Final Johnny Red collection from Titan Books out next month

The final collection of Joe Colquhoun’s work on the seminal aerial combat story Johnny Red, which featured in Battle Picture Weekly, is out next month.

Entitled Angels Over Stalingrad, this third volume in the series includes a feature on the Battle of Stalingrad by Garth Ennis (The Boys, Preacher, War Stories).

Sadly, at present it seems this is the last Titan collection for now from the series, but Egmont are publishing digital editions of the comics, with two volumes already on sale - so let's hope that artist John Cooper, who took over the strip from Joe Colquhoun when Joe moved over to Charley's War, gets his day in the limelight, which he so richly deserves.

These collections are a fantastic tribute to both writer Tom Tully and artist Joe Colquhoun, neither of whom are still with us.

• Angels over Stalingrad is on sale on 25th  January 2013 ISBN: 9781848564381

• Buy Johnny Red - Angels Over Stalingrad from amazon.co.uk

• Buy Johnny Red - Angels over Stalingrad from forbiddenplanet.com

• Falcon Squadron web site: www.falconsquadron.sevenpennynightmare.co.uk

Titan Books plan more British comics collections

Titan Books have confirmed Johnny Red Volume 3: Angels over Stalingrad, the final Joe Colquhoun collection, will be published in January 2013. The volume features a third introduction by comics writer Garth Ennis about Stalingrad.

The publishers of the Charley's War collections also tell us more British comics collections are on their way, which is welcome news. More news as we get it!

Rat Pack Volume 1: Guns, Guts and Glory should be out now and Volume 2 will be published next July. This series collects Rat Pack stories from Battle Picture Weekly.

War is a dirty business... so who better than criminals to fight it? When Major Taggart breaks four military convicts out of jail, they think they’re headed for Easy Street... but they couldn’t be more wrong. Before, they were scum -- now, they’re the Rat Pack!

Major Eazy Volume 1: Heart of Iron is also on sale now. Drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, Major Eazy is a maverick soldier in a dirty war, caught up in the Allies' invasion of Italy in 1944 and determined to see justice done. Even when that means taking on villains on his own side, he doesn't pull any punches!

More movie star than military, Eazy was the most laconic and indeed British officer ever to grace the pages of a comic. This volume starts from the very beginning of his story.

Major Eazy 2, the second and final volume, will be out next year, and will collect the 'origins' arc set in Africa, plus the remaining strip from the series.

The series editor tells us he hasn't decided if Titan will collect the Rat Pack vs Major Eazy material yet, but it definitely won't be appearing in this book - but it will feature an interview with Major Eazy artist Carlos Ezquerra, who drew most of the series stories.

Johnny Red Arctic Convoy Remembered

The Johnny Red strip created by writer Tom Tully and artist Joe Colquhoun began in Battle Picture Weekly and Valiant in January 1977. It told the story of a young disgraced British fighter pilot who took off from a CAM ship to protect his Arctic Convoy against German attack before flying this Hurricane fighter to Russia where he joined the Red Air Force's Falcon Squadron.

This origin story for the character of Johnny Red was based on a real incident in World War II that occurred during the PQ18 convoy. That convoy is being commemorated today at Loch Ewe in Scotland by the Russian Arctic Convoy Museum Project.

Seventy years ago today PQ18 set out from Loch Ewe headed on the Arctic route for Archangel in the USSR. PQ18's predecessor, PQ17, had been attacked repeatedly by German forces and lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships, a devastating 68% loss rate. PQ18 was more heavily protected and part of that protection was the CAM ship SS Empire Morn.

Catapult Armed Merchantmen (CAM) were civilian ships fitted with a rocket powered catapult to launch a single Hurricane fighter into the air to protect the convoy from enemy attack. The CAM pilots were a special breed as in the middle of the Arctic Ocean they had nowhere to land their plane once they ran out of ammunition and fuel and so their choices were either bail out into the freezing ocean or crash land in the water and, assumed that they survived that, try to get out of the plane before it sank. Unsurprisingly most chose to bail out.

At 11.50 a.m. local time on 18 September 1942 Flying Officer Arthur Burr of the RAF Volunteer Reserve was launched in his Hurricane against 15 Luftwaffe Heinkel HE111 torpedo bombers. He shot one down and caused another to crash and none of the convoys ships were hit by their torpedoes. With no ammunition but a lot of fuel left he decided to attempt landfall at the nearest airfield, the Soviet Keg Ostrov aerodrome 240 miles due south. Remarkably, despite flying into fog in a plane with no radar, he made it to the aerodrome and became the only CAM pilot ever to save his aircraft after a combat launch. Arthur Burr was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions that day and 28 of the 40 PQ18 merchant ships made it to Arkangel, a 70% survival rate which turned PQ17's 68% loss rate on its head.

