Lew Stringer’s Combat Colin is back – and digital anthology Aces Weekly has him, along with another Psycho Gran story for this volume too, by David Leach. Two smashing humour strips, and two more reasons, as if you needed any, to check in, subscribe, and read the stories as part of the pixel-perfect milestone Volume 50!
For those inexplicably bemused, Combat Colin is one of the UK’s longest-running independently created and owned humour characters, who has appeared in several comics, including several volumes of Aces Weekly, since he debuted in Marvel UK’s Action Force back in 1987.
Marvel UK acknowledged Lew”s rights to the character back in the early 1990s, ensuring the clumsy would-be commando, come aspiring hapless secret agent, has continued to cause mayhem long after his original home disappeared. A new collection is in the works, but publication has currently been delayed due to the pandemic.
“This is my first new Combat Colin story in five years,” says Lew, who’s also currently drawing strips for Doctor Who Magazine and BEANO, “but of course the character is even older than that!
“He’s my favourite, and most enduring, creation and I’m grateful to editor/publisher David Lloyd for inviting me to contribute a new story for this week’s issue.”
First published in the cult British kid’s comic Oink! back in 1986, a much-missed comic whose 35th anniversary took place just this week, Psycho Gran is another long-running independent comics character, the psychotically demented brain-child of cartoonist and comic book editor, David Leach – winner of Channel Four’s Come Dine With Me, editor and writer of the Wallace and Gromit newspaper strip and the Adventure Time comic magazine, and editor of Roman Dirge’s Lenore. David is also the co-creator of cult 1990’s strip “The Driver” for British comic Toxic!
Psycho Gran (or Psycho Besta as she’s known in Norway), who also features in “Dog Toffees”, a story for Week Six of this volume of Aces Weekly, is a five-foot high, mauve-haired, bespectacled, psychotic granny with a pan-dimensional, sentient handbag called Percy, a flying dog called Archie and a pathological loathing of rudeness. She puts the Old into Old Skool Kicking!
“While old comedy comic characters wither in the creaking care home of bad stewardship, David Leach’s old but un-withered, bad, batty, toothless, ruthless, fearless, frightening, horrible, hilarious, Psycho Gran marches on in her surgical stockings, getting stronger by the day,” enthuses Aces Weekly publisher David Lloyd, “Bless him!” –
Both new three-page adventures feature in the online anthology comic Aces Weekly Volume 50 No.7, available now, an issue that also includes a final episode, for now, of “Merlin & Hector” by Jok and Santullo; plus “Why Don’t You Love Me” by award-winning comic creator Paul Rainey; “Nothing Maybe Something” by Chris Geary; and “Living the Dream” by Fer Calvi.
Subscribing to Aces Weekly gives you access to other weekly issues in this volume, a milestone moment in the life of the digital anthology publication, created and published by David Lloyd.
(Do note that subscribing gives you access to the current and subsequent volumes, you need to buy back volumes separately, link below).
Alongside adventure strips such as “Police Blues” by Marcello Bondi and Davide Locuratolo, with art by Federico Zilli, this volume also includes strips by creators such as Mychailo Kazybrid, and Bambos Georgiou, who, like David Leach and Lew Stringer, “were among the first great Aces to pioneer our cause in our very first volume,” Lloyd notes in his introduction to the volume.
“Without those who believe in a good idea, all good ideas are nothing, so we here celebrate those great creators from the beginning of our existence who supported us in those early days, and without whom we would have nothing to be able to give you as you continue to support us in our existence!
“Stay with us, stay safe, and keep smiling with us as we keep going through all this crazy stuff that’s happening now! 50 is nothing if we can make it through all this stuff, right?
“See you soon again in Volume 51!”
• Aces Weekly costs just £7 for each seven-issue volume. Subscribe today!
• You can also buy previous volumes of Aces Weekly separately here
• Psycho Gran has her very own page on Facebook
• Buy Psycho Gran collections from AmazonUK
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.
Categories: British Comics, Digital Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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