Strip dates given are those of their original appearance in the British newspaper the Daily Mirror, first compiled by Geoffrey Wren and Ann Holmes and updated by Ant Jones and Philip Harbottle. With thanks also to Lee Grice and Ron Tiner for some images featured in this section of downthetubes
See Also: Garth: An Introduction
• Garth – Strip Checklist – Part One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight (Reprints)
Garth
Writer: Don Freeman & Stephen Dowling
Artist: Stephen Dowling & John Allard
Published: 24th July 1943 – 11th March 1944 (B175 – C61)
Number of Episodes: 197
The opening Garth adventure was set in a mythical “Lost Horizon” type of world. Creator Steve Dowling was an admirer of Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, and its mysterious Far Eastern setting.
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Children of the Dawn
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling & John Allard
Published: 13th March 1944 – 5th August 1944 (C62 – C186)
Number of Episodes: 125
Garth’s balloon crashes in icy mountains, and he encounters an isolated race of cave people.
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
The Island Laboratory
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling & John Allard
Published: 7th August 1944 – 16th September 1944 (C187 – C222)
Number of Episodes: 36
With this story, the plotline develops into science fiction. Arrived at Lumiere’s island, Garth finds an ultra-modern scientific research centre, Dawn is dressed in modern clothing and continues her education – and her rivalry with Karen for Garth’s affections…
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
The Seven Ages of Garth
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling & John Allard
Published: 8th September 1944 – 20th January 1946 (C23 – E17)
Number of Episodes: 413
In this epic story, Garth is regressed back into seven former lives. Written during the exigencies of wartime, these fascinating stories are both frank and brutal.
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
The Saga of Garth
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling & John Allard
Published: 22nd January 1946 – 20th July 1946 (E18 – E171)
Number of Episodes: 154
In this last phase of his trance, Garth relives his earliest years in the present…
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
The Awakening of Garth
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling & Dick Hailstone
Published: 22nd July 1946 – 19th October 1946 (C172 – E249)
Number of Episodes: 78
Garth joins the Royal Navy, to fight the Nazis. His ship is sunk in the China Seas, and he abandons ship on a raft, eventually being washed up on a strange shore to be found by Gala…
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
The Quest of the G-Ray
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling & Dick Hailstone
Published: 21st October 1946 – 26th April 1947 (E250 – F99)
Number of Episodes: 159
British Intelligence tells Garth that a Russian scientist, Oscar Villani, has established a scientific citadel behind an energy barrier in a remote area of India…
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Garth Versus The Brain
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling and Dick Hailstone
Published: 28th April 1947 – 15th August 1947 (F100 – F194)
Number of Episodes: 95
Having wrested control of Villani’s citadel, Garth invites the formerly oppressed local people to occupy it. But as Villani died, the Brain had absorbed from his mind all his cunning and guile…
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Deep Waters
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling and Dick Hailstone
Published: 16th August 1947 – 24th January 1948 (F195 – G21)
Number of Episodes: 137
Scientists worldwide are researching the G-ray, following Lumiere’s discovery that it can be maintained with glaucosite, a mineral found only on the ocean floor, its purity increasing at greater depths. Glaucosite has been discovered off Crater Island in the Indian Ocean. Spurned by Garth, Karen elects to join her own government’s mission there. Soon afterwards Garth and Lumiere are similarly engaged by the British government.
En route with Dawn, their plane is attacked by another flyer and shot down over the ocean…
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Into the Abyss
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling and Dick Hailstone
Published: 26th January 1948 – 10th April 1948 (G22 – G86)
Number of Episodes: 65
Lumiere plans to salvage the gold by descending from the Research in a bathysphere, from which Garth can swim to the wreck and attach cables to the gold chests. Special apparatus will then draw both gold and Garth back to the bathysphere against the current.
