Pete Nash, creator of the football strip Striker, has been in touch to tell us that since our recent mention of the Psycops strip collection, there are now only a few copies left of the physical edition.
Back in 1994, Pete offered The Sun newspaper a new daily science fiction strip, “Psycops.”, inspired by television shows such as The X-Files, The Fugitive and Starman. Although, just like “Striker”, Pete both wrote and drew the early episodes of the strip, he later shared art duties with John Cooper, who’s perhaps better known for his work on strips such as “Johnny Red” for Battle.
Ultimately, Pete felt that while Cooper’s drawings were excellent, he felt they were a little too cartoony for the strip, and 2000AD and Look-in artist John M. Burns took over art duties and continuing until the strip’s end in 1999. Regardless of who was drawing the strip, it was always credited to “Wilbur”.
There are only a few copies of the 304-page Psycops collection now available direct from Planet Striker, collecting all the published stories, its cover the only element reflecting the style of Pete’s hugely popular Striker football strip.
So if you’re a John M. Burns fan, you may want to grab your copy now!
• Psycops physical softcover copies are available here (the hardcover has sold out completely). It’s also available as a digital edition
Art samples with thanks to Colin Brown
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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, British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
Shame they didn’t go with the Burns cover, but I might get this for the interior art. I used to work in a pub where John Cooper was a regular, and I didn’t know for months that he was a comic artist, then as soon as I knew I was too intimidated to talk to him about it.
Yes, agreed. I can see why Pete chose to dress the cover per the house style of his other properties, but I think it would have had more appeal using JMB’s cover