You are so going to hate me for this...

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 17 Mar 2007, 19:42

Reading through my last drive-by purchase from Ebay of .... and you will never guess what I found? Go on, have a guess. Not going to play then? Well, in that case, I will give you a clue. A huge man-eating shark, with more attitude than Mike Tyson, is terorrising a small town. Now this is the interesting part, these comics are not Action. Here's a sampler to whet your whistle.

[img

1453]http://uk.geocities.com/col_cool007/Test_Pic001.jpg[/img]

Now, the question I am going to set is...

Is this a derivative of Hookjaw or does it predate it?

PS Thank to Peter for the handy hint of posting JPEGs onto Geocities.

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 17 Mar 2007, 20:03

I assume it's after Jaws the movie, so around the same time as Hook Jaw in Action. But considering you're holding back the date at present I'm assuming you're going for a big reveal, which would suggest it appeared before Hook Jaw.

IPC didn't use typed lettering prior to Action, so this is from a DC Thomson comic. If I remember correctly, Warlord used lower case lettering, so this must be from either Victor, Hotspur or Hornet. Around late 1975 at a guess.

Am I right Watson?

Lew

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 17 Mar 2007, 21:19

Lew Stringer wrote:I assume it's after Jaws the movie,

Can see the logic in that, but it's prior to the movie!

Lew Stringer wrote:so around the same time as Hook Jaw in Action. But considering you're holding back the date at present I'm assuming you're going for a big reveal, which would suggest it appeared before Hook Jaw.

IPC didn't use typed lettering prior to Action, so this is from a DC Thomson comic. If I remember correctly, Warlord used lower case lettering, so this must be from either Victor, Hotspur or Hornet. Around late 1975 at a guess.

Am I right Watson?

Lew

Believe it or not, you are out by a full year and a half! The story was first published in Hotspur in March 1974 and ran for about a dozen issues. So, either someone at DCT got hold of a first print of Jaws and picture-boarded it like a good 'un or they beat Action to the punch by a full two years.

Lew, well impressed that you can remember that far back and that you spotted my cunning plan!

Mind you, I can still remember my brother coming home and describing the movie in graphic detail. (I was 8 when he went to see the movie!)

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 17 Mar 2007, 22:51

Interesting! Killer sharks in comics were not uncommon of course. The cover of the 1969 Tiger Annual had a shark leaping out of the water pursued by a ship. Although the similarities between Hook Jaw and the Hotspur harpooned shark are very similar. I don't think Action editor Pat Mills would have looked to Hotspur for ideas though; not his style. Just a coincidence I think, but an interesting one.

Lew

john56peter756brit · Post by **john56peter756brit** » 18 Mar 2007, 03:21

I saw those comics on your blog. And i can remember working on those spider.man and silver surfer re.prints and the bloke who had the job of re,writing those storys to fit the english market.

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 18 Mar 2007, 07:25

Lew Stringer wrote:Interesting! Killer sharks in comics were not uncommon of course. The cover of the 1969 Tiger Annual had a shark leaping out of the water pursued by a ship. Although the similarities between Hook Jaw and the Hotspur harpooned shark are very similar. I don't think Action editor Pat Mills would have looked to Hotspur for ideas though; not his style. Just a coincidence I think, but an interesting one.

Lew

I think it was the fact that Hookjaw and DCT comics were such a large part of my childhood that raised the idea of a tenuous connection in my mind. As we had 5 comics coming into our house, (Victor, Wizard, Hotspur, Warlord and Beano) Action was never bought so the only copies that I read were the ones that friends brought into school or had when we were dragged round to visit family friends.

I agree that Pat Mills would never have used Hotspur as an ideas source, as much of it was too dated by the time that Battle and Action hit the news-stands. But, it still produced the odd little gem that has stood the test of time.

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 18 Mar 2007, 13:14

Now that Lew has spotted my cunning plan, I have moved this thread into the Hotspur forum. Would have given the game away if I had put this question in there in the first place!

john56peter756brit · Post by **john56peter756brit** » 18 Mar 2007, 14:03

That shark story i remember the art was much better then Hookjaw. pat mills i remember him from years ago when i did a cover for action.

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 18 Mar 2007, 19:52

Just noticed my glaring omission!

The story was called Beware The Black Fin and ran from Mar 1974 to early May 1974. Sorry, I can't be more exact than that but as I have a very spotty run of read one, miss 3, I has done me best!

Peter Gray · Post by **Peter Gray** » 19 Mar 2007, 00:04

PS Thank to Peter for the handy hint of posting JPEGs onto Geocities.

your welcome.I like this forum being more visual.....like a blog...

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 20 Mar 2007, 11:31

Hi Col, The strip that you are referring to 'Beware the Black Fin', which actually ran in 'Hotspur' Nos 751 (9/3/74) - 758 (27/4/74), is a perfect example of a D C Thomson adventure strip being derived from an earlier prose tale published in the story papers. The story in question, simply titled 'The Black Fin', had appeared in 'Rover & Wizard' (22/1/66) - (14/5/66) and therefore predated Peter Benchley's 'Jaws' by a number of years. In fact the idea for the story was devised by Thomson's boys' paper supremo Bill Blain and the final story written by regular Thomson scriptwriter Alan Hemus and the pair often joked that maybe Benchley had pinched their idea. The original story was illustrated by Doug Phillips and the later picture strip by a Spanish artist named Gonzalez.
As I've mentioned in another thread the Thomsons boys story papers are a mine of brilliant material upon which the later picture papers often looked to, both directly and indirectly, for inspiration.

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 20 Mar 2007, 18:54

Kashgar wrote:As I've mentioned in another thread the Thomsons boys story papers are a mine of brilliant material upon which the later picture papers often looked to, both directly and indirectly, for inspiration.

Another example of that digging into the archive was brought to mind when I bought the Lofts and Adley's The Men Behind Boys' Fiction and they mentioned Cast Iron Bill as a text story which was republished in the Victor (?) as picture stories and then again in Red Dagger.

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 22 Mar 2007, 11:43

Hi Col, The goalkeeper Cast-Iron Bill mentioned in the Lofts & Adley book featured in a Rover story in 1931, illustrated by Dudley Watkins, where the emphasis was much more on comedy than it was in the three Cast-Iron Bill strips that featured in Wizard in the 1970's. So in this instance the name and the central notion of the story, an unbeatable goalkeeper, is all that links the two.

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 22 Mar 2007, 14:13

Kashgar, thanks for that. As my collection of text comics is slim (three comics and a 1938 Wizard Annual!

), the only clue I had was that mention in the book.

Comics UK