Quite by chance, we’ve just discovered former DC Thomson comics editor Bill Graham has written a series of detective novels since leaving the company in 2010.
Bill was born and raised in Dundee and worked for BEANO and Commando publisher DC Thomson for more than 46 years, 34 of them spent as an editor in the Children’s Publications Department … otherwise known as the Comics.
Among his many credits, he was editor of the mould-breaking Warlord, as well as Crunch, Buddy, Spike and Champ, between 1977 and 1985, and, from 1986, editor of the new Football Picture Story monthlies. Soon after that, he became editor of a group of monthlies, which included Starblazer and Star Romance.
Jeremy Briggs interviewed Bill about his comics career for downthetubes back in 2008.
When Bill took early retirement, he made the fatal error of telling his family he was going to write a book. After six years of waiting, they clubbed together to buy him an iPad and told him to get on with it.
As an avid reader of American crime fiction, there was only one kind of book he wanted to write.
The result was the first appearance of Dundee private detective Allan Linton in William’s first novel, Vermin, written as William A. Graham with investigative journalist Reg McKay, published by Black & White Publishing, one of Scotland’s leading publishers, in 2018.
Meet Allan Linton … a detective with a difference.
It’s not exactly L.A. But dead bodies are the same wherever they turn up.
Allan Linton became a private detective by pure chance. He may not follow the rules, but he always gets the job done. Until he’s hired to track down a missing girl.
All he’s got to go on is an old photo and the help – and hindrance – of the city’s biggest drug dealer and his eccentric associate Niddrie.
Linton’s investigation yields no trace of Tina Lamont. He’s ready to throw in the towel – after all, some people want to be missing. But when a dead body turns up in London, it’s clear there’s something sinister going on. And now others are on Tina’s trail …
Tina ran away for a reason – and that reason will stop at nothing to find her.
Linton and his enigmatic associate Niddrie returned in Blood On The Law, published by A & I Publishing, in 2019.
Two kilos of pure cocaine … that’s what the police found hidden in Michael Grant’s car. Worth about two million on the street and it’s going to cost Michael ten years in jail unless private detective Allan Linton can prove he was framed.
The cops are convinced that Michael is guilty. Even his own lawyer doesn’t believe he’s innocent. And there are others who have their own reasons for seeing Michael behind bars … and they will stop at nothing to prevent Allan and his associate, Niddrie, getting to the truth.
In 2022, Bill said he had completed the third book in the series and hoped to publish it soon.
Planning Ahead: The Origins of Warlord
Correspondence discovered in the Bardon Agency archives reveals the long gestation period for DC Thomson’s Warlord, launched in September 1974, but in the planning for months earlier, as this correspondence between Bill Graham and Barry Coker of the Bardon Art Agency reveals…
“Why this 1974 letter from DC Thomson editor Bill Graham to Barry Coker of Bardon survived I don’t know, but it offers a little snapshot into the way agencies worked back in the heyday of British comics,” artist and comic archivist David Roach noted last year. “As you’ll see, Barry had delivered art for three strips: ‘Young Wolf’ by Felipe De La Rosa (which appeared in Warlord), ‘The Private War of Corporal Carter’ by Alfonso Font (which ran in Hotspur or Hornet perhaps?) and ‘The Khan’s Man’ by Franc Fuentesman (for Victor).
“The letter also included reference photocopies of characters from a new strip, ‘Codename Warlord’ by Miguel Quesada, for one of Barry’s artists, probably Fuentesman. As you’ll see, these were the early stages of preparation for the launch of Warlord, still nine months away, but the other strips were nine months away too, showing that Thomson worked a really long way of ahead of publication. It’s also interesting that one editor was handling submissions for several different comics. Who knew then Warlord would go on to be such a ground-breaking comic? It was all starting here.”
Head downthetubes for…
• Jeremy Briggs interviewed Bill about his comics career for downthetubes back in 2008
• DC Thomson bids farewell to Bill Graham
• Calling All Warlord Agents! Happy 50th Anniversary!
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as 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: Books, British Comics, British Comics - Current British Publishers, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Other Worlds
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The main reason for working so far ahead was the 3-day week, caused by the miners strike of 1973. Warlord launch was all set to go but had to be postponed.
Interesting. You were working there at the time, am I correct? What was the usual turnaround for developing comic titles at DCT at that time, outside of the impacts of strikes?
For example, you could argue 2000AD was in the planning stage for fourteen months, given Kelvin Gosnell read an article in the London Evening Standard in December 1975 about a wave of forthcoming science fiction films, and suggested that IPC might get on the bandwagon by launching a science fiction comic; but then again, how much of that 14 months was actual development after the idea was greenlit by John Sanders…