Hibernia Comics have confirmed the impending publication of Glory Knight, Time Travel Courier, featuring art by John M Burns, due for release this autumn as planned – their first collection of a British classic girls comic strip.
The project was first announced earlier this year, and since then, the Hibernia Comics team have been gathering the best quality scans available for their release, and comic archivist David Roach, author of the highly recommended A Very British Affair: The Best of Classic Romance Comics and the Eisner Award nominated Masters of British Comic Art, is providing the introduction.
Sadly, only two physical art pages are actually known to have survived various purges of various publishers’ archives in the decades since the strip first appeared in the UK – and, David Roach tells us, only a few pages from June as a whole are known to survive, specifically three strips that were reprinted in Princess Tina and a handful of “Pony Tale” strips.
“Glory Knight, Time Travel Courier”, drawn by the John M. Burns, first appeared in June and Schoolfriend, in the weekly issues and, as the series title suggests, featured Glory, a courier working for a time travel agency, escorting tourists on trips through time. The series launched with a trip to the Age of Dinosaurs, while other adventures saw her facing off with highwaymen, hijackers and Roman gladiators – not to mention troublesome rival, Mandy Price.
As we previously noted, the science fiction elements are pretty nonsensical, and while it wasn’t a huge hit, back in 2015, in an article for 30th Century Comics, Will Morgan suggested it was, perhaps, an editorial favourite.
Nine stories were published in 1970 and 1971 in the weekly comic, in issues cover dated 4th July 1970 through to 20th March 1971, and a further six-page tale appeared in the 1972 June Annual, in which Glory meets Robin Hood, and a another in the 1973 Annual, a whimsical Christmas story.
She also has a cameo appearance in the upcoming Treasury of British Comics Annual 2027, popping up in a strip featuring lots of Fleetway characters, all beautifully illustrated by David Roach.
British girls comics stories have often been overlooked as collections, despite some great releases from Rebellion in recent years, so it’s good to know Hibernia are widening their specialist collection remit with this release. Let’s hope it’s not the last.
Somewhere in the dim and distant past I have a feeling I must have read that June Annual and the “Glory Knight” concept stuck in my memory. I suspect, too, that the adventure may in part have been a subconscious inspiration for the sadly unfinished story I devised, “The Grand Tour”, with a similar idea, commissioned by Italian publisher Casiraghi Jones Publishing and published English4Life, a magazine designed to teach English to Italians using comic strip and text stories, which includes a strip based in England.
Written by me and drawn by Mike Collins, The Grand Tour: The Tower of London Affair features a group of time-traveling tourists whose guided exploration of the metropolis proves more trouble prone than trip fantastic – except some of the tourists are aliens, too, and one of them has a sinister reason for wanting to travel back in time… Unfortunately we never got to reveal what that plan was, but it was great fun to write!
• Head over to hiberniacomics.com for available collections – and follow Hibernia Comics on BlueSky, Facebook, and Instagram for the latest news from the publisher
The Glory Knight Adventures
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 4th July to 11th July 1970: Glory Knight and the time travel tour concept are introduced, and John M. Burns gets to flex his artistic muscles drawing dinosaurs, something he’d have to do again a couple of years later on a late “Countdown” holiday special story.
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 18th July to 1st August 1970: A trip to the 1920s, booked by an old school rival, Mandy Price, almost turns into a disaster…
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 8th to 15th August 1970: An unusual trip to a deadly future almost turns deadly when the Time Machine is almost lost…
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 22nd August to 12th September 1970: Mandy takes a trip to the eighteenth century, and briefly playing the role of highwayman Captain Daylight, an adventure that gained a cover promotion, drawn by John.
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 19th September to 3rd October 1970: After befriending an elderly neighbour, a World War One veteran Glory smuggles him aboard the Time Machine for a romantic reunion with a lost sweetheart in a rather poignant tale.
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 10th to 24th October 1970: A school trip to Ancient Rome proves more fraught than expected…
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 31st October to 14th November 1970: A planned trip to sixteenth century Florence is hijacked to London instead, and Glory gets caught up in an attempt to blow up Parliament…
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 30th January to 13th February 1971: A trip to the historic Wild West, Mandy Price now a courier, too.
June & School Friend, issues cover dated 20th February to 3rd April 1971: A tale of piracy in two centuries after Glory Knight escorts her boss’ daughter and new husband on a honeymoon trip…
June Annual, 1972: A schoolboy steals Robin Hood’s horn, and Glory is sent back to Sherwood Forest to return it…
June Annual, 1973: Glory Knight’s final original outing, in a story that sees her take an impoverished young boy on a trip to the Victorian past to enjoy a proper Christmas celebration, with an unexpected twist
Head downthetubes for…
• 30th Century Comics: Glory Knight, Time-Travel Courier by Will Morgan
Dinosaurs? Cowboys? Gladiators? Glory Knight, Time Travel Courier faced them all down, a distaff Doctor Who without all that science stuff…
• The Art of John M. Burns Facebook Group
• Glory Knight’s “Robin Hood” adventure, gloriously dissected by D. Merrill, over on Stupid Comics
• The Grand Tour: The Tower of London Affair by John Freeman and Mike Collins – background and published pages
Glory Knight, Time Travel Courier ©️ Rebellion Publishing
- 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 - Current British Publishers, Comic Previews, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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