Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Who remembers Jag?

Jag No.1 hit the stores on 27th April 1968, and was the last traditional boy's comic. It was originally a 16 page tabloid sized paper, but by the end of it's run it was a 32 page regular sized comic. Jag truly was britains best doing britains best. Eric Bradbury drew the mouse patrol, a war story from 1941 set in the North African desert. It was about some boys who set out in a stolen german tank in search of their farthers, who had been kidnapped by the Nazis. They were assisted by Cleo, a Chimpanzee, who only appeared in the last box in issue one. Captain Codsmouth was the first story to grab my attention. It's about Codsmouth and his stupid crew, Fred Needle, Bos'n Mulligan and Stoker Splitpin. In the first episode, the captain discovers why they only just made it out of the harbour after three months at sea (they'd forgotten to raise the anchor)an, so he threatens his crew no pay! Brilliant art by Joe Colqhoun, and later Doug Maxted. One of Jags full colour pages was taken up by Custer, from 'The Ledgend of Custer'. The opportunity gave artist Geoff Campion a brilliant opportunity to produce some amazinghand coloured artwork. Unfortunatly it didn't last long, and merged with Tiger after 48 issues. ..................................... Just thought it would be intresting to include the Beano from the same week. This issue includes one of my favorite Dennis The Menace stories, by David Law.

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