Bomber Braddock is Back!

The character of Matt Braddock first appeared in The Rover Comic back in 1952 - I wasn't even born then and I first came across the character in the 1970's when he appeared in The Victor. The character was popular enough that he even appeared in Warlord and several of his stories have been published in graphic novel format under the title, I flew with Braddock.

Braddock was known for his fearless nature, superb piloting skills and no-nonsense attitude. He had no time for petty rules and regulations, and remained at the rank of sergeant, refusing to be promoted to an officer rank. However this didn't stop him from standing up to incompetent superiors, or defending other enlisted men from overzealous courts-martial. He spent almost as much time clashing with superior officers as the Germans, and on two occasions in I Flew With Braddock he came fairly close to being court-martialled for assaulting a superior officer (although one incident was a misunderstanding and the other was under severe provocation). The narrator of these stories was his hero-worshipping navigator, George Bourne (a Dr. Watson-type narrator, a relatively sophisticated device for juvenile fiction).

Braddock was so highly regarded that he had carte blanche to pick his own flight crew, and was frequently called upon to advise high-ranking commanders of the RAF. Braddock flew several types of aircraft, but his most prominent command was the Lancaster Bomber "F Fox". At the start of I Flew With Braddock the crew was Braddock and Bourne, co-pilot and flight engineer 'Ham' Hancox, bomb aimer Tom Tanner, radio operator 'Nicker' Brown, mid-upper gunner 'Hoppy' Robinson, and tail gunner Les Howe. Les Howe clashed with Braddock early on and was replaced by 'Baa' Lamb, and later 'Hoppy' Robinson was badly injured in a raid and replaced by Arthur Atkins.

Vintage Braddock from The Victor

The  character makes a welcome return in the pages of Commando Books - this week, in Commando issue 5267 Braddock stars in a story entitled, Demons. This follows on from issue 5259 which featured a story simply entitled Braddock.


Issue 5267 Braddock: Demons is on sale now in both physical and electronic format

Commando time again

There are four more Commando titles on sale NOW - I especially enjoyed Warriors of the Wilderness by Alan Hemus. It's an all action tale in the style of Alistar Maclean and I tore through it.

Check em out now folks!

Nightmare in the Forest Commando issue 4268

The script comes from Commando veteran, Ferg Handley and interior art by Olivera. The computer generated cover image struck me because the usual covers are hand painted. I assumed that the publishers were trying to attract a younger readership with the cover style; after all the cover resembles a screen shot from the various war themed computer games out there. However I was informed by the editor that Commando do use computer created art from time to time. And that a large section of their readership are already made up of young fans.

I suppose it's always been the way as I can remember reading these as a kid and then my grandfather would read them after me, and then we'd pass them onto an uncle. I bet that's still going on today.


Nicholas Forder is the man responsible for the effective and exciting cover image.

The meat and potatoes of the story concerns a German squad led by tough as nails Sergeant, Kurt Sturm who after a skirmish, take several Russians prisoner. However they soon face a Russian counter attack and find themselves, together with their prisoners, stranded in a seemingly deserted and lonely forest.

A Russian private seem terrified of the forest and soon German and Russian alike find themselves battling against a vicious group of bandits who make their home in the massive Eastern forests.

It's a great story that makes full use of its graphic medium, each frame, excellently drawn to represent the almost ethereal world of the forest, advances the story as the writer skilfully weaves several plots threads in the action packed tale.

There are a few of the Germans who want to coldly execute the Russian prisoners and several Russians with mutual feelings, the conflict between the commanding officers who realise friend and foe have to join forces to beat the common enemy and that all pervasive threat from a dangerous and often unseen force. The soldiers are not used to fighting in the hellish landscape of the dense forest, but to the bandits it is home and they can blend in with their surroundings and vanish with the blink of an eye.

The Commando books have been publishing continuously since the early Sixties and they are still able to provide excellent stories such as this.

Nightmare in the Forest is on sale now, together with three other titles, priced £1.35

FOUR MORE DEADLY MISSIONS

Four new excellent titles from Commando Comics have just this last week hit the shelves.

Too Late for Glory, story by Ian Clark and artwork by Josie Jorge


Desert Vengeance, story by Mike Knowles with art by Charles Pino

Vampire Hunt, story by Ian Clark and art by Dennis McLoughlin

Nightmare in the Forest, story by Freg Handley and art by Nicholas Forder

The cover art of Nightmare in the Forest is by Nicholas Forder looks to have been produced using a computer artwork programme. The characters have the look of a computer game about them. Is this an attempt to lure in a younger audience? It's a striking cover in any case.

FOUR MORE WAR EPICS HIT THE SHELVES

The latest four titles from Commando Books are now on
sale.

Two of the titles are set in the Ardennes - Friends or Foes, written by Peter Grehan with art by John Ridgeway is set during 1944 with the German offensive using special units dressed in Allied uniform. The Winter Warriors, written by Ferg Handley and drawn by Garijo is set during the Battle of the Bulge.


It's back to 1940 for Battling Rust Bucket. The story written by Ian Clark with art by Gordon Livingstone tells of the Dunkirk evacuation and of the clapped out old paddle steamer's part in the operation.

Last but not least is Never Volunteer written by C.G. Walker, art by Ibanez and set during the North African conflict.

The books are priced at £1.35 each and are quite unique in the current market - well told, war stories just like your Dad used to read.

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

Coming up this weekend on The Tainted Archive

We take a look at the Commando Comic book range, D. C. Thompson's long running series, and interview editor, Calum Laird and creator David Whitehead who is better known to western fans as Ben Bridges. We also look at the state of the western genre in fiction and ask is there really a western revival happening? All this and much more on The Tainted Archive this weekend.

Four go to war

Another four all action COMMANDO books have hit the shops today.

Protection Squad - written by Mike Knowles with artwork by Gordon Livingstone

Last Ditch Defenders - written by C.G.Walker with artwork by Dennos McLoughin.

Dangerous Despatches - sees the return of Archive favourite, Ferret McGlone, and is written by Norman Adams with artwork by Keith Page.

The Medal -written by Ferg Handley with artwork by Vila

The comic books are priced at £1.35 each and offer great classic style British comic books.