The Thirteenth Floor to be republished

By John Freeman on August 9, 2007

Hibernia Books, the one man publishing venture from David McDonald is publishing another collection from the archives of the 1980s Eagle comic. Following release of the Deathlords of Nox volume (reprinting a classic Doomlord story) the next book will be a collection of The Thriteenth Floor strips.

“After a longer than expected wait for licence and the birth of my third, beautiful baby, I’m finally in a position to announce that the Thirteenth Floor collection should be leaving the printers at the end of this month,” David told downthetubes.

For this collection, David has been aided and abetted by Ed Berridge and Richard Pearce.

“It’s 54 pages, collecting the first eleven issues of the story from Scream,” David reveals. “It also contains an introduction by [series co-writer] John Wagner, a lengthy article on Scream by Ed Berridge and a Stripography of The Thirteenth Floor by Richard Pearce and myself.”

The Thirteenth Floor started in the short-lived horror comic Scream before transferring over to the Eagle when Scream merged with it. Max the computer was the longest lived of all the Scream stories (it ran from September 1984 to February 1987) with his adventures being drawn by new Eagle (and, indeed, original Eagle) artist José Ortiz.

Ortiz draw a number of strips in the new Eagle over the years (Tower King, House of Daemon, Survival, Kid Cops and more besides) but The Thirteenth Floor, written by Alan Grant and John Wagner, is likely to be best remembered. The creative team is a great combination that promises to make this a volume to look forward to.

The book costs just £4.50 and has a print run of just 700 copies — so get it while you can!

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.