Rockfist Rogan from the comic Champion
(circa-1939)

* Thanks to Dave Ashford & Norman Wright for this one

Rockfist Rogan from the comic Champion
(circa-1939)

Rockfist Rogan from the comic Champion
(circa-1939)

The two titles below were advertised as "in preparation" on the last of the Rockfist novels above. Does anyone know if they were actually released?

Rockfist Rogan was a character that appeared in the pages of the Champion comic - a story paper - from Oct 1938 until 1960. Created by veteran comic writer Frank S. Pepper under the pseudonym Hal Wilton.

Rockfist was a British RAF pilot (and champion boxer - hence the name) and went on to become the star of the Champion. 

Rockfist King of the Cannibals

CAN ANYONE SEND
ME A SCAN?

Rockfist Rogan - Spy Hunter

CAN ANYONE SEND
ME A SCAN?

Eagle novel
(1956)

Eagle novel
(1956)

Eagle novel
(1957)

Click here for more on

Luck of the Legion

The first six novels in this series were all spun off from various comic strips that appeared in the Eagle comic. However, the last two, Return of Robinson Crusoe and Wickham and the Armada were original stories.

Nick Nobody - Photographer

Can someone send me a scan?

Swift novel
(1958)

The White Hart Lane Mystery was interesting for 2 reasons: firstly it featured a mystery involving one of Britian's top football clubs, Tottenham Hotspurs, and secondly because the hero, policeman George Dixon could be seen in his own show, Dixon of Dock Green, on the TV every Saturday night!

Dixon of Dock Green was a regular strip in the Swift.

Swift novel
(1960)

Smiley, although a regular in the pages of Swift (1958-1960) actually started life in a novel by Moore Raymond called Smiley (Sylvan Press: 1945). This was also made into a film of the same name. There followed Smiley Gets a Gun (Sylvan Press: 1947). Smiley Roams the Road is the third book in the series.

Girl novel
(1956)

Girl novel
(1957)

Wendy and Jinx were the front page lead in the Girl comic taking over from Kitty Hawk after one year. These stories of two Fourth Form friends, written by Valerie Hastings, remained popular right up to the end of the comic's life.

Their strip adventures were also published in the French comic Line, and a series of hardback albums in France.

Belle of the Ballet appeared in the Girl comic from 1952 until 1964. Conceived by George Beardmore who also wrote and drew the strip (with Terry Stanford) it tells the story of an orphaned ballerina. The stories continued in the comic Princess from 1964 to 1967.

The strip adventures were also published in the French comic Line, and a series of hardback albums in France.

Battler Britton: Second World War fighter pilot. Created by Mike Butterworth and drawn (originally) by Geoff Campion the strip first appeared on the cover of Sun on 7 January 1956, and then went on to feature in Thriller Picture Library, and finally in Air Ace Picture Library.

During the late 1950's and into the 60's, many publishers must have watched with admiration and some envy, the success of the Ladybird series of books.

These were small hardbacked books, nicely illustrated, featuring one page of text followed by a coloured illustration.

This series was aimed at the younger age groups (4-12 years) and the subjects covered history, science, stories, and much more.

So Fleetway decided to use some of their own nursery characters and release them in a similar size and layout to the popular Ladybird series'.

The one on the left is the first in the series from Jack & Jill comics: there followed 20 different titles featuring Harold Hare, Freddy Frog, Little Red Squirrel, Tom Thumb and others.

 The New English Library published four paperbacks with the common theme of British (actually Fleetway) comic characters in 1977. These were a strange blend of text story and panels from the original comics.

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A bullet lodged close to his heart during the invasion of Europe, gives D-Day Dawson a devil-may-care attitude to his own imminent demise, making him a somewhat formidable opponent: from the pages of Battle Picture Weekly (8 March 1975) drawn by Geoff Campion.

In 1926 young cockney Molly Mills goes into domestic service at Stanton Hall, and becomes friends with Cook, Lord Stanton's crippled daughter Clare and Charlie the boot boy. Her adventures lasted for ten years in the comic Tammy.

Tammy ran from 6 February 1971 up until it merged with Jinty in 1981. The strip was originally called No Tears for Molly, but was eventually given individually titled stories.

Dan Dare
from the comic Eagle
(1977)

One of the longest running characters in British comics is Roy Race (created by Frank S. Pepper) who plays center forward for the fictious team of Melchester Rovers. Roy of the Rovers started life in the pages of Fleetway's sports orientated comic Tiger (11 September 1954), and lasted up to the comics demise in 1985.

However, he was such a hit that on 26 September 1976 he had a comic of his own which lasted until 23 March 1993.

Roy of the Rovers
from the comic Tiger
(1993)
Thanks to Richard Sheaf for the scan

Roy of the Rovers
from the comic Tiger
(1993)

Two more Roy of the Rovers paperbacks, both published by Ravette Books, were released in 1993.

Eastern Promise

Can someone send me a scan?

Roy of the Rovers
from the comic Tiger
(1993)

In 1993, thanks to the many fans of the 2000AD Comic, Virgin started publishing the first of a series of novels devoted to the central hero of the comic, Judge Dredd.

The cover shown here is the first of the series of nine issued, and was written by Judge Dredd Megazine Editor, David Bishop.

For those adults brought up on comics, this was a darn good read.

In general these were an excellent series of adult orientated novels.

Click here for a complete listing.

Ten years later (2003) and Black Flame took up the cudgel and started to release many novels based upon 2000AD characters. The first being Dredd vs. Death.

There are at the time of writing (August 2007) over 40 titles in the series.

Other 2000AD characters that have rated their own novel(s) in the series have been: Strontium Dog, Slaine, Durham Red, Judge Anderson, Nikolai Dante, ABC Warriors and Rogue Trooper.

Click here for a complete listing.