Commando evades blizzards, heads for newsagents

Here are the latest issues of DC Thomson's Commando to fight their way through the snowdrifts to the newsagents’ shelves. Just in time for Christmas, too.

If anyone is having difficulty getting copies in the seasonal weather, Commando editor Calum Laird suggest you email shop@dcthomson.co.uk, and the team there will do their best to help out. Plus, a subscription might be a wise investment as missed copies of our upcoming 50th year’s output may cause some wailing and gnashing of teeth!

Commando fans may have noticed the official website (www.commandocomics.com) has had an update. DC Thomson are trailing the launch of digital editions of Commando, launching next year, on the site, and there's now better links to an extensive guide to the title's back issues list and behind the scenes features.

Commando 4351: Death Camp
Story: Ian Clark Art: Olivera Cover Art: Alan Burrows
Previously No 2637 from 1993

Barbed wire, watchtowers and searchlights — the camp looked like any other POW cage… from the outside. But hidden behind the perimeter fence was a nightmare world where starved prisoners were forced to act as guinea pigs for the sadistic doctors of death!

Commando 4352: Hunger for Glory
Story: Ian Clark Art: Josè Maria Jorge Cover Art: Josè Maria Jorge
Previously No 2663 from 1993

Colonel John Devlin, USAF, had chased glory in three wars…but it had always passed him by. Now, in the savage air battles over war-torn Vietnam, he saw his final chance to grab it when a new pilot arrived — a real hotshot, a born ace.
There and then Devlin decided that this top gun was going to be his ticket to glory…regardless of the cost of men and machines!

This is a re-issued story which reminds us of just what a talented artist the late Josè Maria Jorge was… especially when it came to aircraft. His very first Commando story will be appearing in late January 2011.

Commando 4353: Ham-Fisted Hero
Story: Alan Hebden Art: Carlos Pino Cover Art: Carlos Pino

Young Wally Clegg was a nice lad but a bit of a clumsy clot. As soon as he got near a ham radio set, however, there was a veritable transformation and he became a communications wizard.

And although he was bounced out of the Royal Signals Corps, if there was radio work to be done, Wally was there to do it. Now the Japs were poised to invade India and it looked like only Wally could send the message that would stop them. With the pressure on would he be a wireless wonder or a Ham-Fisted Hero?

Commando 4354: Company of Pals
Story: Alan Hebden Art: Vila Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

They marched of to war together, the young men of the town. Proud to serve their country and happy to fighting alongside their mates. But the Western Front in the First World War was a place of nightmares and the town’s nightmare came true when the company of pals was wiped out.

When the evil of war once more engulfed Europe, the military authorities made sure that, whatever casualties they had to suffer, never again would one town lose all its young men at once. It seemed, though, that fate hadn’t got the message...

• Official Commando web site: www.commandocomics.com

• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846

• You can read interviews with former Commando editor George Low, current editor Calum Laird on the downthetubes main site.

Upping the action with new Commandos

Four new Commando titles are now on sale in all good newsagents. With Colditz wowing audiences on Yesterday, and the complete BBC TV series out now on DVD, surely there's no better time to pick up a war comic?

Commando 4343 Killer Shark
Story: K. P. Mackenzie Art: Peter Foster Cover: Ian Kennedy
Originally No 2722 from 1993

Hitler’s U-boats were the killer sharks of the Second World War, roaming the oceans of the world, terrorising the shipping lanes. Gerhard Hagen, a Nazi to the core, was one of the most ruthless skippers of those hunter submarines.

But even a killer shark will eventually meet its match, and time was running out for Hagen…

Commando 4344 Action Team
Story: Ian Clark Art: Denis McLoughlin Cover: Alan Burrows
Originally No 2655 from 1993

Wangling a place in a special Combined Action Group, working with Vietnamese villagers, Marine Wayne Norris was sure he’d be a lot safer now than with the regular troops in the front line.

But he was about to learn the hard way that the CAG wasn’t called an ACTION team for nothing — especially when there seemed to be a traitor in their midst, sabotaging their every move!

