A Fistful Of (Old) Comics: Starblazer

 A little while ago I was delighted to discover a small  bookshop in Cosham. What made this even better was the better half-dozen boxes of old comics next to the till. I was particularlly interested in the contests of two particular boxes.

 "Starblazer" was a British title that ran from 1979 to 1991 and was similar to "Commando" in approach.  Each issue featured a standalone story in a conveniently pocket-sized format, the major difference being the subject matter. "Commando" did War and lots of it. "Starblazer" did SF and Fantasy.

Did you really need me to tell you that? 

I mean, you weren't seriously expecting tales of bunnies and kittens were you? 

I don't remember reading them very often, possibly because the distribution was notoriously hapahazard, so I was interested to see what I had been missing.

I therefore grabbed four that looked promising, added them to the growing stack of "Ka-Zar", "Arak" and "Conan" comics then handed over a fistful of coins and trotted off merrily.

 Here's what I bought and here's what I thought.

 No. 96 The Promised Planet  (1983)

What's it about?:  A decrepit colony ship has finally been offered a world to cal their own - the catch is, MX-7 is bitterly hostile to human life.  A young engineer rebels and sets off to find the new tech his people need to survive the alien world. In the process he stumbles across a nefarious alien plot.

What I thought. I picked this up because the artwork looked awfully familiar. "Starblazer"  didn't credit artists or writers but I was fairly certain the artist was Jesus Redondo, the guy who made "Starlord" strip  Mind Wars so appealing. And I was right!
 The story moves along very quickly and manages to pack a helluva lot of action into 63 pages. The artwork also manages to pack a lot into a small space but without feeling overcluttered. I was rather impressed.

   Welp, I can see some exciting new nightmares in my immediate future. 

No. 194 Cabel And The She Warrior (1987)

What's it about? Tiberius Cabel makes his living collecting and selling rare animals from across the Galaxy. This isn't actually legal but so far Cabel and feathery sidekick Hairball have got away with it.
   But then his ship is accidentally impaled by a spacecruiser and Tiberius Cabel finds himself shanghaied by a shipfull of belligerent warrior-women headed for the infamous planet Netherworld on a rescue mission.

 
What I thought: The gender politics are as subtle as a lead pipe to the lughole - Cabel is bullied into washing up because that's men's work - but otherwise this is a fun little tale. Tiberius Cabel is not your typical  SF hero, being mostly concerned with getting his merchandise back and escaping with hide intact, but he's got a nice line in off the cuff plans and he's easy to like.
 Commandra and her gals are um, a bit flat by comparison, but not as obnoxious as they could have been.

 Once again this issue crams a lot into a small package and there's a delightful snarkiness underpinning the whole thing.  Witness Cabels' attempt at gatecrashing a restaurant that specialises in exotic cuisine.

    Shades of Douglas Adams, maybe? 

 If you like your SF a bit daft, then you might like this. 

The next two are each clearly part of a series. Since I hadn't read the previous installments that was a bit awkward.  

No. 264 Banished From Babalon. (1990)

What's it about?: Lady Cinnabar and her axeswinging brother Little Rulf are big believers in the traditional feudal virtues of honour, valour and settling petty disputes with violence. Sadly such things are no longer tolerated on the planet Babalon, so the brawling siblings are loaded onto a spaceship and shot off into space with the message "Don't come back"   

 Then a  family reunion in deep spaceleads to all manner of trouble, which means Lady Cinnabar and Rulf have to get back to Babalon before it's overrun by heavily armed space arseholes. 

What I thought. Going into this one cold, I was initially puzzled by references to Vivanna's earlier actions until irealised this was a sequel. Looking at Wikipedia, this was the second of three Babalon stories and Lady Cinnabar herself was spunoff from Morrison's earlier Kayn stories. 

  My other, immediate, thought was that the artist draws weird faces. At least one panel made me wince at how ugly everybody was.  I don't think that was deliberate. 

 Otherwise the art isn't that bad. The penciller is definitely better at drawing ships than he is at drawing female faces anyway. 

 As usual, the story takes a few pages to establish everybody and what they are all about then takes off at a canter. Starblazer not having much patience with filler or needless waffling.  There's some classic SF Man v Machine-logic debating and Rulf hits things with his axe quite a bit.

 Not bad but let down by some artistic flaws.

  Do you think maybe this planet was colonised by Brits? 

No. 267 Skald - The Saga Continues (1990)

 What it's about:  After ending the brutal reign of the Warlocks, the hero Skald, his faithful giant-ass Yak-thingie Crookhorn and feminist stereotype Linx are wandering the wastelands when they rescue a beautful young woman called Delana from maraudinfg Warwolves.  Her grateful father then asks Skald to do him a tiny favour.  To whit: Go and retrieve a certain Warlock gizmo for him.

Because Skald isn't an idiot, he's'not too keen on this idea. He's also wondering if he can get there and back without being killed by Warwolves. Oh, and before Linx loses her patience and sticks her sword up Delana's nose.

 Another fantasy story that has SF underpinnings but more "Post Apocalypse" than "Space Opera".

I won't lie. I didn't pick this up for the cover, the SF elements or even the giant yak. I added this comic to the pile because...

    I'm sorry. I find myself  magnetically drawn to warrior-women in fur bikinis.   

My, she's got big...earrings.

  I liked Linx and I'm tempted to check out the other books in the series - two earlier installments and a sequel - just to see more of her.  

  The other characters are pretty good too. Naturally Crookhorn steals the show on a regular basis, villain Glorkus is full-on, minion-killing mad warlord wickedness and Delana is...well I suspect if she wasn't female and pretty somebody would have thrown her over a cliff by now.  Skald himself has a nice, dry, zero-fucks attitude to him that I quite liked.

  Artwork is pretty good. Story is not exactly new territory but gets the job done in respectable fashion and kept me entertained all the way through.  Not bad value for 50p, hey?  

If by tactics you mean "Charging!" then yes, they worked. 

So there you go. For 50p an issue I got a little slice of adventure that's easy to stack on  my bookshelf. 

Favourite title: Cabel And The She Warrior, if only for the scene where our hero runs into a homicidal chef. 

BTW, It would be nice if DC Thomson did a reprint volume of some of these. Just a suggestion. 

That's all folks.