Commando Cover Prelims – Aerial Warfare

By Jeremy Briggs on June 3, 2013

The Commando team, as well as managing to publish 104 issues of the comic each year, have been using the official Commando Comics Facebook page to give some behind the scenes info on their titles. This includes some of the preliminary sketches for their covers.

Writer Mac MacDonald covers a wide range of war themes for Commando but these two issues both featured aerial warfare and were assigned to artist Carlos Pino who provided both the internal B&W line art and the colour covers. The first image featured here shows how the title of a given issue of Commando can change even at the last moment as Issue 4584 started off as “Pilot In Peril” before becoming “American Ace”.

Issue 4584 American Ace

He stepped off a US freighter in Liverpool and walked straight to the nearest RAF recruiting office to join up. A natural pilot, he was at the controls of a British fighter in no time. As his score of victories mounted in the summer of 1940, his fellow pilots never dreamed he carried a secret – one that, if discovered, could be his death warrant!
Free preview of American Ace

Issue 4599 Operation Nachthexen
The German forces that invaded the Soviet Union had much to fear once the Russians' fightback got into its stride. For the Russians are fearsome warriors when roused. What the Germans feared more than anything was the night. For that was when the Nachthexen – the night witches – flew. Because, you see, when the Nachthexen flew, they carried death on their wings.
Free preview of Operation Nachthexen

• There are more details of Commando titles on their official website, www.commandocomics.com, and Facebook page.

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Jeremy Briggs

News, reviews, interviews and features for print and on-line: Spaceship Away (since October 2005), Bear Alley (since February 2007), downthetubes (since June 2007), and Eagle Times (since October 2008). Plus DC Thomson’s The Art Of Ian Kennedy, Titan’s Dan Dare and Johnny Red reprints, Ilex’s War Comics: A Graphic History and 500 Essential Graphic Novels, and Print Media’s The Iron Moon and Strip magazine.