Commando 4345 Operation “Ice-Breaker”
Story: Sean Blair Art: Vila Cover: Janek Matysiak

The Arctic ice cap — freezing, windswept and inhospitable. In the period when East and West faced each other in a tense nuclear stand-off, many things were concealed on and below its wasted landscape. From submarines to top-secret bases, the cloaking ice covered all.

But nothing was as monstrous as the weapon created by a team of ruthless scientists working for the Soviets and led by the mysterious “Chief Technician.”

Commando 4346 Seeing Double
Story: Mac Macdonald Art: Carlos Pino Cover: Carlos Pino

So, how did the epitome of evil, German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, join forces with a sworn enemy — Britain’s most famous military leader, General Bernard Montgomery — and unwittingly become involved in a madcap, hair-raising adventure in the North African desert?

As you might have guessed, things aren’t quite as they seem. In fact, you may well be seeing double...

• Official Commando web site: http://www.commandomag.com/

• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846

• You can read interviews with former Commando editor George Low, current editor Calum Laird and writer Ferg Handley on the downthetubes main site.

Wasted 5 Out Now

The latest issue of adult humour title WASTED is now on sale.

It features the usual mix of madcap strips, including 10 pages of Alan Grant and Jon Haward's Tales of the Buddha, Kevin Eastman and Kevin O'Neill and Simon Bisley on S*** the Dog, Gary Erskine inking Gibson Quarter's War on Drugs, Alan Kerr's latest superb Lusi Sulfura, Alan Grant and Jim Devlin's The Dopranos, plus Alan Burrows takes his Fun Guys to the world of Alice in Wonderland.

It's a jam packed issue - and we're told Cam Kennedy is doing the cover of Issue 6. Aces!

• Buy it now from www.badpressltd.com/buy-wasted.php#5

Commando Goes Fornightly

If you're looking for the first four new Commandos released for the first half of April, you'd better be quick. The next batch will be out on 22nd April as publishers DC Thomson have had their sale dates brought forward.

This means four new issues of the popular, long-running pocket war comic digest will then be every fortnight until July, so Commando will now go on sale on the first Thursday of every month rather than the second.

Commando 4283 - Operation: Red Commando
Story: Alan Hebden Inside Art: Vila Cover Art: Ian Kennedy (could that be a touch of Dan Dare on the radar Console?)

In early 1942, Lieutenant Rory Granger and his Commando squad were chosen for a daring mission to destroy a vital German radar station in the far north of Norway.

However, the plan went awry. Rory and his men found themselves up against a ruthless enemy in the bitterly cold wastes of Russia, fighting just to stay alive!

Commando 4284 - Race to Freedom
Story: Ferg Handley Inside Art: Keith Page Cover Art: Keith Page

Reeling back from the German onslaught in May 1940, Private Tom Dawson and his mate, Harry Greene, saw their company decimated in a terrifying Stuka attack. They teamed up with other stragglers — including a very unconventional Signals officer — determined to join the mass evacuation at Dunkirk. But to get to those beaches they’d have to make a perilous journey through occupied Belgium...

Commando 4285 - Mercenaries!
Story: Mike Knowles Inside Art: Ricardo Garijo Cover Art: Alan Burrows
Previously No 2575 from 1992

Thirsting for excitement and adventure, paratrooper Jack Nash had seized the chance to become a mercenary — a hired soldier in someone else’s war — with the promise of action and a hefty pay-packet.

Well, Jack got plenty of action — more than most men could handle. As for the money, that might just be a different story...

Commando 4286 - Welcome to the War!
Story: Mike Knowles Inside Art: Olivera Cover Art: Ian Kennedy
Previously No 2626 from 1992

They kept telling Andy Webster that he was doing a great job, beavering away behind the scenes as the war raged all over Europe. But that wasn’t good enough for Andy. He wanted to be in the front line, right in the thickest of the action.

Well, his dearest wish would come true far sooner then he thought, but there was one big snag. It didn’t look as if he would survive to enjoy the glory!

• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846

Plum action in Commando!

