Calling Fireball Agents!

By John Freeman on 2 April 2008

The back cover of the first issue of Bullet, featuring Fireball

FIREBALL FOR HIRE

Mysteries solved –

problems licked –

lost things found –

crooks straightened out –

anytime – any place

BUT… ONLY TOUGH JOBS ACCEPTED.

Do you recognise this man?

As the agent/adventurer from D C Thomson’s mid-1970s Bullet comic, Fireball was the comic’s major character and was represented in Bullet’s editorial pages, and the odd pin-up, in photographs.

IPC’s equivalent of Bullet was Action! which also had a photographic editor — writer Steve MacManus. But who donned the medallion and leather jacket to become Fireball?

Warlord and Starblazer editor Bill Graham knows and tells downthetubes in a wide ranging interview covering his long career at D C Thomson and the many and varied titles he has worked on, also revealing some perhaps previously unknown history to the Dandy.

• Read the interview with Bill Graham here

About the Author
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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.