In Battle's version of the incident Convoy PQ18 became Convoy XQ14, the SS Empire Morn became the SS Empire Cape and Arthur Burr became Johnny 'Red' Redburn who, unlike Burr who returned to Britain with his aircraft and ship, remained in the Soviet Union to fight the Germans alongside his new comrades and went on to become one of the weekly comic's most popular characters.

There are more details of today's PQ18 Convoy commemoration on the BBC News website and the Russian Arctic Convoy Museum Project website

Arthur Burr DFC is buried at the Heston (St Leonard) churchyard near Heathrow Airport and is commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.

There are more details of Arthur Burr DFC and the PQ18 convoy and how it relates to Johnny Red in the introduction to Titan's first Johnny Red reprint book Falcon's First Flight.

Johnny Red's Real History Revealed in BBC Shows

Comics commentator Michael Crouch reports that Radio 4's excellent From Our Own Correspondent show has just aired an item on the Night Witches - the all-women squadrons that fought for Russia during World War 2 and who featured in the Battle Picture Weekly comic strip Johnny Red, first brought to vibrant life by Joe (Charley's War) Coloqhoun but mostly by John Cooper for the bulk of its long run.

The show talked to surviving 'Night Witches', who recalled their greatest terror, that of being burnt alive in your aircraft. An extra bullet was always carried in their pistols so that if they crashed behind enemy lines they could shoot each other, then themselves, before the Germans could get them.

Noting that Warren Ellis recently revisited these squadrons in his series, The Night Witches, Michael is right to describe it as "a fascinating and horrific period of history."

A new collection of Johnny Red stories is in preparation for release by Titan Books next year, the first in an ongoing series.

The programme is currently available to hear again on the BBC's iPlayer and all the programmes are regularly available as podcasts. Look for Saturday 31st October's podcast here. There is also a BBC slideshow and audio commentary available here and Radio 4 will be broadcasting a documentary on Monday 2nd November at 8.00pm. Both feature contributions from Garth Ennis and there are some pictures from the graphic novel and series on the slideshow.

In Review: The Best Of Battle

It feels like it has been a long time coming but Titan's Best of Battle has finally hit the stores and surprisingly, for a "Best Of" book, the wait has been worth it.

Battle Picture Weekly was IPC's answer to DC Thomson's Warlord, a straight shooting war comic named to tie-in with IPC's long running Battle Picture Library digest which was some 890 issues old when the first issue of Battle Picture Weekly appeared dated 8 March 1975. Battle quickly amalgamated the older Valiant and in late 1977 was given the remnants of Action to become Battle/Action. While the title would eventually become home to Palitoy's licensed Action Force toys and, for a while at least, lost some of its individuality in a Whizzer and Chips style two comics in one publication, everything included in this book is from the early years of the title.

Taking its cover from the 1979 Battle annual, the Best Of Battle has total of 18 different stories - from the popular Johnny Red set in the USSR, to the acclaimed Charley's War set France, via Vietnam in Fighting Mann and Burma in Darkie's Mob. Each story has a one page introduction with background information on the creation of the story plus copious quotes from editors Pat Mills and Dave Hunt. While it would have been nice to see a similar short introduction to the comic itself at the beginning of the book, perhaps using the two pages given over to the single cutaway of an aircraft, this is a minor gripe as these introductions raise the quality of the publication above the normal multi-story reprint books.

The book has art by a lot of names familiar to British comics fans such as Joe Colquhoun, Cam Kennedy, Mike Western, Eric Bradbury, Pat Wright, Jim Watson, John Cooper and Mike Dorey and it also shows just how much of a crossover in artists there was between Battle and Warlord. Perhaps most interestingly, for 2000AD readers at least, it has two stories with pre-Judge Dredd art by Carlos Ezquerra. Rat Pack was Battle's version of The Dirty Dozen and a popular early strip while Major Eazy, rather more bizarrely, was a laid back James Coburn-style loner driving his 1930s sports car around the North Africa desert during WWII. Yet the strip that stands out for me is Fighting Mann, a much later story, both story-wise and publication-wise, about US Marines Colonel Walter Mann's battles against the Viet-Cong while trying to discover what happened to his son. The story by Alan Hebden gives Cam Kennedy the chance to include a wide range of well drawn military equipment in his work and is different enough that I would like to read much more of it.

