The Fly

[roxolid]

Also have fond memories of the Fly. That was a guy with goggles, wings, a gun of some kind wasn't it? (Unless my old brain remembers wrong?) Aside from the colour cover, we never got much in the way of colour comic books in the UK with certain characters. They were printed in a digest size book with a bunch of other stories, if I recall, but I'd flip to the fly and ignore the rest. I'll rack my brain to see what else I can remember from way back when (though I will admit that most people on here have far better knowledge than I!)

 That was the Fly alright, Paul. Hard to say what else you saw reprinted from the USA around that time. The Fly was from the same company that published Archie, which was and is a long running teenage humor series and I doubt it was ever exported. The Jaguar was the other hero book from Archie Comics/Radio Comics which featured a character who had animal powers the way the Fly had insect powers; no idea if he turned up in the UK. Later on, the Fly and his doxie, Flygirl, became part of a team called the Mighty Crusaders who only lasted a few issues.

  Did you follow any of the British comics which became known in the U.S.? Dan Dare, Judge Dredd, Modesty Blaise and so on?

I wasn't much of a fan of Dan Dare - always seemed to be the poor mans Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers, but I read 2000AD for a while (with Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, ABC warriors and so on). Modesty Blaise was probably 'too old' for me as a kid - I much preferred the 4 colour superhero stuff (heh, even though much of what I read was black and white reprints and in the 70s I was a fan of anything John Buscema did for Marvel so a lot of other stuff didn't get a look in). There was a character called 'King Cobra' knocking about in the late 70s/early 80s in a British comic called 'Hotspur' who I liked. The art was great on that. Though they worked for peanuts, a number of British Comic book artists were really very good. Saying that, I can't imagine too many American artists made more than a reasonable living from their craft unless they actually created the characters.

With regards the Fly, there seemed to be a couple of different characters knocking about (was 'Fly Man' the same?) Wikipedia coughed out this from a search:

http://s11.postimage.org/4qi1tmncz/Adventures_of_the_Fly_no_1.png

And I think that's the one I read, though as mentioned, in the digest books with a few other characters. Another one was 'The Shield'? That rings a bell... *shrug*

[jfglade]

[/quote]



I wasn't much of a fan of Dan Dare - always seemed to be the poor mans Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers, but I read 2000AD for a while (with Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, ABC warriors and so on). Modesty Blaise was probably 'too old' for me as a kid - I much preferred the 4 colour superhero stuff (heh, even though much of what I read was black and white reprints and in the 70s I was a fan of anything John Buscema did for Marvel so a lot of other stuff didn't get a look in). There was a character called 'King Cobra' knocking about in the late 70s/early 80s in a British comic called 'Hotspur' who I liked. The art was great on that. Though they worked for peanuts, a number of British Comic book artists were really very good. Saying that, I can't imagine too many American artists made more than a reasonable living from their craft unless they actually created the characters.

With regards the Fly, there seemed to be a couple of different characters knocking about (was 'Fly Man' the same?) Wikipedia coughed out this from a search:

http://s11.postimage.org/4qi1tmncz/Adventures_of_the_Fly_no_1.png

And I think that's the one I read, though as mentioned, in the digest books with a few other characters. Another one was 'The Shield'? That rings a bell... *shrug*
[/quote]

 One of my Irish relatives living in London gave me a year subscription to "Beano" when I was seven or eight but other than Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Boys (something like that anyway) I don't remember much else that appeared there. I've subsequently learned a little about British comics and I have seen an episode or two of King Cobra, Adam Eterno, Rubberman, Billy the Cat, the Spider, Hookjaw, Darky's Mob, and a few other odds and ends but I don't really know that much about British comics from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I've also not seen that much of the Marvel UK stuff that was created by British artists; for a time, an Avengers reprint book was using three page Hulk stories as filler back in the 80s, and I saw odds bits of a captain Britain story but that's about it. Ironically, British comics writers have had an enormous presence in American comics for over a decade (and not always in a good way) and I know very little of the work that established them.

 The Fly went through several distinct periods. He started out as an orphan child who was given his powers by a being of "the Fly World" which was obviously in another dimension. Initially, he turned into an adult when he rubbed his fly ring, but after just a few issues, he was suddenly presented as an adult lawyer. He also met Lancelot Strong,who was one of the characters named the Shield he met at different points in his career (the son of the original Shield was also one of the Mighty Crusaders). He operated solo for awhile, then acquired a female partner, Fly Girl, who was a well known actress in her other identity, had a long serial adventure with many of his enemies who had banded together as the Anti-Fly League, then gained an additional power or two and became "Fly-Man," and finished up his career as a member of the Mighty Crusaders. Archie comics phased him and the Crusaders out, then brought them back every other decade briefly for a time, once as barely recognizable versions of themselves in the 90s. Archie is currently trying a new new version of the Crusaders as an online comics with mixed results from what I've read. The Fly isn't a public domain character but some of the Crusaders, including the Shield, were originally golden age characters whose adventures from that era are now in the public domain. Check out Pep Comics under MLj/Archie for Shield stories and you might want to read some stories of other characters like the Black Hood, Steel Sterling, the Comet, the Hangman, and so on. There's a tremendous amount of comics material here and it is growing every day. Unfortunately, DC and Marvel  material aren't in the public domain, but I wouldn't be surprised if you found a few things you have seen before, including a few British books that reprinted American material.