Whilst these preparations are made outside the cave entrance, Von Grimm’s men have neared the cave by descending from the surface down a network of lava tunnels, to await Von Grimm’s arrival. He has fooled Garth by descending hidden steps inside the crater…
• Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Olympic Champion
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling and Dick Hailstone
Published: 12th April 1948 – 20th September 1948 (G87 – G225)
Number of Episodes: 139
Whilst working with Lumiere on Crater Island, Garth is invited at short notice to compete in the 1948 London Olympic Games. Lumiere offers to fly Garth in his new rocket plane, accompanied by Karen and Dawn. But the still experimental plane flies off course and crashes in a lake in a lost valley where a colony of Greeks have preserved their old way of life since the fourth century…
Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
The Wonder Women
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Stephen Dowling and John Allard
Published: 21st September 1948 – 8th February 1949 (G87 – G225)
Number of Episodes: 120
Being the last to bale out from their sabotaged aircraft, Garth is separated from Lumiere, Dawn and Karen. Whilst they land in the mountains, Garth’s parachute lands him in the next valley – the realm of the fabled Amazon women – a region they had been warned to avoid…
Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Man-Hunt
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 9/2/49 – 9/7/49 (H34 – H16)
Number of Episodes: 129
As in all Freeman-scripted stories, the action in this story follows on directly from the previous one, with Garth still separated from his friends in Africa. Eventually linking up with Lumiere, Dawn and Karen, Garth finds that they have been captured by a white hunter, Captain Cain. Satiated after a lifetime of hunting Cain is on the edge of insanity….
Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Selim the Slaver
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 11/7/49 – 26/11/49 (H163 – H282)
Number of Episodes: 120
With Garth a magnanimous victor in the Manhunt, he has gained Cain’s respect and friendship. They are recuperating from their ordeal in the town of El Wadi, whilst Lumiere, Dawn and Karen await their return some miles away at Cain’s base camp. Garth and Cain witness a procession of warriors through the town, bearing the carriage of the notorious Sheik, Selim the Slaver. Cain informs Garth that Selim’s power and influence is such that the authorities turn a blind eye to his nefarious activities. Selim conducts business from a “floating city” – collapsible buildings assembled on board a great raft, which floats down river to a fresh location after Selim has conducted his business…
Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Garth and the Glove Game
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 28/11/49 – 3/6/50 (H283 – J131)
Number of Episodes: 159
Sam Gorgon has learned from press reports and letters from his manager and Chief Trainer in London that his star boxer, Irishman Paddy O’Braune, is out of control and running wild. He decides to fly back to England to sort matters out, taking Karen with him. Lumiere is still not recovered from his wounds, and when his ward Dawn loyally agrees to stay and look after him in Africa until he recovers, Garth elects to accompany Karen and Gorgon on the plane to London.
On arrival at the airport, they are met by the trainer, Tich, who tells them that Paddy – whom Gorgon had been building up for an imminent championship bout – has broken training and gone “berserk”…
Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Journey to Jason
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 5/6/50 – 23/12/50 (J132 – J305)
Number of Episodes: 174
Garth, recovering at Sam Gorgon’s home, along with Karen, is surprised to receive a visit from a sculptor who asks Garth to pose for a giant statue of himself. It has been commissioned anonymously by someone “in high quarters”, and is to be shipped abroad when completed. Karen tell Garth the contents of an “extraordinary” letter she has received from Professor Lumiere, sent from a new secret observatory – the address of which has been censored -from where he has apparently observed a “flying saucer” headed for Earth!
The newspapers are full of a story that a new planet – named “Jason” – has wandered into the solar system from interstellar space. The press reports come from an observatory in El Wadi, and when Garth’s completed statue is collected by a lorry with a military escort, and the sculptor tells him it is to be shipped to El Wadi, he is intrigued. Lumiere, his statue, and the new planet are obviously somehow connected. He cables to Lumiere that he is returning to El Wadi. Karen elects to stay behind to help the blind Sylvia Silverado prepare for her wedding to Sam Gorgon.
Alighting from his plane at El Wadi, Garth is met by Lumiere – and an escort of American troops. Lumiere has been appointed as Director of an international stellar research station. Elaborate secrecy is being maintained following the crash landing in the desert of a flying saucer from Jason. Their ship is destroyed but its alien crew of two diminutive humanoid aliens have survived, and are being held captive. Lumiere tells Garth that he has learned from the aliens – who are telepathic – that they were advance scouts for a planned invasion of Earth…
Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Space-Time Traveller
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 27/12/50 – 12/5/51 (J306 – K113)
Number of Episodes: 117
This story begins a three-story sequence in which, for the first and only time, Garth took on the trappings of the US superhero Superman. Despite what has been widely written and parroted, his origins in 1943 actually had nothing whatsoever to do with Superman. But now, “Space-Time Traveller” was clearly the start of an experiment to try and gain US newspaper syndication for Garth by the Daily Mirror.
