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Looking back now, VALIANT's 14 years of existence feels like no time at all. It had seemingly been around forever when I was a kid, and I'm surprised to learn that it wasn't. Of course, if you happen to be a teenager, 14 years seems like eternity, but to decrepit old farts like myself, it's insignificant.
The weekly comic featured several popular strips throughout its run, including classics like CAPTAIN HURRICANE, The STEEL CLAW, The HOUSE Of DOLMANN, The WILD WONDERS, and KELLY'S EYE. Difficult as it may be to believe, Britain has now been Valiant- free for 39 years, and to me, in my dotage, that also feels like no time at all - a mere couple of blinks away in fact.
I only started buying the weekly periodical once SMASH! was merged with it (and then TV21), but I'd read a few issues belonging to a friend of my brother in the mid to late '60s, so I was well-aware of the comic and its contents before it became a regular feature of my comics-buying practice.
Do you remember Valiant? Got any memories associated with it that you'd care to air and share? Good! Straight over to the comments section with you then - we're all waiting.
6 comments:
I had recently been going through all your old Valiant posts. Perhaps you may have detected some renewed interest?
I am quite often to be found sifting through your archives. Perhaps I should stop and say, "Hi", juzt so that you know it's only me!
You feel free to go through as many old posts as you like, JP. I often go through the archives as well, because as everybody knows, I'm my own biggest fan.
I remember Valiant. Kid Pharoh! Yellowknife of the Yard!
Great days indeed.
Valiant was a fantastic comic and one that either myself or my brother got almost every week - strangely I hated the "Captain Hurricane" main strip and avoided it most weeks but the rest of the comic for me was excellent too many classic characters and stories to mention really - not many titles can say that.
I always liked the covers usually drawn by the great Mike Western with quiz type titles like ;
It could happen , It happened this week, Who is it?, Is it true? The Rivals, Great Fighters etc - the letters page as I recall was always really boring though.
As I said, I only bought Valiant regularly once Smash! and TV21 had been merged with it, but looking at the few pre-merged issues I now have, I wish I had bought it earlier. Having said that, around '73 (I think) there were quite a few dated looking reprints in it, which couldn't have helped its sales. Regarding letters, McS, very few people actually write in to a comic - that's why readers polls aren't a good guide on deciding the contents. The responses only reflect the tiny percentage of readers who get in touch, not necessarily the wider readership. I remember the depute editor on Buster telling me that some weeks they had to make up letters because of the paltry amount of correspondence they received.
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