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Academic Study of Fleetway’s CRISIS comic in the works

By John Freeman on February 13, 2020

Dr William Proctor, Senior Lecturer in Transmedia, Culture and Communication at Bournemouth University has announced his next academic project will be a book-length study of 2000AD sister comic, CRISIS.

If you worked on the title, now might be a good time to drop him a line; and if you have particular memories of the comic as a reader, he’d like to hear them.

Published from 1988 to 1991, its target audience more adult than most other British news stand comics of the time, CRISIS was initially published fortnightly, and was one of the most visible components of the late-1980s British comics boom, along with Deadline, Revolver, and TOXIC!

Conceived by editor Steve MacManus, CRISIS published creator-owned strips such as “Third World War” by Pat Mills, Carlos Ezquerra et al, the first stories now collected by Rebellion; “New Statesmen” by John Smith, Jim Baikie, Sean Phillips and Duncan Fegredo, which has not been collected in English since the 1990s; and “Rogan Gosh” by Brendan McCarthy and Peter Milligan, which was collected as Rogan Gosh: Star of the East by Little Brown and Vertigo, but copies appear to be pretty expensive.

The hope was that like European comics, this might lead to the chance for royalties and greater copyright control, which was a departure from the way Fleetway had done business up until then.

William Proctor is Senior Lecturer in Transmedia, Culture and Communication at Bournemouth University where he primarily teaches on BA English and BA Communication and Media degrees. Before joining Bournemouth University in 2014, William worked as a visiting lecturer at the Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Sunderland which is also where he completed his PhD thesis.

William is also Director of The World Star Wars Project, a five-year study of the franchise from multiple perspectives which will culminate in 2020 with a multilingual, mixed methods global online questionnaire. The first phase of the project, ‘The Force Re-Awakens,’ attracted over 1800 responses in December 2015 prior to the release of Star Wars Episode VII.

CRISIS and its strips have previously been the focus of study, of course. Janean Patience has written extensively about the title on Suggested for Mature Readers, offering overviews not just of “Third World War”, “New Statesmen” and more but also about an optimistic time where it seemed British news stand comics might just break out beyond the traditional and well catered for younger audiences.

Marking the release of Pat Mills and Carlos Ezquerra’s Third World War, the Treasury of British Comics also recently commissioned short essays from selected comics critics that examine different aspects of this seminal political series, including Tom Shapira’s assessment of the strip’s sense of deep-seated anger, asking whether this makes it even more relevant today…

• Dr William Proctor is online here on the Bournemouth University web site | Follow him on Twitter @DrWilliamProct1

• Third World War Book One by Pat Mills and Carlos Ezquerra is available now (Amazon Affiliate Link) – read Luke Williams review here

• Ransom Note: Crisis: Pat Mills Remembering the Comic That Changed The Game

One of a set of illustrations based on “Mr Soft” from “New Statesmen” by Gareth A Hopkins

• Abstract Comics by Gareth Hopkins: A set of illustrations based on “Mr Soft”, a fictional character from New Statesmen. He’s fictional to the power of three: he appears in a work of fiction (i.e. the comic, The New Statesmen) as a character written in an interpolative text (‘And He The Mother Of Them All’ by the Soft Kore Kollective) and in the universe that he’s presented within, he’s a legendary, semi-mythical character

• Nobody’s Favourites: Something borrowed, something blue – a feature on New Statesmen by Andrew Weiss

John Freeman

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.