New issues of DC Thomson's war comic digest Commando are now on sale now... got get 'em!

Commando 4279: Too Many Heroes

Previously No 2590 from 1992
Story: Ian Clark
Inside Art: Salmeron Cover: Ian Kennedy

With three older brothers all war heroes, it was no wonder Ben Fraser wanted to join up. And, as the Second World War entered its last year, he got his chance. But always at the back of his mind was a nagging doubt — did he have the same kind of courage as his brothers?

Commando 4280: Plum's War

Previously No 2546 from 1992
Story: Ian Clark Inside Art: Ibanez
Cover: Alan Burrows

Overweight, carefree and scruffier than your average sack of potatoes, you could hardly meet a less soldierly figure than Captain Albert ‘Plum’ Duff.

Put Plum in a fight, though, and you’d find few better officers in the British Army — something the lean supermen of the Afrika Korps were about to discover...to their cost!

Commando 4281: Battle of the Blue Nile

Story: Alan Hebden Inside Art: Keith Page Cover: Keith Page

Since ancient times it had been said, ‘He who controls the Nile controls Egypt.’

During the Second World War this saying was never more prophetic, as German and Italian forces had a secret plan in mind for the most famous river in the world... And it was up to a plucky bunch of mismatched heroes — including a young Ethiopian prince — to stop them if they could!

Commando 4282: ‘V-Bomber Down!’

Story: Alan Hebden Inside Art: Carlos Pino Cover: Carlos Pino

When the forces of the Western Allies and the Eastern Bloc faced each other in the Cold War, Britain’s mightiest bombers were the Victor, Valiant and the Vulcan — the V-Bombers. Cutting-edge technology, they bristled with secret equipment.

When one crash-lands mysteriously on a snow-covered disputed island, special forces from both sides are ordered to the scene, each determined to be there first. As the heavily-armed troops close in, there is every possibility that their actions could turn a Cold War into a very hot one indeed.

• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846

Attention! New Commandos on Sale

Four new Commandos are now on sale in all good newsagents in the UK from publishers DC Thomson...

Commando No 4275: The Camouflage Kings
Story: Alan Hebden Inside Art: Vila Cover: Ian Kennedy

During World War II, Randolf King, a civilian film set designer, was employed by British Military Intelligence. His specialty was still the creation of illusions — but not for the movies this time. His talents were to put to use fooling the Germans with fake airfields, bases — even ships!

However, Randolf had a nemesis — a mysterious enemy with skills the equal of his own and, it seemed, the ability to anticipate his every move...

Commando No 4276: Deadly Feud
Story: Mike Knowles Inside Art: Macabich Cover: Macabich

August von Wurtburg, disgraced military cadet, had escaped from pre-First World War Germany, and his enemies, by joining the French Foreign Legion. There, to his surprise, he had been moulded into a skilled and dangerous fighting man.

When he returned to Germany after World War 1 he found it, and his family, in the grip of armed militias — a land on the brink of civil war. August would need all his considerable skills just to stay alive, never mind help his family.

Commando 4277: Combat Zone
Story: Ian Clark Inside Art: Ricardo Garijo Cover: Ian Kennedy
Previously No 2606 from 1992

The news team had known that filming a documentary in the middle of a combat zone was bound to be dangerous work. But nothing could have prepared them for a life-or-death chase by a gang of cut-throat bandits out for blood... or a direct attack by Hind helicopter gunships, each armed with a terrifying arsenal of machine guns, rockets and anti-tank missiles!

Commando 4278: Warriors of the Wilderness
Story: Alan Hemus Inside Art: Vila Cover: Alan Burrows
Previously No 2559 from 1992

A plane crash in an icy wilderness sets off a rescue operation with a difference because a Russian general in the plane carries vital secrets in his head. It means he must be rescued — or killed.

This desperate mission will make comrades of a strange assortment of fighting men...

• For more information, check out the official Commando site at: www.commandomag.com, which alos includes features on popular Commando characters such as Ramsey's Raiders and an ongoing day-by-day diary of World War 2...


• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846

Into Action with new Commandos

Attention, troops! the latest Commandos from DC Thomson are on sale now, as follow...

Commando 4271: An Inch from Death
Story: Ian Clark Inside artwork: Ricardo Garijo Cover: Ian Kennedy
Originally No 2592 from 1992

In the shadows of the old sawmill the two officers fought like tigers − a British Military Policeman and an SS war criminal locked in savage hand-to-hand struggle.

And now the ruthless Nazi had the edge, his hands closing round the Redcap’s throat, forcing him closer, closer still, to the buzzing, razor-sharp blade of the bench saw...

Commando No 4272: The Shadow War
Story: Mike Knowles Inside artwork: Denis McLoughlin Cover: Alan Burrows
Originally No 2585 from 1992

16-year-old Danny Webster hated being a miner. So, after a pit accident, he decided to do what many lads dream of doing — he joined the French Foreign Legion.

But life there wasn’t a bit like any of the films he’d seen and Danny found himself in Indo-China, fighting a shadow army above... and below... the ground!

Commando No 4273: The Raven and The Renegade
Story: Ferg Handley Inside Artwork and cover: John Ridgway

When Major Otto Schafer took command of a small village in Brittany, he had to show the locals that he meant business — by taking a large group of villagers hostage.

Sensing disaster, his new adjutant Klaus Mayer urged him to reconsider. Trying to persuade his new CO, Klaus loaned him a book telling the remarkable tale of a similar situation from the region’s turbulent past.

Otto was fascinated by this fantastic tale. And you will be too when you read it...

Commando No 4274: Rifleman From Rio
Story: Alan Hebden Inside artwork and cover: Mike White

When he joined the Brazilian Army to escape a deadly enemy in Rio De Janeiro, Luis Silveira didn’t expect to find himself fighting half a world away in Europe. But he did.

When he arrived in Europe with the rest of his unit, he didn’t expect to run across that same old enemy from Rio. But he did.

The bitter fight was on once more.

"This issue features our first inside artwork from Mike White for quite some time," notes Calum, "but still up to his expected standard.

• For more information, check out the official Commando site at: www.commandomag.com


• Click here for subscription information or write to: D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd, The Subscribers Department, Commando Library, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL or Freephone (UK only) 0800 318846

In Review: Wasted #2 - Back With Bite!

The second issue of Bad Press' adult humour anthology mag Wasted is on sale now, cranking up the quality several more notches on its launch issue with some terrific strips from a wide range of creators that include Alan Grant, Jon Haward, Martin Hayes, Adrian Bamforth, Jamie Grant, Frank Quitely, Alan Burrows and many others.

Wrapped in a stunning cover of demon teen Lusi Sulfura by Alan Kerr, this 70-page magazine is not for the lily-livered - crammed as it is with strips such as The Dirty Dog (toilet humour extreme from Grant, Quitely and John Wagner) and the brilliant Tales of the Buddha (from Grant and Haward, the Buddha partnered this issue with a very angry Jesus).

Alan Kerr's superb Lusi Sulfura - surely a character of Tank Girl and Nemi cult potential - a wonderful gem, as is Holmes Has It Large by Martin Hayes and Adrian Bamforth; and there's more gems in the form of Fun Guys (by Grant and Burrows, drawing in a much looser style than you'd expect from this line man-extraordinaire, and I liked it), The Dopranos, Space Cabby and tons of other strips.

Anthology titles - especially humour titles - are never going to score on every page, because there's no telling what will make any one person laugh out loud. But when even 'throwaway' strips like Rom McPherson's Amber Nectar raise a smile, the good outweighs the occasional dud.

With full colour throughout for a measly £3.25, Wasted eats rival titles like Viz - perhaps these days over reliant on a trusted formula for its continued success - for breakfast. Yes, there are some rough edges (not literally - it's not that dangerous), but for a second outing, Wasted #2 is another cracking read and well worth tracking down.

• Wasted is available from www.wastedcomic.com and selected newsagents and other outlets. "You can Try Before You Buy" by grabbing this still-available preview edition of the first issue