Just in time for the World Cup and Father’s Day, a new collection of Stark stories from DC Thomson, first published in their popular but long-gone Football Picture Story Monthly title, has just been published.
Launched during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Football Picture Story Monthly writers Martin Lindsay and Bill Graham imagined a football landscape where anything was possible. The title featured interior art by artists such as Roy of the Rovers artist Barrie Mitchell, Italian artist Bruno Marraffa (25th June 1935 – 22nd April 2015) and Spanish artist Jorge Giralt, alongside other international artists, hired through Barry Coker’s Bardon Art or Luis Llorente’s Creationes Editoriales.
It was an instant success, and DC Thomson produced 418 issues of the title until 2003, with two stories in each edition inside a colour cover, often featuring cover art by the late, great Ian Kennedy. A picture of a famous footballer featured on the back page.
“I think it was popular with its fan-base of young adults and adults because the stories weren’t told in a comic larger-than-life fashion,” Martin Lindsay told The Courier back in 2021, as the paper looked back at the comic’s success, “but tried to be believable and reflect real-life.
“The stories were filled with good guys, bad guys, heroes, would-be heroes, bullying managers/Jurgen Klopp-type bosses, greedy chairmen and loyal fans. This was the world of football on a black and white page.”
Popular storylines included Jimmy Grant, We Are United, Kline and Powell and “Matchwinner for Hire” Jon Stark, considered the most iconic character of the title, who picked up a £1000 fee if his team won.
Other writers on the title included Fred Baker, Ian Clark, Derrick Markham and Roy Preston.
“We thought ‘We Are United’, ‘Jon Stark’ and ‘Jimmy Grant’ could be contemporised for an audience of both boys and adults,” Martin recalled.
“Then we had brainstorming sessions where we would submit new story ideas before doing a UK-wide round trip to meet the freelance writers and present the ideas for them to produce the finished scripts based on the existing DCT characters and the new ideas.
“These new ideas included other characters such as Kline and Powell that would go on to prove popular.”
Marking the title’s fortieth anniversary, DC Thomson have just published a collection featuring four of fan-favourite Stark’s greatest football adventures, offering match-ready adventures once more in time for the World Cup in the US.
Stark, who had previously featured in DC Thomson’s SCOOP, featured in the first edition of Football Picture Story Monthly, where he joins up with the England squad for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
“Stark was an ideal character because as football changed there were more and more ‘mercenaries’ and with Stark you could be a bit over the top,” Bill Graham told The Courier.
“We all played football so we were conscious of how the game was changing at our level and even more aware of how football was changing at professional level.”
DC Thomson’s Heritage Comics team have collected four of the best stories featuring the legendary football mercenary Jon Stark, including his final chapter, where he must choose between playing for the English or Scottish team in their latest tournament.
For anyone who wished that DC Thomson did a little bit more from their archives, this collection is an open goal for football and comic fans. Get World Cup ready with this unmissable companion collection from the annals of British football comic history!
• Check out Football Picture Story Monthly: The Best of Stark: 1 on AmazonUK (Affiliate Link) | ISN: 978-1917436786 | 182 pages
Head downthetubes for…
• The Courier: We Are United: Remembering the magic of Football Picture Story Monthly by Graeme Strachan (Registration required)
• Football 365: The brilliance and ignorance of Football Picture Story Monthly by Seb Stafford-Bloor | Warning: incredibly irritating pop-up ads
• Comic Vine: Football Picture Story Monthly – Covers and Data
• Boys Adventure Comics Blog: Football Picture Story Monthly Specials
Cover gallery of the two Specials, located by Richard Sheaf
• The British Football Comic Podcast
• Football Picture Story Monthly – AmazonUK Sellers (Affiliate Link)
Ever since boys’ comics were first published in the middle years of the nineteenth century, they have offered readers fun, adventure and escapism. As participation and attendance at sports events rose dramatically in the early years of the twentieth century, so boys’ comics focused more and more on sportsmen, with footballers becoming the ultimate favourites. Millions of boys’ comics were sold in the “golden age” in the 1920s and ’30s. The introduction of football stories in cartoon-strip format proved immensely popular, and during the 1950s and ’60s comics enjoyed a renaissance, with The Rover, Tiger and The Hotspur among the top titles. The 1970s saw the launch of dedicated football comics such as Scorcher and Score ‘n’ Roar. Within the pages of these titles, legends were born, but for every “Hot Shot” Hamish there were dozens of other footballing heroes, and this book tells their stories, too.
Although these comics are no longer in circulation, they still generate a huge level of interest among boys and men of all ages, and the culture of the comic book hero continues. Using the archives of publishers DC Thomson and Co. Limited, IPC Media Limited and Egmont UK Limited, the authors have produced a definitive history of the comic book footballer. This unique and nostalgic account of the football comic book phenomenon will jog the memories of older readers and introduce the magic of these imaginary sporting stars to a whole new generation.
- About the Author
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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.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Collections, British Comics - Graphic Novels, Comics, downthetubes Comics News
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