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“Ragtime Soldier: Trench Raider” cover revealed, gets funding boost from Creative Scotland

By John Freeman on March 14, 2025 • ( 0 )

“Ragtime Soldier”, Pat Mills planned successor to his magnum opus, “Charley’s War”, created for Battle with artist Joe Colquhoun, has a cover, the work of 2000AD artist Gary Welsh.

Gary’s dramatic cover will feature with logos on the print comic and without logos on the hardcover edition add ons.

The Ragtime Soldier Kickstarter campaign has two weeks to run and has so far raised nearly £11,000 of the required £17,000 to make the comic happen.

The first 48-page edition of Ragtime Soldier, “Trench Raider”, begins the saga of Robbie McTaggart, a young soldier in Dundee’s legendary Black Watch, and his comrades who laughingly called themselves “The Ragtime Infantry”… “We cannot fight, we cannot shoot, what earthly use are we?”, even as they fought heroically and suffered terrible casualties at the Battles of Loos and the Somme.

The planned project recently received a significant “Forward Funders” boost from Creative Scotland, who have made a £1700 contribution to the project, which will feature art by Scottish artists Gary Welsh and Phillip Vaughan, background materials by Professor Chris Murray and will be published in Scotland by ComicScene.

Forward Funders like Creative Scotland are foundations, nonprofits, and organisations that make public commitments to support creators who align with their visions for a more creative and equitable world. As a Forward Funder, Creative Scotland backs Kickstarter projects related to its mission to support Scotland-based creators by championing their work to a global audience.

Ragtime Soldier by Pat Mills, Gary Welsh and Phillip Vaughan

“I have discovered so much more [about World War One] since writing ‘Charley’s War’,” says Pat. “So in Ragtime Soldier, we relate these new and darkest stories of World War One. Stories that no one has dared to tell before and will never be dramatised anywhere else. How our soldiers were given drugs to send them over the top and how they became desperate addicts after the war. How there was provable trading between the British and the German enemy in order to keep a conflict going that made millions in profits for the arms manufacturers.

“Ragtime Soldier has the same comedy, comradeship, heroism and tragedy as ‘Charley’, but it has exciting differences too. We now see the war from a heart-warming Scottish and Dundee perspective, the city where I started my writing career, and with a Scottish creative and publishing team behind it. And we also discover the sinister events that happened after the war on the Home Front.

“The adventures of Robbie McTaggart and his fellow Ragtime Soldiers, our forefathers, need celebrating before their endeavours fade and before people start believing that the military revisionists’ lies are actually the truth.

“Now is the perfect time to remember the Ragtime Soldiers.”

• Back the Ragtime Soldier: Trench Raider Kickstarter here

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.