TS: "Warlord" v "Battle Action"

I sometimes think about "Warlord", pondering whether anything in it was any good. The eponymous story had a certain camp charm, and Kampfgruppe Falken (the one about the penal battalion) seems to have been pretty good but mainly appeared after I stopped reading and may have been "Warlord" upping its game in response to Battle.

I also have a fondness for "Union Jack Jackson", and my heart did a little flutter when he made his way into the letters page of the LRB.

Battle had the obvious stars: Charley's War, Johnny Red, and Darkie's Mob. The latter two of these are much underrated. JR was great for people who liked the nerdy end of warre (recognising all the kit, etc.), and Darkie's Mob was a war comic like momma used to make before she went all PC.

could this be moved to I Love Comics?

i wish they'd release more than one charley's war collection a year FFS

http://www.atariguide.com/ss/warlords.gif

Battle Action? What was that? I remember Battle comic and I remember Action comic. Was Battle Action a melding of the two (as in '2000AD and Tornado')?

Battle Action was basically Battle with a couple of stories from Action pulled in. I don't know what those stories were.

Victor pwns these.

I liked the adventure stories in Victor more than the war ones. You know, Morgan The Mighty, Alf Tupper, and eh, all the others I can't remember.

Does anyone remember The Crunch, which was probably the closest thing to being a DC Thompson reaction to 2000 AD?

Nay.

I remember "Starlord" (It's where Strontium Dog originated, amongst other things) which was better than 2000AD, but inevitably got merged with it.

Did IPC deliberately start short-lived sci-fi comics in order to feed readers into 2000AD?

"Joe Bones the Human Fly" was a good Victor war story, and there was that WWI cowardy guy who always ended up being a hero, can't remember his name tho. Yeah TBF I can't remember any other regulars, but the cover stories were always fantastic, and Alf Tupper is Working Class Hero Number 1.

I remember Starlord, and, apart from Stontium Dog, I don't agree it was better then 2000AD really.
Forces in Combat was another comic around that time (about '79 I'd say) which was basically Action-esque WWII/Vietnam war strips alongside 2KAD sci-fi type stuff. No-one bought it though, which was a shame as I was really into it.

Victor - was that the one with Corperal Clot?

Wow, I'd completely forgotten about "starlord". I do remember liking it at the time, or at least being dissapointed when it merged w/2000AD, but I don't remember a thing about it other than that.

I might have even been disappointed when it merged.

There was a great running story about "the other side" of the Bermuda triangle, full of old pirates and American WWII pilots, where it rained fire etc.

I think a couple of other well-known 2000AD strips originated in Starlord, but I'll have to raid the old memory banks a bit further....

That Bermuda Triangle one was awesome... I remember this great moment in the second episode where people were being attacked by the Abhumans and some guy cries out "Grab anything that even looks like a weapon and fight for your lives!"

Starlord always seemed like just an attempt at a high-end 2000AD on better quality paper. It had some great stuff in it, but I don't think enough kids were buying it to make it pay.

Don't remember the Bermuda Triangle thing, but the reference to Abhumans makes it sound like a William Hope Hodgson rip off, which is great. There was a wonderful proto X-Files UFO conspiracy series, but I forget the name - possibly the same thing?