The story opens as Garth emerges on a mountain side over a desert on Earth, and at first thinks he has materialised in El Wadi, where his previous adventure, “Selim the Slaver”, took place. He caches his Space-Time helmet and cloak in some rocks, in case they reactivate and whisk him off elsewhere.
As he descends to the plain, he spots approaching riders, whom he assumes are friendly Arabs. But when they attack him, he quickly realises he is must be far back in the past, and that they are mounted Tartar warriors. He is actually in the Gobi desert, and by the look of things, around the time of Kubla Khan and the Tartar conquest of Cathay (China).
Garth runs back up the mountainside to retrieve his cloak and helmet. He struggles into his cloak, but before he can don the helmet, Tartar warriors again catch up with him. To escape them, he launches himself into space and glides down to the plain below, where he plucks the startled Tartar chieftain from his horse. A Tartar bowman takes aim at Garth, but the impressed Chieftain stops him, commanding that the flying “wonder man” be spared…
Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
The Phantom Pharaoh
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 14/5/51 – 6/10/51 (K114 – K239)
Number of Episodes: 126
Garth materialises atop an Egyptian pyramid. Flying down to the dwellings below, he is hailed by a reverent crowd as “Horus, the Hawk-God”. He realises that he has landed in Ancient Egypt….
Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Wings of the Night
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 8/10/51 – 17/3/52 (K240 – L65)
Number of Episodes: 136
The story opens in the country house of fight-promoter and entrepreneur Sam Gorgon, and his blind wife Sylvia, whom we last met in the “Garth and the Glove Game” story.
Sylvia tells her husband that she has found a famous surgeon willing to perform an operation to try and restore her sight. However the process will be long and difficult, and involves her going away for some time. Gorgon is supportive and agrees, whilst privately having severe reservations. How will his wife react when she sees the hideous face he keeps hidden behind a mask?
Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Space-Time Rivals
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 18/3/52 – 5/7/52 (L66 – L159)
Number of Episodes: 94
Now returned to the International Research Station at El Wadi, Lumiere uses its resources to do a thorough analysis of the remains of Garth’s Jasonite space-time kit. Garth remains in England, as a guest at Sam Gorgon’s home, waiting for Lumiere to send for him. Several days pass before Garth receives a msyterious telegram from Dawn, who is acting as Lumiere’s secretary at El Wadi…
Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Flight into the Future
Writer: Don Freeman
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 7/7/52 – 25/10/52 (L160 – L255)
Number of Episodes: 96
As Lumiere is piloting Garth, Smitz, and the two girls into the year 19,520 in the space-time machine of his rival, General Ratablan has already unwittingly arrived there in Lumiere’s stolen time-globe.
Garth’s party materialises on a sun-kissed beach. As they emerge they see three very happy young children playing on the sands. They show no sign of fear of strangers, and when questioned by Garth confirm that the year is 19,520 “by the old reckoning.” They run off to “fetch Great Gran… Mother’s gone to Venus!”
Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Invasion from Space
Writer: Hugh McClelland
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 27/10/52 – 14/2/53 L256 – M39
Number of Episodes: 94
Hugh McClelland’s single Garth story, Invasion from Space, began in October 1952, and has long been a puzzle to serious devotees of the strip, because of its very distinctive artwork.
The story opens with Garth and Karen relaxing by the pool at the desert Observatory, some days after their return from the future. Garth is confiding to Karen that Lumiere has been acting oddly lately – strangely uncommunicative. At which point, Dawn runs up excitedly to tell Garth that Lumiere wants to see Garth immediately…
(This strip is sadly the last appearance of both Dawn and Karen, who had been sharing Garth’s adventures for some nine years).
Read a synopsis by Philip Harbottle
Warriors of Krull
Writer: Peter O’Donnell
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 16/2/53 – 13/6/53 (M40 – M140)
Number of Episodes: 101
This was the Garth debut story of Peter O’Donnell, taking over from Don Freeman as the new regular writer. O’Donnell is on record as saying that when he took over he made the decision to jettison both of Garth’s regular girlfriends and companions, Dawn and Karen, because – in his opinion – “they were doing nothing for the strip.”