 It's late, and I'm tired, so I'll pick this or another thread up tomorrow.

[roxolid]

Thanks for taking the time to explain, and your knowledge/memory is better than mine!

I read Beano, Dando, Whizzer and Chips, plus a few ill fated comics (the British stuff tended to merge if sales were rubbish, and the company would hype it up as some 'geat new thing' when it reality it meant some of your favourite stories would be dropped and over time, the publishers figured you wouldn't notice.) I recall Billy the Cat (there was a parody in an adult comic called 'Viz' which had Billy the Cat getting the snot kicked out of him - which was probably more realistic than a 13 year old boy in a leather suit being able to taken on armed criminals...), the Leopard of Lime Street, the Spider (didn't he look like Spock?) and something about a kid with an army of robot toy soldiers that he controlled with a remote to stop crimes  I was also a fan of Captain Britain, the Black Knight, and the Marvel UK comics with the Hulk in and whatnot.

The Fly character seems familiar in the way that I might have seen one similiar from another company. Ah yes:

http://s7.postimage.org/l9hnb6esb/250px_Amazing_Spider_Man_Annual_10.jpg

I think it was Scotts game whereby I ran Wonder Man (or Wonderman) as a character in a freeform rpg, a character notable for his one and only appearance before he was defeated by lawyers for DC (something about a similarity to Superman. He was strong, could jump, relatively resistant to bullets and wore his underpants on the outside, so maybe they had a point. Oh, and his love interest changed her name from Brenda to Nora halfway through the story    )

How many other characters can anyone think of that were identical in name (and, possibly, look and abilities) to another companies? I can think of Captain Marvel, Sandman, Wonder Man, Ares and various 'Gods' (though strictly speaking only the look, powers and details of mythological characters are considered unique. I shouldn't think neither Marvel or DC can copyright something said to originate from 2,000 years or so ago. Same principle goes with George Lucas allegedly trying to copyright the term 'Nazi' for his Indiana Jones films...)

Any more?

[jfglade]

 There does seem to be a bit more similarity between the two covers than could reasonably seen as attributed to coincidence, but maybe we shouldn't rule out unconscious adaption entirely.

 Speaking of Scott Casper, he is a member here but I believe has only posted once or twice. He used a few images pulled from Centaur and other public domain books with cover dates of 1939 to illustrate an RPG which he created, called "Heroes and Hideouts." His game, however, was created for commercial purposes and he markets it himself. Last I heard he has sold thirty copies total, but that was many months ago and sales may have picked up since then.

 And you are right, you can't copyright a character from folklore, but you can do an adaption of one and trademark his distinctive likeness which is what Marvel has done with Thor and Hercules, I believe.

[paw broon]

Roxolid, King Cobra was drawn, in the majority of stories, by Ron Smith and you probably remember him from 2000AD. I got rid of my 2000ADs some years ago and only occasionally have a look at a new copy.  Dan Dare, in the Eagle was hard to beat, for art, entertainment and production values imo.  But the 2000AD version was not nearly as good, even though the art by Belardinelli appealed to me.
The Fly, I loved it, even the increasingly daft later stories.  Here is the S. American version:-
http://cronoscomics.blogspot.com/2011/04/zooman-el-hombre-mosca-no-9.html
(Sorry in advance for linking to a title that can be downloaded - please delete if you deem it necessary)

Actually, I enjoyed and collected all the Archie superhero titles and should also point out that Archie comics were available in the U.K. after 1959, when distribution started.  I remember the excitement of finding The Double Life of Private Strong in a newsagent in Airdrie.
The boy with the toy soldiers is General Jumbo, who still turns occasionally in DC Thomson titles.  As does Billy the Cat who is always in my top ten favourite heroes.  Do you recall The Iron Fish?

[roxolid]

Iron fish? Sounds vaguely like a submarine but would need an image to job my memory. I must admit, I read all sorts of British comics as a kid but it's not so easy to remember them 30+ years on...

[paw broon]

If you scroll down a bit on this page, you'll see a couple of Iron Fish pages:-
http://superitch.com/?p=16530
Other nice stuff on there too.
This is the link to comics uk forum - give it a try:-
http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/indexPHPBB.php