Combat Colin: The New Brickman

Brickman is dead and there's a new Brickman patrolling Guffon City - ex-Marvel UK hero of the 1980s, Combat Colin!

The bobble-hatted bucaneer ditches the bobble hat for a black cowl and cape in US publisher Active Images Elephantmen #20 on sale now in all good comic shops.

Brickman, a wonderful Batman parody, is the creation of top British cartoonist Lew Stringer. Originally created as a character for Marvel UK and featuring in titles such as Action Force, ownership of Combat Colin was assigned to Lew by Paul Neary, back when he was Editorial Director in the 1990s. This was part of a wider move by Neary to make good on promises that certain strips and characters - particularly those that featured in Marvel UK's Strip! comic - would be creator owned.

Let's hope this is just the start of a long overdue Combat Colin revival.

Talking of Lew Stringer, however, folk here may know he has been publishing a superb blog about British comics for many years, but, unfortunately, he's had to scale back on that.

"My apologies for a lack of blogs of late," he commented earlier this week. "I'm currently undergoing hospital eye tests for a potentially serious problem so it's quite a worrying time and probably best to keep away from the computer except for work.

"Hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly."

We wish Lew all the very best at this time.

• More info from the the official Elephantmen website!