Coming Soon: “Wes Slade Deputy Marshal”, collected at last

By John Freeman on August 19, 2025

Coming soon from Book Palace Books is a fine looking collection of Wes Slade Deputy Marshal by the great George Stokes – ten complete stories collected for the first time and scanned from the original artwork.

Due for release later this year, this is the very first time some these stories have been reprinted since first appearing in the 1960s in the Sunday Express.

Wes Slade follows the adventures of a fearless sheriff navigating justice and survival in the untamed Wild West. Regarded by comic aficionados as one of the finest western strips ever published in Britain, featuring gripping storylines, rich characters, and stunning artistry, this series became a hallmark of British newspaper comics. The strip ran from 1961 until 1981, created and originally both written and drawn by George Stokes.

Jim Edgar, perhaps the best writer of western strips, wrote later stories, and Harry Bishop, another fine comic talent, was the artist some of the final adventures first published in the 1980s.

The upcoming Book Palace collection, a Limited Edition of 400 copies worldwide, presents ten complete stories, offering an incredible collection of Western stories, all scanned from the original artwork that still survives in the Express Newspaper Archives.

Canadian artist George Stokes was born in 1934 the son of a British officer serving in the Indian Army. He returned to England in 1948 and completed his education and became a commercial artist. Stokes for Marvelman creator Mick Anglo’s studio in the early 1950s, and worked for IPC.

Travel in Canada and the United States deepened his interest in West and in 1960 he jumped at the opportunity to draw a newly created western strip for the Sunday Express, very much, it appears, a labour of love, the artwork very special.

He also drew a Bjorn Borg strip in the 1980s, but I’ve been unable to discover where this appeared.

George drew “Wes Slade” weekly for the next 20 years, with Harry Bishop, the writer and artist of “Gun Law” for the Daily Express, taking over as artist during the run of the story “The Territory”, one of the final adventures, in 1980. Stokes, sadly, died in 1981, aged just 47.

Born Thomas Eric Edgar on 29th August 1908 in Newton Le Willows, Jim Edgar, aka James Edgar, lived in Kettering, his creative career beginning as a short story writer and author of radio drama, including “Murder Case” (1953) and “The Fielding Case” (1956), both broadcast on the BBC Home Service’s Saturday Night Theatre; before turning to writing newspaper strips on the advice of “Modesty Blaise” creator, Peter O’Donnell.

In addition to “Wes Slade”, he wrote “Matt Marriott” for the London Evening News, between 1955 and 1977, drawn by Tony Weare; “Manhunt” for Top Spot, and “Rusty Flynn – Rodeo Roughrider”, for Tiger, published between December 1956 and April 1957. He also scripted a number of War Library tales between 1962 and 1965, although seems to have stopped writing them around the time he took over writing the Daily Mirror strip, “Garth”, in 1966, becoming the was the regular writer on that until September 1985, with further stories by him published between 1985 and 1992.

*Express Books Wes Slade collection, published in 1979*

A family friend, Bob Lorenzo, notes that, after the death of his wife Jessie in 1994, he went to live in a residential home in Sleights, Whitby where he died on 4th July 1998. “Jim was a wonderful man who must have been one of this country’s most knowledgeable people on the subject of American western history,” he noted in a comment on a Bear Allley blog post in 2015.

Express Books published a collection of the first three “Wes Slade” strips – “The Living Dead”, “Fast Guns In Carrizal” and “Ambush At Ochoa Springs” – in 1979, with a similar cover to the announced Book Palace edition.

“Wes Slade” has also been translated and reprinted throughout Europe and is still offered for syndication through Knight Features. Overseas publication includes a run of 19 stories in Il Magnifico West in Italy (starting in issue 5 as “Lo Sceriffo Slade”). Just this year, Spanish publisher Laramie Ediciones, “The western comic book publisher”, released a Wes Slade collection, confirming continued interest in the strip.

Wes Slade Deputy Marshal will be published this Winter – full details here on the Book Palace Books website

Wes Slade Deputy Marshal
Author: James Edgar
Artist: George Stokes
Publisher: Book Palace Books, due Winter 2025
Number of pages: 160
Format: Hard Cover; Black & White illustrations
Size: 13″ x 10″ (330mm x 254mm)
ISBN: 9781913548865
Code: WESSLADEDEPUTY

Head downthetubes for…

Wes Slade by George Stokes (Laramie Ediciones, 2025)

• Bear Alley: Wes Slade – Series Checklist

• Bear Alley: Jim Edgar Profile

• Knight Features – Wes Slade Syndication Information

• Westerns All’ Italiana: European Western Comic Books ~ Wes Slade

• downthetubes: In Praise of… Comic Artist Harry Bishop, creator of “Gun Law” and more

• Wes Slade by George Stokes (Laramie Ediciones)

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.