It's downsizing time at Marsbase and clearing out the holds has uncovered a stack of old comics, including the very short lived Fleetway venture 'Wildcat'. Designed as a similar vehicle to 2000ad, Wildcat followed a team of adventurers in deep space aboard the starship Wildcat. Lasting just 12 issues before being subsumed into the utterly dire 'new' Eagle comic, it had some lovely artwork from aeronautical artist Ian Kennedy, as well as Judge Dredd regular Ron Smith and some great international line work from Jose Ortiz. Backed up with the usual filler rubbish from early reprints, sales weren't exactly stellar.
Looking through the issues prior to putting them on ebay, I was reminded of the similarity in Ron Smiths interpretation of the (presumably) cyborg character, named (ridiculously) Joe Alien. Joe has a robotic body with a detachable organic brain, but his visible innards and outfit bear more than a passing resemblance to our old friend Callisto.
It's especially noticable on this cover, where Joe has a distinct green cast to his limbs and shows the trademark high top boots.
The hairless head and heavy eyebrows are also a giveaway, so perhaps a Callisto figure was stood next to Smiths drawing board in the late 1980's?
ha ha, thats just cass that Bill! Joe Alien! I suppose the whole thing is GI Joe small figure inspired. I love the Callisto 'inspired' Joe and his extending limbs. Why come up with something new when all the best ideas were in the Sixties! Hope they sell well, I've never heard of Wildcat comics before.
ReplyDeletecass? Class!
ReplyDeleteIt didn't last long. The storytelling ranged from the utter pants to outrageous, with stupid childish names for the characters, like 'Joe Alien', a cyborg chimp called 'Robo' and a robot called 'Crud'. Artwork was variable Ian Kennedy painted art is up there with Mike Noble, Ron Smiths was technically good, but hampered by comedy scripts, Dave Pugh had clearly been inspired by H.R Giger and came up with huge toothy creatures every week and Jose Ortiz seemed more at home drawing scantily clad amazons in knock off fetish gear. Fun while it lasted, when it was taken over by Eagle, it gradually sank to the bottom of a cesspit of rubbish weekly dross and reprint material. Even Dan Dare's annual rehashes couldn't save it! Bill
ReplyDeleteInteresting Bill. I recently saw some later Eagles that had covers like 2000AD comics. Were they related?
DeleteNo, 2000ad was Fleetway, Eagle was IPC, but tried to get in on the market with 2000ad, but aside from some of the Dan Dare strips, Eagle was complete rubbish, especially the early issues with the photo stories!
DeleteYou mean the modern Eagle comic?
Delete