New-look Storm Comics web site

The main Storm Comics web site has just had a spring clean with a bold, new look, simpler layout and easy access to all areas from the home page. The latest blog headlines are featured, alongside the store and links to the galleries of art and comics available for free downloading. Why not take a look and come into the Storm?

Escape 1 & 2

Way back in 1983, my comic horizons were expanded considerably by the appearance in my local comic shop (Mr Tomorrow's Norwich) of a small, a% fanzine. Called Escape, it was edited by someone called Paul Gravett, came wrapped in a double-sided cardstock cover drawn by Phil Elliot and contained contributions by numerous creators, several of whose names were completely new to me; Glenn Dakin, Hunt Emerson, Atr Spiegelman and Eddie Campbell, amongst others. And there were features on comics and artists I'd never heard of including Serge Clerc, George Herriman and Krazy Kat and Wilson of the Wizard. Escape was branded as UKBD, the British version of the French Bande Dessinee ("Avoid the tripe-trap! Think eclectic!"). Suddenly comics had a European dimension.

Now I had just left school, was making my way into the world of nine-to-five working and was still as passionate about comics as I had been when 2000AD hit the scene a few years earlier. But my exposure to comics was limited mainly to the diminishing British boys' titles and the American marvel and DC titles that turned up in local newsagents. I'd make the odd trip to comic marts in London but the concept of graphic novels or of comics beyond Britain and the US was largely an unknown. Escape changed all of that. I can remember reading andre-reading the first two issues over and over again trying to take it all in, my mind suddenly exposed to this wider world of comics. I couldn't get enough of it. I would journey to other cities and trek for miles searching out what seemed like obscure bookshops and comic stores in an attempt to lay my hands on these treasures that I had read about. In fact it was down to Escape #1 that I first came across Bryan Talbot's work beyond 2000AD and began collecting those first issues of The Tales of Luther Arkwright. And I remain a fan of the works of Rian Hughs, Eddie Campbell and the glorious work of Hunt Emerson to this day.

I was never able to lay my hands on further issues after that until Escape went big and glossy. As a squarebound magazine, it starting appearing on the shelves of newsagents like WH Smith and for a while it seemed like comics had finally come to be seen as a valid and respectable artform offering something different from the usual staples to be found with the funny papers. Alas it didn't last and Escape disappeared. This was a blow to me at a time before the internet when finding out about such things was some much harder than it is now. Deadline came along at more or less the same time but that was more of a mix of comics and music and its populist approach was not to my taste. And great though Escape became, I still have a soft spot for those first two issues that I've held onto ever since. Their appearance was a seminal moment for me, a lesson in expanding your horizons and trying new things.

I hear on the grapewine recently that there are plans to bring Escape back. I really do hope this comes to pass as there has been nothing like it before or since. Even with all the information available on the internet, I still prefer my reading matter in printed form and if Escape does make it back to the shelves, I will be putting in my order.

Terror Behind the Bamboo Curtain

Whenever articles appear harking back to the days of Battle Picture Weekly, the classic strips mentioned aren invariably the same; D-Day Dawson, Rat Pack, Day of the Eagle, Major Easy, etc. As an avid 10 year old reader however, one strip stood out for me; The Terror Behind the Bamboo Curtain.

While most strips involved the hero/s getting in one gun battle to another, week after week, 'Terror' went at a more sedate pace, less action-packed but, dare I say it, slightly more thoughtful than the usual gung-ho approach of the others. Not that it was in any way deep or meaningful, it was just a bit different. Centering around our hero, 'Big' Jim Blake, this story was set within the confines of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in the Burmese jungle. Many of the strips that featured in Battle and it's later sister title, Action, drew their inspiration from the movies. In Terror's case, the closest big-screen equivalent would be The Bridge Over the River Kwai. Like the film, the strip had an air of psychological menace about it, terror suggested rather than overt. For example, we had the camp commandant, the sadistic Colonol Sado (the name says it all) who would place prisoners within his bamboo curtain, allow them to escape and then laugh and gloat as invariably they would perish in his hideous man-traps set out especially for the spectacle. And as if to suggeest this cruel overlord had a soft side, he was accompanied by his pet Siamese cat, Suki. Somehow the cat's prescence just added to the air of meance.

Unlike many PoW stories, this was no more story of men trying to escape. Terror had far loftier, if daft, ambitions. Colonol Sado was brainwashing British prisoners in order to form a private army who would obey only his command. The story was short-lived, just twelve issues running from Battle Picture Weekly #1 to a length of 36 pages. But is was tautly told and well illustrated by several artists in similar styles that at times remind me of the great Hugo Pratt (Corto Maltese). The story inevitably ended with Big Jim ending Sado's plans and regrouping with British forces to continue the fight in the jungle. And there was a wonderful closing image as Jim heads off as we see Colonol Sado's hand as he sinks into one of his own swamp tramps. And casually looking on is the cat. This was a strip with a sense of irony.

Terror doesn't seem to get mentioned much these days but it holds strong recollections for me and having reread it again just recently, I feel it stands up well to the test of time. Perhaps it's short length will see it reprinted in its entirety in one of the upcoming Best of Battle editions. It certainly deserves another look.