"Oh Dear!" Said My Brain

One Of The Perils Of Having A Selective Memory
- especially one that selects what it feels like at random and is capable of bringing said memory up 40 years later,  is that you never know what's going to pop up to the surface of the seething flotsam-laden waters of my mind.
     I have just tabulated the words in this Intro, and it's nearly the whole article, so I shall make a quick recovery and say that today - WE HAVE A THEME!
     We've not had a Theme in who knows how long.  No, I do not mean the politico-military basis that the Byzantine Empire drew it's strength from, I mean a narrative thread that runs through the whole item, and today it is long-gone comics from the Sixties and into the Seventies, when there were very, very clearly delineated demographics.  There were comics for boys, there were comics for girls, and the two NEVER EVER interacted.

An example

     Let us now survey the comics scene in This Sceptred Isle back in the early Seventies, when Conrad's school had a big box of comics stashed away in the storeroom, which pupils could read at lunchtime.  There was the "Victor", of course.  Art?

NO!  NO!  WRONG!  That caption mentions March 1945, but -
THOSE TANKS ARE FROM 1941!

     Damn your eyes, man, you're destroying my childhood! <pauses for veins in forehead to cease throbbing>.  Anyway, yes, the "Victor"  There was also "Hotspur".  Art?

Conscientious objector?

     Not to mention the "Valiant" - which if Art will put down his bowl of coke and anthracite -

That's Kelly

     - of "Kelly's Eye", which is a bingo phrase and also the "Eye of Zoltec" if I remember correctly, which rendered old Kelly indestructible - as long as he was wearing it.  Personally Conrad would have it inside an armoured box welded to a stout metal chain, worn under the clothes, but that's just me.
     By a curious coincidence, both Victor and Valiant were also contemporary members of Perfidious Albion's "V" nuclear bomber force, as I think I've mentioned once or twice before.  British comics never published a "Vulcan" that I know of -
     Aaaaand to get back on track.  There was also "Hornet".  Art?

I really have no idea what's going on here.  "Thunder-camels of Doom with Carpet-Rods of Terror?"

     And I think there was "Wizard", too.  Let me just apply a little Google-fu -

Ah.  The definite article.

     I do apologise, "THE Wizard".  Why they had to be so specific I don't know, it's not as if there were multitudes of comics with a similar name.  Now, wasn't there also something along the lines of "Rover"?  NOT to be confused with "Roy of the Rovers", let me hastily add, with a genuflect of the knee and a tug of the forelock to the mighty Melchester Rovers.  Art?

The white heat of racing technology in play

     These were, need I tell you, adventure comics for boys, and definitely not to be confused with the humourous ones like the "Beano" or "Whizzer and Chips".  And not for girls, either, because they had their own arcane publications.
     I am approaching getting to the point.  Don't push me - this banana is loaded!
     Some time ago I managed to track down a quite scary sci-fi story that had featured in a Summer Special edition of one of the above, and discovered that it had been reprinted in a "Starlord" annual.  I think.  Your humble scribe wrote the details down somewhere in a notebook, and now cannot find the notebook or remember the details <heavy sigh>.

You know, this looks familiar

     You see, I remember a short portion of a black and white comic strip from one of these boy's adventure comics.  Unfortunately the comic was totally out of sequence with the rest in the box, so there was no introductory blurb or background.  I recall there was a large group of European men, quite possibly British, who were attempting to transport a huge stone idol similar to one of the Easter Island heads, with no technology or machinery.  They were pushing it along wooden sleepers, in the depths of a Pacific jungle island, and there were some touchy islanders around - agitating for a withdrawal from East of Suez, that sort of thing - who would liven things up by shooting deadly poison darts and the haulage party.  The niggling detail that stays with me is that they shot these instantly fatal darts into people's hair, so you'd no idea what had happened to your mate, he'd just "give a cry of pain" and drop dead.  Always "A cry of pain", because the writers and artists evoked a spirit of manliness; on the other hand, if it were the Teutons (who were either "The Hun" or "The Krauts", no PC nonsense here!) then they would "shriek with agony" because they were as tough as a big girl's blouse.  Art?

In those days Italy was renowned for ice cream.  Not pasta, Gucci or Roman architecture - ice cream.

     You know, that's another anachronistic tank.  It's definitely not one of the Italian M11/39, M13/40 or M15/42 series, and indeed looks more like a Panzer III.  What were they thinking of!
     Back to my dilemma.  I don't know which of the titles above the story I remember came from, and Googling is quite useless, Your Humble Scribe cannot remember the title nor the artist or writer, and it's going to whiz round and round my head until either it gets identified or I go completely round the twist.

A Valiant bomber.  You can imagine the non-PC banter:  "Come on chaps, let's give those Muscovites some buckets of instant sunshine!"

     Nothing being said about the Sixties or into the Seventies would be complete without mention of "TV 21", which was the print arm of the Anderson futurology organisation.  Art?

Embleton artwork

     The colour artwork was brilliant, if the storylines a little less so <ahem> and you had artists of the calibre of Ron Embleton, Don Lawrence and Mike Noble producing really excellent strips on a weekly basis.  Conrad has some copies at the back of his comics cupboard that are, literally, worth their weight in gold.  No you can't see them, they're too preciousssss!
     Of course the FiveGees wouldn't like them, and would probably have to scrub their eyeballs with bleach and Brillo pads if they accidentally saw one - because World Unity Government, you see, headquarters on Bermuda.  Art?

Unity City, 2069.
("Gaaaah!  Quick, Mavis, bring the Domestos, I've looked at it!")

     
     And with that, having annoyed and insulted our quota for today, we are done.  SIG!