one of his hands in an accident. The metal hand then got electrified in a second accident and gave Crandell the power of invisibility when fully charged; instead of switching to working for someone who didn't do anything weird to his hand Crandell then went on a criminal rampage which took up the first arc with anti-hero antics until the protagonist saw sense at the end and decided to go straight. After three stories Tom Tully took over writing duties with Jesus Belasco remaining as artist and the Steel Claw went on to star in a long run, sometimes working as a secret agent for the British government and even infamously donning a superhero costume for about two months until sanity prevailed.

'Kelly's Eye' had started up in 1962 in Knockout (also the home of 'Thunderbolt Jaxon' for a time), detailing the adventures of Tim Kelly. On a trip to South America he picked up the Eye of Zoltec from a grateful native, a jewel that made him indestructible. Off he went adventuring and carried on after Knockout was folded into Valiant, mainly drawn by F Solano Lopez and later Tim Kerr and Selby Dollinson. And he still insisted on carrying the thing on a thin chain around his neck from where it would regularly get swiped or dropped.

'Robot Archie' was theoretically the oldest title roped in, having launched with the venerable Lion in 1952. George Cowan and Ted Kearon launched him initally as 'The Jungle Robot', the invention of Professor Ritchie. Along with human pals Ted (Ritchie's nephew) and Ken Dale. Initially the strip was a bit dry as the trio went around liberating treasures from Inca temples and the like while dealing with troublesome natives who liked their treasures in their own country but in the mid-sixties Archie himself was given a voice box and went around loudly telling everyone how awesome he was and the result was brilliant. A short while later some idiot gave the trio a time-travelling chess rook and they went around bothering people throughout history, allowing Archie to knock the shit out of woolly mammoths and Roman legionaries. The character also took off in Europe, especially in the Netherlands where Bert Bus took on the job of updating the art of some of the sixties strips with more contemporary designs for the comic Sjors; this mainly involved giving Ted and Ken porno moustaches and trying to make non-white characters look human. As this work was in full colour it was given the nod for Vulcan as the third of the colour strips, alongside 'Mytek the Mighty' and 'The Trigan Empire'.

As the run went on there were three substitutes brought into play; already mentioned, 'The House of Dolmann' concerned eccentric scientist and toymaker Eric Dolmann, who fought crime with a small army of specialist robotic puppets. From the pages of Valiant, this strip's advantage was that instead of being a serial each four-page story was self-contained, making it ideal to fill in any awkward gaps. Two others sneaked in towards the end; considering they're both football-based this was possibly in response to flagging sales. Originally from Scorcher and then a staple in Tiger, 'Billy's Boots' told the tale of Billy Dane, a mediocre footballer who found the boots of long-dead England ace Charles "Dead Shot" Keen in his grandmother's loft. When wearing them he became skillful; staples were Billy thinking to himself "Is this me or Dead Shot Keen?" whenever he did something right (spoiler: it was Dead Shot Keen, Billy was shit) and his ability to somehow get separated from the magical footwear the night before the big Regional Junior Semi-Final against some toff school who fielded 11 sneering bullies. 'Raven on the Wing' meanwhile only appeared once in the last issue, a Valiant strip about a gypsy footballer that wasn't especially racist. Throughout the run there was also the short comedy strip Sporty wherever there was an odd gap, detailed the amusing adventures of the athletically-inclined short-arse and lanky frenemy Sydney, who always tried to stitch Sporty up but instead, as the phrase goes, ended up coming a cropper.

The format choices made for Vulcan are among the most fascinating things about the title and a big factor in how collectible it has remained. Inexplicably Fleetway decided to make it more or less US format (it's about half a centimetre bigger each way, as anyone who's tried to bag an issue in a bag without much give can tell you) and printed it on better photo-gravure paper than the weeklies. And while each story was serialised still there were more instalments in each. If you've ever tried to collect old British strips the problems are two-fold - each issue of Lion or Valiant or whatever typically only contained 2-3 pages of each story, individuals are hard to find with any precision (preservation being nearly unheard of and the comics being susceptible to being thrown out with the newspapers) and due to the cheap newsprint stock used the chances are high that the pages in question will be ripped or faded. A Vulcan meanwhile is more likely to still be readable and typically reprinted the equivalent of 2-3 weeks of a story in one jolt.

The title launched in March 1975, initially just in Scotland. Published weekly with 16 of the 32 pages in colour and featuring minimal advertisements this was judged a success, and after 30 issues the title was set to be relaunched as a national. Rather than spiting the Scottish market the decision was made for the national run to start with different material and several serials in the Scottish edition received edited conclusions so the seven strips could all start with a new arc. While Vulcan's format was easier to preserve than its' weekly forbears the Scottish issues - colloquially known as 'Volume One' to those trying to sort out digital preservation and the like - are still incredibly rare. I've never owned one and have only ever been able to find scans of four.


The national title launched in September 1975 but sadly it looks like the Scottish market was somewhat misleading; the 'second' series of Vulcan only lasted for 28 weeks until February 1976. After that it was folded back into Valiant, at least partially. Continuing with its' idiosyncratic format conclusions to selected stories were briefly produced in a mini-comic attached the the centre staples of Valiant & Vulcan.


There were two other Vulcan-branded comics. A large-format Holiday Special contained complete adventures for the Steel Claw, Robot Archie and Saber, a text story for the Trigan Empire and more Dolmann, most of it likely drawn from existing annuals given the strips' short, self-contained nature. After cancellation Vulcan did have a single annual - unlike most of its' contemporaries this was a softback because Vulcan was weird. This again drew on existing short stories from annuals and the like rather than picking up any of the serials.

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