Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Spies in comics!

Spies were the big thing in the 60's, and of course comic spies were quick to catch on! The first thing that came to mind when I thought about comic spies was Wham!'s Eagle Eye Junior Spy, particularly the early episodes illustrated by Leo Baxendale. Eagle Eye was a brilliant strip, wonderfully drawn, written and best of all - coloured! The example shown here is from Wham! No. 4. I've chosen this one because it has wonderful colours!


Spy Smasher Smith appeared originally in Lion, but the example I have is from the 1970 Whizzer and Chips Holiday Special (which, as far as I'm aware, is the only time Smith appeared in that title). Agent 005 is often reffered to as "Smith", or 'Mr. Smith", just as James Bond is reffered to as "Mr. Bond"!


Whoopee!, although beginning in the mid 70's, also had a spy feature within its pages. Graham Allen illustrated Spy School which is, as it's name suggests, a school for spies! This example is from issue No. 22.


I - Spy is another well-known strip, illustrated by Les Barton for the rather successful Sparky comic.  However, Brian Walker did some fantastic long stories for the annuals, such as this one from the 1979 book!


And finally - Super Steve! Illustrated by Robert Nixon, Steve was the wonder-boy who worked for the Everso Secret Service (their enimies were the N.M.E!), after he purchased a special potion (or tonic) from an old man in the street (erm?) for 12 1/2p - hence the earlier name - 12 1/2p Buytonic Boy! Super Steve originally appeared in Krazy, but when the comic merged into Whizzer and Chips he went with them, lasting in the title for many years to come!

3 comments:

Harry Rickard said...

Spies were always something I loved in comics - you couldn't go wrong with a spy story!

I Spy was always a top 'un for myself - especially the later coloured adventures by Brian Walker - there was a telephone one which I recall finding a great read!

I also loved The 12 1/2p Buytonic Boy (although Super Steve is far easier to say!) - Robert Nixon's artwork was amazing for it! I also seem to recall there being a few by Vic Neill in the annuals? Might have been Frank McDiarmid actually.

You're forgetting one spy story though - DANGEROUS DAN! :D

George Shiers said...

I agree - spy stories were brilliant! I loved them all, but most of all probably Eage Eye!

And I always miss something (somwtimes not on purpose)! There's loads more spy strips out there!

Harry Rickard said...

Eagle Eye was tops for me - I loved reading his adventures when I got myself two rather old Wham annuals. The stories were long and very good.

Still, my favourite has to be I Spy - that series was awesome and exciting!