At first, it looked like Karen might be continuing as a character when Garth is approached by a taxi driver as he leaves the Ministry where Lumiere is working with government officials. He is handed a letter, signed ‘Karen’, asking him to meet her as a matter of urgency. He is driven to a country house, but on arrival he soon learns the letter was a fake, sent by a sinister foreigner. Trying to fight his way clear, he is subdued by a jab from a hypodermic syringe that renders him unconscious…
• Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
• “Warriors of Krull” was reprinted in Comics Revue, beginning in the February 2018 issue, which featured a Garth meets Modesty Blaise cover by Romero. It continued in the April and June issues. Check with your local comic shop for back issues – and subscribe here
Garth in Hollywood
Writer: Peter O’Donnell
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 15/6/53 – 14/11/53 (M141 – M272)
Number of Episodes: 132
Returned from Krull, Garth is invited by Lumiere to join him on an archaeological dig for dinosaur remains in the Mohave Desert in North America. They meet up with Dr. Jones, the leader of the party who discovered the remains. Staying in a hotel in Los Angeles, the expedition travels by jeep to the desert where a mobile laboratory has been set up.
However, Garth soon becomes bored, and in need of action and exercise. He sets off for a long run towards a river several miles away, to have a swim before returning. Halfway to the river, Garth enters a gully where he sees a strange scene.
A man wearing animal skins is being menaced by a weird monster – a seven-headed hydra. Snatching up a partial tree trunk as a club, Garth runs to help him – only to discover he has blundered onto a film set!
Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
• “Garth in Hollywood” was reprinted in Comics Revue, beginning in the August 2018 issue and continuing in the October, December and February 2019 issues. Check with your local comic shop for back issues – and subscribe here
The Return of Malveno
Writer: Peter O’Donnell
Artist: Steve Dowling/John Allard
Published: 16/11/53 – 5/5/54 (M273 – N106)
Number of Episodes: 144
With this third story, O’Donnell began to hit his stride. A decision appears to have been made to return Garth to a solid science fictional basis. Although O’Donnell’s stories were now self-contained ‘stand-alone’ stories they were still following directly on from the previous adventure.
On returning to his hotel in Los Angeles, Garth finds that Lumiere has checked out without leaving him a message. When he talks to Dr. Jones, the leader of the archaeological dig who invited Lumiere to America, he is surprised to find him decidedly frosty. Jones informs him that Lumiere had abruptly left his expedition several weeks ago, without any explanation. Jones has no idea where he went…
Read a full synopsis by Philip Harbottle
• “The Return of Malveno” was reprinted in six parts in Comics Revue, beginning in Apr 2019 issue and continuing in the June, August, October, December and February 2020 issues. Check with your local comic shop for back issues – and subscribe here
Garth: Note on strip codes / serial numbers, etc:
Each code letter (running A to Z, excluding the letter I) represents a year’s worth of Mondays to Saturdays, the days on which The (Daily) Mirror newspaper of London is published. Thus, in any given year, there will be a maximum of 314 numbers assigned to a serial code. Figures in brackets denote number of days the newspaper appeared that year. Before 1982, it was not published on Sunday, Good Friday, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day From 1982 it was published every day except Sunday and Christmas Day Stories 163, 164 and 165 appeared only in the Mirror‘s Northern Ireland edition. Thick writing = leap years
1943 = B (310)
1944 = C (310)
1945 = D (308)
1946 = E (309)
1947 = F (310)
1948 = G (311)
1949 = H (310)
1950 = J (309)
1951 = K (310)
1952 = L (310)
1953 = M (310)
1954 = N (310)
1955 = O (308)
1956 = P (310)
1957 = Q (310)
1958 = R (310)
1959 = S (310)
1960 = T (311)
1961 = U (309)
1962 = V (310)
1963 = W (310)
1964 = X (311)
1965 = Y (310)
1966 = Z (311)
1967 = A (309)
1968 = B (311)
1969 = C (309)
1970 = D (305)
1971 = E (304)
1972 = F (307)
1973 = G (309)
1974 = H (306)
1975 = J (307)
1976 = K (310)
1977 = L (310)
1978 = M (307)
1979 = N (309)
1980 = O (307)
1981 = P (309)
1982 = Q (309)
1983 = R (311)
1984 = S (313)
1985 = T (307)
1986 = U (310)
1987 = V (311)
1988 = W (314)
1989 = X (311)
1990 = Y (312)
1991 = Z (312)
1992 = A (313)
1993 = B (312)
1994 = C (313)
1995 = D (311)
1996 = E (312)
1997 = F (312)
See Also: Garth: An Introduction
• Garth – Strip Checklist – Part One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight (Reprints)
Garth © Daily Mirror