There’s a little time left to grab yourself a The Complete Collection of Striker multi-buy – including a complete set of the massive 300-page plus 26 hardback volumes of the football strip, collecting every episode of the strip since its launch in The Sun back in 1985.
Fork out £280, and you’ll also a free copy of Psycops, most of those strips drawn by the legendary artist John M Burns.
“Nine years after the release of the first book in the 40-year Striker Collection, all 26 volumes have now been published,” creator Pete Nash explains. “We always printed a surplus of 50 books in each volume for latecomers and fans who were unable to buy a new one every quarter, but storage costs are now exceeding revenue, so we’ve launched a clearance sale.”
The remaining collections will be sold on a first come, first served basis and will be available for four weeks or while stocks last. The sale is exclusive to the Planet Striker online shop. Any books remaining after 6th June 2025 will be sold at higher prices through Amazon and eBay.
All individual books will have price reductions (except the final volume, Volume 26, which is in short supply) but there will also be multi-buy discounts – so the more books bought, the bigger the saving.
Only a very small number of complete sets will be reserved for anyone wishing to buy the entire collection in one purchase.
For those who came on late [that’s enough football jokes – Ed] Striker first appeared as a daily comic strip in The Sun, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper, on 11th November 1985 and is owned by its creator Pete Nash, a former Fleet Street journalist. Pete drew the initial had drawn strips, followed by John Cooper, before, in 1998, Striker became the first ongoing comic strip in the world to be created entirely in 3D animation software.
The strip has followed the adventures of its hero Nick Jarvis from his debut as a 20-year-old footballer to his present day role as the billionaire owner of fictitious football club Warbury Warriors, its characters ageing in real time.
The move to the use of 3D animation software was done with the intention of laying the foundations for a transition to full animation at a later stage and enabling multiple artists to work on it without changing its style. The new realistic look, in conjunction with its core football theme, also made it commercially viable to attract corporate sponsorship – and in 2001 Richard Branson’s Virgin Mobile became Striker’s first sponsor, paying to have its brand on the Warbury kits seen in the strip and on the printed strip in The Sun.
Virgin Mobile described it as one of their most successful sponsorships ever and renewed their option to extend for a second year. Other sponsors have included Talksport and Gillette.
From late 2003 to mid-2005, Striker was published as an independent weekly comic, helped by the support of fans who raised nearly £200,000 to keep it running.
In 2013 Striker’s increasing popularity was reflected by The Sun increasing both its size in the paper to nearly half a page and its frequency from six to seven days a week.
The strip ended in The Sun in 2019, but the entire Striker Collection archive is now available as a box set of 26 A4 hardback books, available from the Planet Striker online shop – which can also be purchased in digital formats.
• Check out the current Striker multi-buy options, offer ending 7th June 2025 here
Don’t Miss out on Psycops
Pete Nash was also the creator of the science fiction strip, Psycops, part drawn by John Cooper, but most strips drawn by John M Burns. Inspired by television shows such as The X-Files, The Fugitive and Starman, it ran in The Sun from 1994 to 1999. All 18 episodes have been collected into a monster 304-page book, physical softcover copies now in short supply (the hardcover has sold out completely). It’s also available as a digital edition.
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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 - Collections, British Comics - Current British Publishers, Comics, Digital Comics, downthetubes Comics News
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