MISSION ACCOMPLISHED - Commando comic book interview

Commando Comics were launched by D.C. Thomson of Dundee, Scotland in 1961. The company already had a high profile in comics most noticeably with The Beano and Dandy but the Commando books were not like regular weekly comics, modelling themselves on the slightly more expensive digest size comic books of which there were many on the UK shelves. All these years later and only Commando remain.

Why when other war comics have bitten the dust does Commando continue to thrive? In 2005 when Carlton Books collected twelve of the most popular Commando comics and published them as a graphic novel, entitled The Dirty Dozen they had a best-seller on their hands and several other volumes followed...indeed, continue to follow.

The Tainted Archive slipped into combat jacket and fatigues and cornered Commados current editor Calum Laird as well as writer, David Whitehead who has written over two dozen of the books. That's nothing, David points out, when compared with writers like Ferg Handley who has done hundreds. This past week Commando published four more issues culminating with issue no 4245...and they'll be back again next week.


I put the question of the title's success to both Calum and David



CL: Although I’m delighted by it, I don’t know for sure what to put the title’s longevity down to. I think that because each story is so long we concentrate on plot more than visuals (though never at the expense of the visuals) and this gives the finished article a weight that the comics couldn’t. There’s a lot of reading in a Commando so if you’re a story fan, it gives you just what you need.

The standard of illustration has been kept high over the years, too, but the comics also had good artists — sometimes the same ones as were working on Commando.

We’ve run a very tight team for many years which keeps costs down, and that helps maintain our viability.



DW: COMMANDO saw off all its competitors simply because of the quality of its stories, artwork and general presentation, all of which were superior to the likes of WAR PICTURE LIBRARY, BATTLE, WAR AT SEA, AIR ACE and so on. But I have no idea how it has survived. A loyal, hardcore readership? Probably.


David Whitehead, when not writing Commando comic books can be found entertaining readers as western writer, Ben Bridges. I asked David if the discipline between writing comic strips and straightforward novels differed?


DW:

Not really. Writing is writing. Regardless of the genre, you approach it as professionally as possible and always try to give of your very best. Of course, more description goes into a novel, and there’s more room to examine the characters’ motives and emotions, but at the end of the day you’re telling a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, and hopefully telling it to the best of your ability.

It’s assumed by those who don’t know any different that COMMANDO is aimed at kids. And therefore there is an expectation to somehow ‘write down’ to that audience. Nothing could be more wrong. For a start, I believe that the readership is young adult to adult, and that “kids” as such don’t read COMMANDO in any great numbers. I also believe that COMMANDO readers have a very genuine interest in the subject and expect, quite rightly, to read stories that are well-told, historically accurate, emotionally involving and wholly entertaining.


And David certainly does provide entertaining tales - they wouldn't get past the eagle eyes of editor, Culum Laird otherwise. I asked Calum what he looks for in a potential Commando strip?

CL: A story with the length and weight to carry a 63-page book. A mix of interesting plot and action with the pace to make the reader turn the pages. And it must be original as we’ve done all the obvious plotlines in our 48-year history.he more worldwide the conflict the better for our purposes. It gives the creator greater scope for the narrative geographically and a wider potential range of characters.


I then asked David how many of the four thousand odd books had he written?




DW: I believe my total now stands at 28 or 29 – small potatoes when you consider the outputs of long-term COMMANDO writers like Ferg Handley, whose stories are now numbered in the hundreds. I did start publishing my own comics in the 1980s, but not with any great success. I wrote the scripts and sometimes produced the artwork as well. My favourite character was called CAPTAIN CLOCKWORK, and he was a robot policeman who pre-dated Robocop.



There was a time when all the Commando books were complete self contained stories and this is still largely the case but there are now some recurring characters, such as the excellent Ferret McGlone stories, with continuity between books. I asked Calum if this was started to experiment with the format or due to reader demand?



CL: This change came about some time ago, when I wasn’t working in the office. It was, I believe, led by the team here who saw some potential in the idea. It was tested by producing some stories with recurring characters. As these were well received, it became an established part of the Commando repertoire.


The artwork for the Commando strips are handled by some of the best artists in the industry but when working on a script I wonder if the writer made little drawings. I put this to David.


DW: Yes. A story is about 130-135 pictures long. I sketch out little illustrations and scribble down all the speech balloons and panels, and when I type up the script I get a good sense of continuity between one picture and the next.


Again we aimed the offensive at Dave, asking him of any future Commando Projects.

DW:I very much regret that I haven’t been able to contribute more to COMMANDO, not least because the people at COMMANDO H Q have always been a joy to work with and I find the COMMANDO format extremely exciting. But in addition to COMMANDO I also write regular articles for BOOK AND MAGAZINE COLLECTOR and have a number of commitments to various publishers. Over the last year to eighteen months I’ve branched out into different genres. My books with Steve Hayes – FERAL, DEAD END and most recently UNDER THE KNIFE – are all psychological thrillers. THE FLUTTERING and SCARE TACTICS fall into the horror category. I write romances under my wife’s name and have also just started writing western series with both Mike Linaker and Alfred Wallon. So time is limited, but as long as I can find a good story to tell, I hope to keep my hand in with the occasional COMMANDO and would be very, very unhappy if I couldn’t.




The Tainted Archive thanks both David and Calum for their time and for helping in providing the same spills, thrill and exciting books we enjoyed growing up. And I hope this feature encourages Archive readers to check out the books. Maybe you read the books years ago and had no idea they were still out there or perhaps you're a current comic books fan and have never tried these classic British comics. They can be found in W.H. Smith's and most good newsagents. Go pick one up - you'll be glad you did.


Commando website

David Whitehead website