Hurricane and Champion: The Companion Papers to Valiant

Cross post from Howie's World of Comics

There may be no new comics as the shops remain shut but the post can still bring worthwhile reading. This is one of to volumes I purchased written by Steve Holland which give excellent guides to long out of print comics. There is a third which I will order and read in due course but for today I have just finished reading the guide to Hurricane and Champion.

As a child I was aware of both of these titles but only read Hurricane in the form of Annuals (I had the ones cover dated 1966 & 1968) whilst Champion was only known to me when it merged with Lion a comic I did occasionally read.

Of the two titles Hurricane ran the longest for 63 weekly issues between February 1964 and May 1965. The only character I really recall was Typhoon Tracy a troubleshooter in the vein of Captain Hurricane of the Valiant. Fists and strength.

 

There was much else as the author reminds us including Skid Solo (which I vaguely recall from the Tiger comic), The Juggernaut from Planet Z and When The Lights Went Out both of which appeal and will hopefully see a reprint from Rebellion who now own all this stuff.

Of course there were the inevitable humour strips like Dirk & Ed who remind me of a similar strip in Odham's Wham! comic which was around that time.

  

Hurricane despite being promoted as the "companion paper to Valiant" ended up being merged in the mostly sport orientated Tiger. The only period I had any interest in that comic as sport does not appeal to me.

 

The other and much shorter lived title covered in this short bu interesting volume is Champion. Never read a copy but it contained quite a lot of sci-fi comic strips a lot of which originated from Europe as apparently half the content was Belgian reprints. Some of these look interesting but not all could easily be reprinted as the Belgians would hold the copy-rights to their stories.

  

However there are only 15 issues to collect before it was subsumed by Lion the much better known comic published by Fleetway.

The guide finishes with and index of stories and annuals. Hurricane despite ending in 1965 continued to have annuals published up until 1974.

Highly Recommended.

Copies can be obtained from: bearalleybooks.blogspot.com