The Jag Index

Buster, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee, Wham, Smash, you name it!

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Kashgar
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The Jag Index

Post by Kashgar »

This weeks sees the fortieth anniversary of the first publication of one of Fleetway's most resplendant, if short lived, boy's comic titles, 'Jag' and, as far as I'm aware, apart from the rather sketchy entry in Steve Holland's 'Fleetway Companion', the title has never been fully indexed. Well, in lieu of any other celebration and with the mooted comicpedia much in mind, I aim to do so here, at least as far as I am able.

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Re: The Jag Index

Post by Lew Stringer »

Here's a bit of info on Jag if anyone missed my posting last year:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2007/09 ... g-jag.html

Lew

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Re: The Jag Index

Post by Captain Storm »

Hi Kashgar.Couldn't help but notice you mention indexing the Jag comic.And also Steve's "sketchy" referral to it in his Fleetway Companion.Truth is,when Steve together with erstwhile fellow comics enthusiast Gary Armitage back in the day,were indexing the various strips,they didn't have all and every issue to hand,so inevitably some gaps were unavoidable.My main reason for writing is thus;will you be taking cognizance of Steve's indicia to date(Lion Index,Valiant Index etc)and all the other Index series published by CJ Publications,or will you start from scratch and create your own titles?It would be a shame if this were so given all the hard work so far done(also Steve is in the planning stages of updating his Index Series for re-publication in the near future).I ask this because Myself and another colleague have been filling in the gaps for the Adam Eterno Index over the course of the last 2 years.I know I've gone off on a tangent here,seeing as you are only doing the Jag Index,but I am thinking ahead and trying to avoid a "double competing" set of Indices which might serve to confuse Archivists in the years ahead. :soapbox:
Having said all that,it is great to have a stalwart on board who is actually prepared to kick start this much neglected project back into life.
p.s.the Comicpedia aims to be all things to all fans..titles,artists,writers,photos,scans etc.It can only come true if we all give it our support. :up: :up: :up: :up: :grouphug:

The Cap...Indexing is the new religion! :tick:

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Re: The Jag Index

Post by Kashgar »

Hi Cap, Steve Holland and I have been collaborating on various projects for the best part of twenty years eg The Valiant Index, The Lion Index, The Buster Index etc, and I have the highest regard for all the time and trouble that he goes to to further the indexation of British comicdom and my comment that the Jag entry in the Fleetway Companion was 'sketchy' was not intended as a slight on it per se as, in many ways, it is the perfect launching pad on which to build a more in-depth version.
The index that I am going to publish here will be based on my own 'Beano Diaries' model and will include details of all strips, features etc that appeared throughout Jag's 48 issue run as well as cross referenced details to Jag's limited amount of spin-off titles ie the 1969 Football Special and the Jag Annuals 1970-1973.
In no way is this intended as a criticism of what Steve did initially and I'm certainly not about to duplicate any of his current projects, his intended revamping of a lot of the old Fleetway indices he did in years gone by. This Jag Index should therefore be seen as a one-off and produced just to show willing to the comicpedia idea.

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Re: The Jag Index

Post by philcom55 »

I'll look forward to the end result with eager anticipation Kashgar. As a regular reader of UK adventure comics during the 1960s I quickly discovered that - apart from pocket libraries, the rapidly dwindling story papers and US-style 'comicbooks' such as Space Ace - they generally fell into two distinct formats. The first of these was exemplified by 'posh' titles like Mickey Mouse Weekly, Eagle and TV21 which generally tended to sell on the strength of two or three spectacularly produced strips in full-colour, while the remaining contents were often dismissed as 'filler material' (though admittedly TV21 at its best managed to buck this trend for a time). By contrast, the more proletarian titles like Hotspur, Lion and Valiant tended to eschew colour and high production values altogether in favour of straightforward 'value for money', containing a dozen or more strips, each one as strong as the others.

My problem with Jag when I bought the first issue was that, while it tried to combine the best of both worlds, it actually ended up being neither fish nor fowl. Whereas 'The Indestructible Man' was arguably as good as anything appearing in Lion it wasn't supported by the same wide range of comparable strips. Similarly, the storyline of 'New World for Old' might have had what it took to carry the whole comic as a headline strip in the style of Dan Dare or Thunderbirds; unfortunately the artwork was nothing like as spectacular as Frank Hampson's or Frank Bellamy's.

On the whole, my first impression was that Jag was an attempt to produce a new Eagle on the cheap, using mostly inferior artists. The strange thing is that when I look back at the early numbers today it's quite clear that Fleetway were actually using some of the most high-powered illustrators available - it's just that I ignored them then because they were 'wasted' on one-off feature articles. One can't help but wonder what Jag's sales might have been like if Don Lawrence had been commissioned to create a brand new colour Science Fiction strip for the centre pages of the first issue instead of a nondescript historical piece on Rorke's Drift...

- Phil R. (with his brand-new 'Jason Hyde' avatar!)

