Comic strips existed in post war newspapers but the stand out launch in British football comics was the "Tiger- The Sport and Adventure Picture Story Weekly" on the 11th of September 1954.This first issue featured for the first time "Roy of the Rovers" and was an immediate hit. Derek Birnage edited the comic. Roy of the Rovers became synonymous with the Tiger comic and during the 1960's Tiger had a circulation of over 300,000 copies. Tiger survived for 1555 issues and incorporated a number of titles including 'Champion'(1955),'Comet'(1959),'Hurricane'(1965),'Jag'(1969),'Scorcher'(1974) and 'Speed' in 1980 before being incorporated itself into 'Eagle'(second series)(1985). Issue No. 1 of Scorcher was dated 10 January 1970 and contained the following features and stories: According to the British Library "Striker" launched on 10th of January 1970 and ran until 4th March 1972 when it was incorporated into "Inside Football". The striker comic strip reappeared in the "Sun" newspaper and ran until 28th August 2003 when it launched again as a stand-alone comic. It managed 87 issues and on the 12th of May 2005 rejoined the "Sun" newspaper. Other office characters whose antics featured regularly were Ian the Office Junior (possibly Ian Vosper, future editor of Roy of the Rovers magazine), a Portsmouth F.C. fan who played for the same club as Pete, and the paper's editor (Dave Hunt), a.k.a. the Old Man, a Tottenham Hotspur F.C. fan who was regularly portrayed as a minor tyrant who became angry if Pete didn't make him 48 cups of tea every day. Various other members of the editorial or art staff were mentioned from time to time.

Recently published by Nobrow, Bosman’s sweet comic strip contains a sequence in which a mummy and a trainee magician play a game of basketball. To the death! Billy's Boots: long-running story about a boy who finds a pair of antique football boots in his gran's attic which seem to make him able to play better. Although one or two of the other picture stories had some single colour in the drawings, this was the only multi-colour story, and had an excellent drawing of an old fashioned pair of football boots in the title banner.

Your responsibilities

Your login may only be used by one person – a single login shared by multiple people is not permitted. Lags Eleven: (Humorous) Willie Smith, known to his friends as "Brilliant Genius", was the greatest super-crook in Britain, having been the mastermind behind numerous bank-raids, jewel-robberies and wage-snatches. Unfortunately for him he'd been caught and was doing a ten-year stretch in Bankhurst Prison, where he decides to start a football team as part of a master plan to escape during the first away match.

This is real Roy of the Rovers stuff!" whooped Clive Tyldesley when Kane scored against Colombia. "Harry Kane [is] the Roy of the Rovers comic-book hero, leading the line and getting the glory," proclaimed Reuters. "It’s an old cliché about Roy of the Rovers," advised The Times, "but [he] really is." From 3rd July 1971 Scorcher merged with "Score"(originally "Score and Roar"), then finally with "Tiger" from 12th October 1974. Eventually the Scorcher and Score was dropped from the title, with "Tiger and Speed" becoming the new name from 1st November 1980."Tiger" disappeared when it merged with the" Eagle" in 1985. Clearly Charles Schulz used baseball as a metaphor for life. But the question is what about Charlie Brown’s record in the sport itself? editions of Scorcher Annual were published from 1971 to 1984, and Scorcher or Scorcher and SCORE Holiday Specials each summer from 1970 until at least 1980. This Agreement will be governed by the laws of The United States, without reference to rules governing choice of laws. You may not assign this Agreement, by operation of law or otherwise, without our prior written consent. Subject to that restriction, this Agreement will be binding on, inure to the benefit of, and be enforceable against the parties and their respective successors and assigns. Our failure to enforce your strict performance of any provision of this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of our right to subsequently enforce such provision or any other provision of this Agreement.Big Match Preview: illustrated preview of a big match for the following week-end. This week: Southampton versus Everton. Yet there are also genres that have never quite recovered from the various troughs that the industry has sunk to over the past couple of decades, and thus haven’t re-emerged to share in its occasional highs. War stories have long struggled to maintain much relevance beyond nostalgia, while romance comics are also generally a thing of the past. But the titles and strips that have arguably plummeted the furthest from view from the loftiest of positions are the once-proud, and once spectacularly popular, sports comics. It was all a bit wrong, though. Because Roy Race was originally a successor to old-school British adventurers like Dan Dare; he’s usually thought of as a doughty hero with a big side of righteous manliness. That might have been true in the Fifties, but in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, Roy — a talented but trouble-prone number nine who played for Melchester Rovers and married the gorgeous, feisty club secretary Penny — was part of an unofficial, now mostly forgotten, experiment in comics that saw him and other characters dealing with the darker sides of football. It was a new direction that involved real-life stars of entertainment, tabloid scandals, football violence, political pressure groups, the royal family, a threat to virtually close down Britain’s biggest magazine publisher and a debate in the House of Commons. The aim was to make comics relevant to a new generation of kids, and out of it came comics that deserve to be celebrated more than they are, and certainly more than some of the A-meh-rican superhero stuff dissected by contemporary nerdtellectuals. Thankfully, the balance may be about to shift, because the experiment is, to an extent, being revived by Roy’s current custodians. Paxton's Powerhouse: Vince Paxton, the ruthless soccer dictator who vowed to build a team of world-beaters, using scientific methods.