Leopard of Lime Street Fun…

By John Freeman on October 12, 2009

A few years ago, UK indie publisher Starscape, run by Chris Smillie, licensed some of Buster‘s Leopard of Lime Street strips from Egmont.

“I made an ad for Starscape by using some images, making an animated comic,” says Chris, which he’s now re-posted on YouTube.

Leopard of Lime Street was a hugely popular strip in the 1970s and 80s, appearing in the weekly Buster comic, soon to get Egmont’s “Classic Comic” treatment with a special due for release in December. In the strip a schoolboy photographer is bitten by a radioactive leopard and develops the powers of a fuly-grown jungle cat.

Sound familiar? The strip was, however, a lot more more juvenile than Marvel’s Spider-Man: stories generally saw the Beast of Selbridge battle giant robots, common thugs and dopplegangers, plus his evil uncle, whilst all the time trying to contain his vicious leopard-like nature.

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John Freeman

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.