I Often Appeal and Ramble...It's What One Does

 

 "Why don't you publish a British Golden Age horror collection?"

Well, the pulp scene continued in a way with US reprints but not horror comics as such. We had Dene Vernon dealing with all sorts of supernatural menaces (and moe) and Krako was "The Angel of the Burning Death" but apart from incinerating some "unidentified European fascist troops" there was a lot of interesting but hardly "horror" action.

Most of this has already been reprinted in the Gold series and Dene Vernon has already had a reprint issue. The thinking at the time was that comics were for youngsters and it was probably considered giving kids horror stories when they faced  bombing raids and deaths every night was a bit much. escapism was far better. The 1940s were the Dark Age of British comics as explainmed in this post: https://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2019/08/redefining-ages-of-british-comic_15.html

If you want the quick snippet....

British super heroes and action was rife as were the humour comics so some of the 1930s Golden Agen creation spirit was still going strong. In fact, evn today I found yet another long lost and forgotten masked character of the 1940s. I think it fair to say that Dennis M. Reader and Denis Gifford (Reader in the main) created and kept the super hero alive and well during the 1940s. Other artists did contribute to the tights and capes (and bat-wings) set.

I have to also say that Mick Anglo and his creative run started while the Dark Age turned into the Silver Age; "He created Marvel Man" and that was it. Well, that is it unless you actually know something about Anglo's career drawing and writing everything from Sci Fi to Westerns, to crime stories and humour/ He may well not have been the greatest and most slick artist ever but he made up for it in what his mind created and visualised. We owe far, far more to Anglo than 99% of the supposed comic fans know.

After many years photographs of Dennis Reader (like other creators) still allude me and it would be nice to put a face to a name and set of work.

Top of the list for creator photos are

William A Ward

Dennis M Reader

The McCail brothers

Thank You