For Action And Adventure

By John Freeman on June 29, 2007

Those who still labour until the mistaken belief that Commando only covers the Second World War could do worse than checking one of the latest issues.

Commando 4015 : Wolves At War concludes the “Log Of The Lairds” sequence of six stories, this one telling the story of a Scud Hunt during the Gulf War in 1991. Originally published as Issue 2709 in 1993, it was written by Alan Hemus with internal art by Gordon Livingstone and a wraparound cover by Ian Kennedy.

Alan Hemus wrote all six of the Laird stories, just some of his many contributions for DC Thomson over the years. Gordon Livingstone was a DC Thomson stalwart drawing some 360 different Commando stories beginning with issue 4 in 1961 as well as providing many pages of art for the Thomson weekly comics and their annuals. Ian Kennedy, despite having over 1000 Commando covers to his credit, continues to paint new covers to this day with his latest being Issue 4018, Military Mule!

John Freeman

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.