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Re: The Jag Index

Post by Captain Storm »

Hi Kashgar.Great news.I hope you didn't think I was being pedantic or dogmatic in any way.I actually forgot that you were heavily involved in the old Index Series as well :oops: Kudos to you!I can see now that this project will be complimentary to these Index books and that gladdens my heart :wink: Also I hope we can improve on the original project and get some hard to come by photos of the Artists/Writers.Now that would be a boon.I see 2000ad have starting putting up Creator photos on their website.It would be great to see that here too.I understand Fleetway might be impossible but seeing as D.C. Thomson is still extant,maybe they might proffer some picciesI'm not holding my breath though,as some D.C. Thomson writers and artists I have talked to actually feel embarrassed about having their photos online!Ah well,we can but try.Look forward to seeing the Comicpedia online,as I believe it will grow exponentially with the help of our resident experts and fans.

Upbeat Cap!

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Re: The Jag Index

Post by Kashgar »

The Jag Index 1968-1969

Run - 4th May 1968 - 26th Mar 1969 (48 unnumbered issues)
Every Saturday
Incorporated with Tiger (5/4/69) - (7/9/74)
Publisher - Fleetway/IPC (11/1/69)
Printers - Steel Bros (Carlisle)/Morrison & Gibb (Web Offset Division) Carlisle (5/10/68)
Page count - 16/32 (22/2/69)
Page size - Tabloid/ regular (22/2/69)
Full colour - 4pgs, red overlay 4pgs/ full colour 6pgs (22/2/69)
Price - 7d
Free gifts - No1 (4/5/68) The Booby Moore Book of the F.A.Cup (A4 16pgs)
No2 (11/5/68) Soccer '68 Wall Chart Pt1 (team colours)
No3 (18/5/68) Soccer '68 Wall Chart Pt2 (team colours)
Related publications - Jag Football Special 1968 (96pgs paper cover) (JFS)
Jag Annual 1970-1973 (144pgs hardback) (JA)

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Re: The Jag Index

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Jag contents
Throughout its run Jag featured 15 adventure, comic/adventure strips, 2 out and out comic strips and 23 features.

Adventure/Comic adventure strips

1) The Mouse Patrol (4/5/68) - (4/1/69)
Allied adolescents vs the Axis powers was already a tried and tested theme in British comics e.g The Sparrows go to War (Buster), Paddy's Private Army (Beano) and, in this instance, it is North Africa in 1941 and three British boys 'acquire' a US Stuart tank and set off to find their solidier fathers, missing since their regiment was over-run by Rommel and his Panzers.

Art - Eric Bradbury

JA 1971

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Re: The Jag Index

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2) Cap'n Codsmouth (4/5/68) - (12/10/68)
Shades of Ken Reid's 'Queen of the Seas' in the merchant shipping mayhem created by the eponymous Cap'n and the rest of the less than seaworthy crew of the S.S.Scuttlebutt.

Art - Joe Colquhoun 4/5-20/7 (The Calcutta Voyage), Doug Maxted 27/7-12/10 (The Costalotta Voyage)

JFS 1968 JA 1971-1973

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Re: The Jag Index

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The Indestructible Man (4/5/68) - (29/3/69)
Crimefighting with an 'Adam Adamant Lives' twist. Nearly forty years after the 'Phantom of Cursiter Fields' was famously laid to rest in the pages of AP's Bullseye the 'Fields' have a new inhabitant in the shape of crimefighter Mark Dangerfield, an ancient Egyptian cavalry captain revived from a 3000 year, age defying, catatonic sleep in modern day Britain. Wronged in the ancient past he pledges to right wrongs in the present.

Story strands (roll call of villains)
4/5-1/6 The coming of Mark Dangerfield, 8/6-20/7 Jasper Shackleton, 27/7-7/9 Jabez Van Zatt, 14/9-23/11 The Black Avenger, 30/11/68-15/2/69 The Skin Men, 22/2-29/3 The Badger.

Art - Jesus Blasco

JA 1971-1973

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Re: The Jag Index

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Custer (4/5/68) - (29/3/69)
Created as a tentative tie-in to the US TV show, then showing on British screens, 'The Legend of Custer' starring Wayne Maunder, this series begins in the autumn of 1866 when Lt Gen George Armstrong Custer is made the commanding officer of Fort Riley, Kansas, headquarters of the newly formed 7th Cavalry.

Art Geoff Campion 4/5/68-11/1/69, Colin Page 18/1-29/3

JFS 1968 (text feature) JA 1970, 1971.

Custer continued to appear in the combined Tiger & Jag until 1/11/69 with artwork by David Sque.

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Re: The Jag Index

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5) The Penalty Area (4/5/68) - (20/7/68)
Soccer melodrama. Why does the star of a top class Italian team retutn to play for his lowly, third division home side and, when he does, why does he sometimes play like the rankest amateur?

Art - Geoff Campion

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Re: The Jag Index

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6) Snob College (4/5/68) - (29/3/69)
The impact of the class system in both the classroom and the staffroom for Owen Jenkin, a young schoolteacher from a Welsh mining family, who becomes the newest master at the very elitist Weeton College.

Art Cecil Doughty 4/5-17/8, 16/11/68-29/3/69, John Stokes 24/8-9/11

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Re: The Jag Index

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7) Thunder Bill - the happy explosion (4/5/68) - (20/7/68)
A man who really enjoys his work. Tales of explosives expert Bill Thunderhead.

Art John Stokes/Eric Parker 4/5, Anon 11/5, John Stokes 18/5-20/7

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Re: The Jag Index

Post by Captain Storm »

Nice work so far Kashgar.Are you also planning to give all the series various episodes "titles"?

The Cap!

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