Come On Ye Reds!

By John Freeman on October 7, 2008

After all the Roy Of The Rovers books due out from Titan in time for Christmas, Vision Sports Publishing of London have jumped on the bandwagon and released two football related graphic novels to compete with all those books on Melchester Rovers.

Liverpool! and United! cover the history of the two big English football clubs in comic strip format, written and illustrated by former Roy Of The Rovers artist Bob Bond. The hardback books cover the period from the formation of the clubs through to the end of the 2007/2008 season in 56 pages of colour artwork and are priced at £9.99 each.

Based on Amazon UK’s current sales ranks Liverpool are well in the lead with Liverpool! at number 83,030 and United! at number 324,037.

Can Manchester pull back those Christmas sales before the full time whistle blows?

• Buy Liverpool! The Comic Strip History of Liverpool FC from amazon.co.uk
• Buy United! The Comic Strip History of Manchester United from amazon.co.uk

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.