Resisting Rome in a 1950S British Boys' Adventure Strip
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chapter 12 “Wulf the Briton”: Resisting Rome in a 1950s British Boys’ Adventure Strip Tony Keen Even within the field of children’s literature, comics are a relatively neglected area. This is largely due to persistent cultural prejudice against comics as a medium. They are felt to be not proper literature – indeed comics are consid- ered in some circles to be sub-literate, and discounting of comics contributes to the widespread notion that boys do not read.1 Within the area of comics, British comics are particularly neglected. As James Chapman explains, there are a number of reasons for this lack of atten- tion.2 For the most part, British comics lack the iconic cultural cachet of their American cousins, from which emerged widely recognisable brands such as the various superhero titles, or “Peanuts.”3 Nor are comics taken as culturally 1 For an introduction to academic study of comics, see Joe Sutcliff Sanders, “Comic Studies 101,” sfra Review 284 (Spring 2008) 4–7, and for an introduction to the reception of antiquity in comics, see George Kovacs, “Comics and Classics: Establishing a Critical Frame,” in George Kovacs and C.W. Marshall, eds., Classics and Comics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 3–24. The notion that comics are sub-literate is illustrated in Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993) 3. Farah Mendlesohn, The Inter- Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction (Jefferson, n.c., and London: McFarland, 2009) 22–48, usefully explodes the idea that boys don’t read, pointing out that it is based on discounting reading of non-fiction, comics, and even some types of books; thus “boys don’t read” actually means “boys don’t read those novels that are part of the pre- scribed canon for children.” My own childhood provides anecdotal support for Mendlesohn’s thesis: I voraciously devoured comics, books on railways and military equipment, and the nov- els of Ian Fleming, but could not be made to read “classic” works such as Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1820) or Captain Frederick Marryat’s The Children of the New Forest (1847), as a result causing some consternation for my mother and teachers. 2 James Chapman, British Comics: A Cultural History (London: Reaktion Books, 2011) 7–15. 3 The literature on American comics is voluminous. Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore, m.d.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), is a good place to start. There are, of course, British exceptions to this general absence of cultural cachet, most notably Judge Dredd, who has been the star of 2000 ad since 1977, and has widespread recognition such that he has been the subject of two Hollywood movies (in 1995 and 2012). See Colin M. Jarman and Peter Action, Judge Dredd: The Mega- History (Luton: Lennard, 1995). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi �0.��63/9789004�98606_0�4 <UN> Wulf The Briton: Resisting Rome in a 1950s Boys’ Adventure Strip 281 seriously in the United Kingdom as they are in Europe (especially in France).4 Discussion of British comics, therefore, is mostly to be found not in academic work, with a few exceptions such as Chapman’s 2011 book British Comics, but in fanzines and online fan pages, and in the work of writers who have emerged from fandom, such as Paul Gravett.5 The British boys’ adventure comic of the 1950s and 1960s is even more rarely discussed, even in comparison with other British comics. The boys’ adventure comic, though extremely popular and widely-read, had little cultural cachet until the late 1970s, when 2000 ad blended the format with elements of the British punk aesthetic, and gained a degree of acceptance within the counter- culture.6 As a result, a significant number of strips from 2000 ad have been reprinted in various formats – primarily “Judge Dredd,” but also stories such as “Nemesis the Warlock,” “Strontium Dog,” “abc Warriors,” “Rogue Trooper,” etc. Little else in the way of British comics from the same period has been reprinted (though some strips from 2000 ad’s 1970s stablemate Battle Picture Weekly, such as “Charley’s War” and “Johnny Red,” have been collected). For the 1950s and 1960s the position is even worse. A few key works are accessible, especially those connected with particular television franchises, such as Doctor Who and the various television series produced by Gerry Anderson. Frank Hampson’s iconic “Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future” strips from Eagle of the 1950s (1950–1959) are also relatively easily to find, and have a reasonably large critical bibliogra- phy.7 Other works have been released, but often in collections that are very expensive, if aesthetically extremely pleasing – this fate has befallen Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence’s influential “The Trigan Empire” (1965–1976).8 4 On French and European comics, see Bart Beaty, Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007); Ann Miller, Reading Bande Desinée: Critical Approaches to French-Language Comic Strip (Bristol: Intellect, 2007). 5 For Gravett’s work on British comics, see most notably, Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury, Great British Comics: Celebrating a Century of Ripping Yarns and Wizard Wheezes (London: Aurum Press, 2006). Note also Graham Kibble-White, The Ultimate Book of British Comics: 70 Years of Mischief, Mayhem and Cow Pies (London: Allison & Busby, 2005). 6 On 2000 ad, see Chapman (2011) 144–71. 7 E.g. Alastair Crompton, The Man Who Drew Tomorrow (Bournemouth: Who Dares Publishing, 1985); Tony Watkins, “Piloting the Future: Dan Dare and the 1950s,” in Dudley Jones and Tony Watkins, eds., A Necessary Fantasy? The Heroic Figure in Children’s Popular Culture (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000) 153–75; James Chapman, “Onward Christian Spaceman: Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future as British Cultural History,” Visual Culture in Britain 9/1 (2008) 55–79; British Comics (2011) 60–69. 8 The strip continued to 1982, but without Lawrence, and this material is not included in the reprints. For the influence of “Trigan Empire,” see Neil Gaiman, “Deja late. Also Some <UN>.