Comics UK

I used to really enjoy the `adventure` strips in my 1960s `Dandy's`; especially "The Red Wrecker" and "The Crimson Ball". (circa 1963/4). My elder cousin (John) thought the strips were very subtly aimed at `left wing` politics!! This was completely above my head at the time-and I still don't really see it now. However...on learning via the BBC4 documentry's that D.C Thompson were very `anti union` at one time, i did wonder?

I don't really read things into comics in that way; but my cousin just might have had a point! Is this utter tosh! or did anyone else suspect a deeper theme to those stories?

Apart from the colour, I don't really see it either.

SID wrote:Apart from the colour, I don't really see it either.

Both strips IIRC featured foreign agents behind the threats. The Crimson Ball in particular had a mission to destroy British military aircraft. Whilst not actually shown to be Communists, it was natural at the time to assume the villains came from behind the Iron Curtain as that's the way a lot of fiction in other media played it.

The Red / Crimson name of the strip may have been part of that too, but more likely to be simply because that was the spot colour The Dandy used.

Lew

Lew Stringer wrote:

SID wrote:Apart from the colour, I don't really see it either.

Both strips IIRC featured foreign agents behind the threats. The Crimson Ball in particular had a mission to destroy British military aircraft. Whilst not actually shown to be Communists, it was natural at the time to assume the villains came from behind the Iron Curtain as that's the way a lot of fiction in other media played it.

The Red / Crimson name of the strip may have been part of that too, but more likely to be simply because that was the spot colour The Dandy used.

Lew

Sorry, that was what I meant. Spy thrillers, enemy agents were very popular in the decade that launched the Bond franchise and comics were always have followed what was happening in other media. But because the colour mentioned was a red, in my book didn't mean that DCT were being political.

You would be surprised at what makes people scared. In the movies you only need to look certain movies were made at a certain time, for example people were scared of communists taking over america and so in the 1950's films about aliens coming over to take over earth struck a chord and scared the pants off everyone (even though you could see the strings on the spaceships and the zips on the backs of the alien costumes :p) fast forward to the 1980's/early 90's and vampire flicks made a comeback and struck a chord with audiences mainly due to people been scared of getting AIDS, not consiously obviously but it played on a fear already in peoples minds. So you can actually see how these comics can be seen as political

Thanks for replies folks! I'm not seeing conspiracies & plots everywhere! Just wondered if there might have been the slightest possibility of the colour bieng significant! "Red Wrecker" anf "Crimson Ball" sound better than "Lavender Wrecker" and "Maroon Ball".

The Dandy also had the Purple Cloud...

another Dandy colour they had...

Lew's right of couerse, both Red Wrecker and Crimson Ball were those colours because they were only printed in red and black. It no more refers to the Soviets than it does Man Utd!