The problem with "Best Of" reprint titles is all too often the question of just who the audience is. While the books must always be aimed at the general public, are they actually of interest to the fans as well? Carlton/Prion's Best Of 2000AD fell into the double trap of reprinting partial stories that the fans knew were available elsewhere in more complete forms while also pricing the book so high, at £20, to put off the casual purchaser who only remembered the title because they bought the comic as a youngster. At a cover price of £9.99 for a flexi-covered 288 page B&W reprint book, The Best Of Battle is much more competitively priced and while the Charley's War pages are available in the first of Titan's Charley's War reprint books the rest of the stories, so far, are not.

For the casual reader who may remember the comic this is a good purchase with its wide range of stories and its cheap price. For the more dedicated reader of Battle it gives a wide range of stories from 1975 to 1982, enough factual information on them and a very pleasing selection of artists in a well presented, good value book that hopefully will stimulate interest in the Titan's forthcoming collections of Darkie's Mob, Major Eazy, Pat Pack and Johnny Red that are to come.


There are more details of Battle on "Captain Hurricane's Best Of Battle" website and "Colonel Marbles' Battle" website.

Egmont Classic Comics: Misty

(Updated 21/9/09): The latest of the quarterly title Egmont Classic Comics featuring IPC's girls comic Misty is now available. As with the previous two titles, Roy Of The Rovers and Battle Picture Weekly, the issue is available exclusively on the high street from WH Smith at a cover price of £3.99.

WH Smith's placement of these titles on their shelves can make them problematical to find - Roy Of The Rovers was racked with the football magazines (which seems a logical choice) while Battle Picture Weekly was racked in the Military History section (go figure). Misty on the other hand has been racked in the Hobbies - Sci-Fi section which may seem a little strange but it does at least mean that the supernatural girls title, in some WH Smith stores at least, can be found sitting beside the current issue of 2000AD, much as it would have done thirty years ago when it was first published.

For anyone who cannot get to a WH Smith or cannot find it in their local one, Egmont have advertised back issues of Egmont Classic Comics in the Misty title. Anyone who wishes to get copies of the Roy or Battle, the price including P&P is £5.50.

The customer should send a cheque made out to Egmont UK Ltd together with mailing address to Melanie Leggett at Egmont UK Ltd., 239 Kensington High Street,
London W8 6SA.

At this point, Egmont can only send out Misty when it comes off sale (9th December) and Buster when it comes off sale, as Smiths have an exclusive slot until then. For further information e-mail comicarchive@egmont.co.uk for more details.

The next issue of Egmont Classic Comics will feature Buster and be available on 9 December 2009.

Battle Picture Weekly Now on Sale

Nostalgia fans are in for a summer treat with the release of a special Battle Picture Weekly collection this week, marking the return of the classic war comic to new stands for the first time 21 years.

The second in the new Classic Comics series from Egmont, which kicked off with a special issue of Roy of the Rovers (see news story), is now on sale exclusively in WHSmith stores across the country.

Readers who grew up with classic characters such as D-Day Dawson, Rat Pack and the Bootneck Boy can relive the exploits of these fabled fighters in this classic collection of picture-strips. The special edition features several selected strips from the comic, including episodes of Johnny Red, The Sarge, Major Eazy, Hellman, Rat Pack, The Bootneck Boy and D-Day Dawson.

Also included is some of the original vintage advertising that featured in the comic.

Published between 1975 and 1988, Battle fired the imaginations of countless schoolboys, many of whom had a surviving relative from the war. This selection of classic strips is republished in the original, glorious black and white. The stories are uncut with many an “ARGH!” and an “URRGH!” standing between the reader and eventual victory.

"We’ve stayed as close to the original as possible with specially produced tactile paper," a Fleetway spokesperson told downthetubes.

Egmont acquired the Fleetway stable of comics in 1991 which included the four Classic Comics being released this year: Roy of the Rovers, Battle, Misty and Buster.

Fleetwway tell us that final sales figures for the Roy of the Rovers special are still being compiled.

"We’re still waiting for final numbers on Roy of the Rovers but we had great feedback especially in the first few days – it was flying off the shelves."

• The 52-page Battle Picture Weekly special edition costs £3.99 and is on sale now