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Tweak says, "Someone gave me fleas.."

icon_uk (icon_uk) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-10-10 17:25:00

Entry tags:

char: roy of the rover/roy race, publisher: fleetway, title: roy of the rovers

And now for something completely different - UK Weekly comics of the past..
In the UK, there was, in my youth and in some ways to this day, a thriving, and very different comics industry to the US one, or even the mainland European.

Split between boys and girls comics, the former were just as likely to be slapstick comedy as adventure, and the latter were somewhere between romance comics and mild domestic dramas. Stories were one to three pages long, often episodic and could run for decades (Usually reserved for the comedy stories)

Recently, a UK newspaper produced, as a giveaway, reproductions of various UK comics from the 1970's and 80's. I'll feature some samples from these in a series of posts.

First up is the footballing (eg what everyone on the planet other than Americans calls football eg soccer) legend which is

Roy Race debuted in 1954 in the "Tiger" comic, as an aspiring player for Melchester Rovers. Over the decades we saw him grow older (very, very slowly, but age he did), get married, raise a family, play many seasons for Melchester, appear for the English national team all over the world, and deal with any number of soap opera type tragedies. He actually was the headliner in a comic between 1976 to 1995.

His footballing career ended in 1993 in about the only way such a legend could end... he lost a foot in an accident and had to retire from playing. There was an attempt to revive the title by featuring his son Rocky Race, but it didn't last long without his Dad, who eventually returned as he progressed from player, to manager, to owner of Melchester Rovers, which is where the series ended.

Throughout the series, a strong sense of fair play, a consistent work ethic and the triumph of the just against the merely powerful was present. Common story tropes were "troublesome new player" (either their selfishness was won over by the team, or their eccentricities embraced), "unscrupulous opponents" (usually cheating foreign teams), "the entire team kidnapped abroad", "lucratively tempting offers from foreign teams", and so on... In one story in 1986, almost the entire team was wiped out by a terrorist bomb mistakenly hitting the team-bus, in an event that earned the title a reprimand from the Commission for Racial Equality for it's anti-Arab attitude.

This issue was published in 1981, shortly after a rather famous popular soap opera event in "Dallas"....

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Oh, and check out the fluffy 1980's haircuts! :) (also, apologies if the red text boxes are hard to dead, this is a tough one to scan)

This may not seem like much, but it was a BIG event in the UK. "Roy of the Rovers" was (and still is) a byword for good clean sporting drama, so this was quite something. Real life celebrities and sportsmen sent in their good wishes (a little positive PR never hurt)

There were other strips too. I show this one as being a remarkable testament to the acceptance of the bizarre in the UK psyche, as well as being a little bit of a boost for those readers without the physiques to be a Roy Race. The adventures of Kevin "Mighty" Mouse, who is a short, overweight little fellow with a bad haircut who needs to tie his large glasses in place with string before playing, but who makes up for it with dedciation. The subplot about him being a medical student is truly odd.

The Matron in the last panel is magnificently ghastly creation, her casual acceptance of the name "Mad Annie" should be information enough that this is NOT someone you argue with when she tells you to drop your trousers and cough.

And as an example of the sheer flexibility of football as a concept. We have action football strips, comedy football strips and in this case, a SUPERNATURAL football strip...

It's like Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (Known in the US I believe as "My Partner, the Ghost") given the obscene quantites of cash earned by professional footballers these days, it's almost a sad reflection that this was obvous even 28 years ago...

Next time, something for the ladies, in the shape of "Tammy"

(Post a new comment)

	lipsofpoison 2009-10-10 05:31 pm UTC (link)
	Wow, I still have a bunch of these annuals. Ah, memories. (Reply to this)

	freezer818 2009-10-10 06:14 pm UTC (link)
	"You... You're treating this as attempted murder Inspector?" "Actually, I'm pretty sure it was something he ate, but I try to keep an open mind." (Reply to this) (Thread)

	sistermagpie 2009-10-10 06:23 pm UTC (link)
	Bwahahaha! Your joke was better than any I would have made at that panel. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	sistermagpie 2009-10-10 06:25 pm UTC (link)
	I'm sure I never would have read any of these as a kid, but I still love that they exist, especially the way football can totally be the basis for every genre of story. Also I love that there's a guy named Blackie Gray. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-10-10 07:35 pm UTC (link)
	Oh I never read them at the time, I cheerfully loathe football (and it was a mutually destructive relationship at school) but I thought this worth the posting anyway. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	foxhack 2009-10-10 06:48 pm UTC (link)
	HERE HE COMES TO SAVE THE DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY I'm sorry. (Reply to this)

	skjam 2009-10-10 07:50 pm UTC (link)
	I remember a couple of years later when Roy temporarily switched teams--I found out because it was the top story on the sports newscast! (Reply to this)

	Interesting! jazzypom 2009-10-10 08:22 pm UTC (link)
	I do remember reading Gunner when I was a wee one, in addition to seeing these two. Whoa. Memories. (Reply to this)

	volksjager 2009-10-10 09:30 pm UTC (link)
	Great stuff. Great idea for a theme week :) (Reply to this)

	king_vinegar 2009-10-10 10:43 pm UTC (link)
	Oh god, this post just reminded me of Billy the Fish. I know I've got a book around here somewhere... the question is, if I dig it up, will I still find it as funny as I did 20 years ago, or will it have aged terribly? Either way, no scanner :( (Reply to this)

	barnesarama 2009-10-10 11:08 pm UTC (link)
	And it's worth mentioning that Roy of the Rovers has entered into the collective football vocabulary; whenever some lowly non-league team goes on a giant killing run in the FA Cup or a home-town player scores for his team this comic is the gold standard of slightly cheesey couldn't happen in real life-ness that gets dragged out for comparison. (Reply to this)

	(Anonymous) 2009-10-11 08:49 am UTC (link)
	I remember when Action comic ran a football strip that looked at the state of the game in the late 70's full of mobs and fighting.That I think got the title stopped in the end I forget its name, but ACTION was always my comic back then with 2000AD a very loose 2ND place (Reply to this)

psychop_rex
2009-10-11 08:53 am UTC (link)

That 'Mighty Mouse' strip is seriously demented. Staking someone's job on how well he does at sports? 'I'm sorry, Mouse - we've got to let you go. You're a good doctor, but you... well, you're a lousy goalie. The hospital can't bear the shame of it any longer.'
You know, I overheard a conversation once where someone compared sports fans to comics fans. According to this guy, they're basically the same - they both collect paraphernalia of their respective obsessions, they both like to dress up in silly costumes (although the sports fans tend to focus more on face paint than actual outfits), and they're both thoroughly obsessed with things that don't make the slightest bit of difference in real life. The only difference is that comics fans tend to be less drunken and violent. On the whole, I'd rather be the latter. (Which is not to say, of course, that one can't be BOTH - it's just that people tend to fall into one category or another.)

(Reply to this)