Book Palace Books have announced they will be collecting two classic British adventure strips from the weekly Boys’ World comic, “Wrath of the Gods“, and “Ghost World” in one huge volume next summer, featuring art by Ron Embleton, John M. Burns and Frank Bellamy.
Book Palace say all the Ron Embleton and John M. Burns double-page spreads will be printed as deluxe fold-outs in a monster full colour volume.
Launched in January 1963, Boys’ World, published by Longacre Press ran for 89 issues before merging with the Eagle. Despite its relatively short run over two “volumes”, the title has had a lasting impact, offering a line up that included a variety of adventure and humour strips, including “Brett Millions“, “Ghost World“, “The Iron Man“, a story centred not on the Marvel superhero, but an international crime-busting robot whose mechanical nature was concealed by an amazing suit of plastic skin, “Wrath of the Gods“, and the earliest comic strip parody of Doctor Who, “Dr What and His Time Clock“.
Comic archivist Phil Rushton recalls Boys’ World was promoted on TV, and “Wrath of the Gods” featured, where movie footage of a storm-tossed galley morphed into the opening panels of the strip.
Writers on the title included SF authors Barrington J. Bailey and Harry Harrison, Sydney Jordan and Willie Patterson, perhaps best known for their work on the newspaper strip, “Jeff Hawke“, and Tom Tully, with Michael Moorcock providing features, such as the regular cover item, “What Would You Do?”, a series challenging readers to find the solution to perilous situations. (This series would later inspire the similarly-titled sequence of impossible moral dilemmas posed in Moorcock’s novel, Breakfast in the Ruins, published in 1972).
Artists on the title over its run included Luis Bermejo, Harry Bishop, Frank Bellamy, John M. Burns, Gerry Embleton, Ron Embleton, Gerald Haylock, Frank Humphris, Eric Kincaid, Frank Langford and Martin Salvador.
“Wrath of the Gods“, written by Willie Patterson (credited for his work in No. 14, the strip often wrongly attributed to Michael Moorcock) is regarded as one of Boys’ World’s finest strips, the first story drawn in colour by Ron Embleton, replaced by John M. Burns for the rest of its run. “The mythic adventure starred Arion, a Greek warrior,” notes Martin Crookall in an overview of the title, “who, on finding his family and friends slaughtered in his absence at the wars, cursed Zeus and the whole rotten lot and found himself appointed a kind of mortal trouble-shooter drafted in by the Gods to carry out fantastic missions.”
“Ghost World” (also known as “Brett Million and The Ghost Planet”), written by Harry Harrison, drawn by Frank Bellamy, was a sequel to another strip written by Harrison, “Angry Planet“, adapted from one of his novels, Deathworld, drawn by Frank Langford, a story about a character called Brett Million, who attends a training survival school on the planet Pyrrus. “Ghost World” was a totally new tale created for the comic, which ran on on the back page of Boys’ World from Volume One No. 46 ( cover dated 7th December 1963) to Volume Two No.17 (25th April 1964).
In “Ghost World“, Brett heads to the planet Eisen, a mining planet, where people and things are disappearing. Needless to say, it is not ghostly activity, but Million discovers the planet’s natives are moving faster than humans can. Spanning 21 episodes, Frank Bellamy expert Norman Boyd notes the hugely talent artist shows even with one page he can create dynamic panels. “Many trademark Bellamy devices are here,” Norman observes, “from space shots to futuristic hardware similar to his Dan Dare creations.”
• Details of the planned Book Palace Books collection feature here on the Book Palace Books web site
Web Links
• Boys’ World: Ticket to Adventure!
Steve Holland’s brilliant book about to Boys’ World, published in 2013
• Boys’ World Revisted by Martin Crookall
• Frank Bellamy and Boys’ World – article by Norman Boyd
• DarkWorlds: Wrath of the Gods by Willie Patterson
• A Snippet (Literally) of “Wrath of the Gods” – item by Peter Richardson
• Heritage Auctions: Boys’ World “Wrath of the Gods” art by John M. Burns
With thanks to Richard Sheaf
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.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Collections, British Comics - Current British Publishers, Comic Previews, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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