Publisher David McDonald looks back at 20 years of bringing classic British comics back into print through limited run books that are, today, regularly rapid sell outs…
20 years ago, I released Doomlord, the Deathlords of Nox!
I was long a fan of British comics and was frustrated by the lack of any collections of these, so green as I was, I set about publishing the first Hibernia collection- the aforementioned Doomlord.
Doomlord was a financial disaster, but a fantastic learning ground, and a few years later I dipped my toes in again with the first The Thirteenth Floor collection, licensed from Egmont who held the rights.
The 2000AD message board at the time was a fertile ground for creative types, all inspired by the resurgence of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. Finding people with similar interests inspired all sorts of interesting self-published projects. This led to my first collaboration with Richard Pearce, who offered to design the cover to the The Thirteenth Floor, Inspired by the articles in Warrior, which I always thought were a great addition to that comic, I asked Ed Berridge to do an article for the collection.
The global financial crash and my young family led to a pause in publication, but a side project not under the ‘Hibernia’ umbrella was born, again from the 2000AD message board. Titled Tales from the Emerald Isle, the first issue was centred around Irish 2000AD characters, and the second, was a more general Zine ( and good luck if you have it, only 50 were printed!)
Designed by David Withers, with contributions from Michael Carroll, Al Nolan and the much-missed team of Dave Evans and Richmond Clements, among others. They were great fun to do, but my sights turned to something I had been working on in the background but not quite sure what to do with.
I was a fan of The Eagle Flies Again, published by Ian Wheeler, latterly designed by John Freeman, and as said above, the Warrior articles. With these in mind, the “something” I had been working on ended up as the first Comic Archive, titled One Eyed Jack and the Death of Valiant, published in 2012. Richard Pearce was back on board on design, and was the first full title we worked on. The response was great. In the intervening years we have released further “Comic Archives”: Beyond 2000AD, It’s Ghastly, The Fleetway Files, Fantastic Adventures, Blazing Battle Action, and the brand new The Editor’s Cut, out now. These books are all brim full of interviews, articles, and rare and unpublished art, all wonderfully designed by Richard.
As followers of Hibernia probably know, I am a fan of José Ortiz, and the ‘new’ Eagle, this led to a collection of The Tower King by Alan Hebden and Ortiz, licenced from The Dan Dare Corporation. Richard was on board again, and this time, as well as design, he handled all the reprographics on the book – and has done on all subsequent Hibernia titles. This was our first “complete” collection too, our previous ones had been part of a larger series. The Tower King led to further collections from the Eagle – The House of Daemon and The Eagle Adventure Special.
In 2014 We returned The Thirteenth Floor, with Volume 2, and an extremely limited reprint of Volume 1 (50 copies IIRC) with a redesigned cover to match Volume 2. This resulted in further collection licensed from Egmont – Baker’s Half Dozen, The Dracula Files and The Library of Death (Which has my favourite cover design by Richard).
Changes were afoot in the ownership of the old Fleetway Back catalogue, with 2000AD owners Rebellion buying the Fleetway archive from Egmont and IPC. This led to a sea change in collections of British comics. Rebellion have published a fantastic range of books under their Treasury of British Comics. We got a chance to work with Rebellion by publishing Cosmic Comics – a collection of Kevin O’Neill’s lesser seen work from the Fleetway Archive. This was a tremendous success. Kevin enjoyed it too, and he suggested a second edition, with extra pages curated from his own collection. We published this second edition in 2021.
Recently, we have started a series in collaboration with Look and Learn Ltd., called ‘Lost Treasures.’ The first features artwork by Jesus Blasco and John M Burns, and the second, out later this year will have artwork by Ron Embleton, Don Lawrence, and Jesus Blasco.
Also, in collaboration with Rebellion and the Treasury of British comics we currently publish ‘The Fleetway Files’ a part work style collection of comics from the Fleetway archive. Those are The Angry Planet by Alan Hebden and Massimo Belardinelli; The Indestructible Man by Scott Goodall and Jesus Blasco; Captain Condor by Frank Pepper and Brian Lewis; Sergeant Strong by Scott Goodall and Eric Bradbury; TimeQuake by Chris Lowder, Ian Kennedy, and others; and Slave of the Screamer by Tom Tully and Jesus Blasco.
The Running Man, the sixth in the series by Steve MacManus (from an idea by Pat Mills) and Horacio Lalia, will be available mid-June.
Looking back over all these titles, Richard and I have put together, there is a certain sense of satisfaction in representing these classics, and looking forward to the future, we hope to be still doing this in another 20 years!
While most of the Hibernia’s output has been produced by Richard and I, we have had a lot of help over the years. Paul Scott, Mike Carroll, Mike Donachie, Dave Evans, Ed Berridge, Mary McDonald, Richard Sheaf and Steve Earls have all contributed to the “putting together” of Hibernia’s books.
To all the artists, writers and editors who have given permission to use art and taken the time to answer questions and have generally been extraordinarily helpful, a big thanks!
To everyone who has bought, reviewed, or shared any of Hibernia’s titles, thank you and keep doing it, and a big thanks also to John Freeman and Lew Stringer who have consistently championed our books.
David McDonald
• Hibernia Comics can be bought at comicsy.co.uk
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Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Collections, British Comics - Current British Publishers, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Features
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