UPDATE: Bulldog Empire - Neill Cameron & Jason Cobley

I've now added (at the bottom of this post) more details about where you can find reprints of this strip...

After nearly 2,000 posts its seems hard to believe that I could have someone making their first appearance on the blog but it happens. In fact today we have two people on their blog debut - artist Neil 'Mega Robo Brothers' Cameron and author Jason Cobley.

They owe their appearance today to my recent purchase of these two comics from the estate of the friend of the blog, the much missed Colin Noble.

First up is Bulldog Empire #1 - this was produced in 2005 (priced at £2.95) and was a limited run of 200 copies. This particular copy is numbered 73. Cover (and interior) art is by Neill Cameron. Classic US comic size, black & white interior art, 32 pages (including covers). 

You get 20 pages of Bulldog empire and then 6 pages of Brittany Bell and her brilliant Bimech (by Neill Cameron & Stu Perrins). 

...it's a wraparound cover & here's the back 

Here's issue 2 (front cover), this is from 2006 and was a limited print run of 150 copies (of which this is numbered 4). £3.95 for 44 pages of comics (black & white art by Neill Cameron throughout)

and the rear cover

The cover of issue 2 was re-used as the cover to 'The mammoth book of best new manga' in 2006. In fact that book reprinted all the Bulldog Empire material that had appeared in the standalone comics.

Barney also tells me that there were 8 pages of Bulldog empire in Judge Dredd megazine #253 (cover dated 9th January 2007)

I've also discovered that Paragon #35 (from Davey Candlish) also featured the first 7 page strip from Bulldog Empire #1

UPDATED: Commando - heritage characters

Updated to include the first Harrier Squadron [from Warlord] story in issue 5929

Updated to include another Braddock issue in issue 5919

Updated to include another Kampfgruppe Falken issue (#5861) - which I'd missed previously, whoops!

Updated to include another Union Jack Jackson story - issue 5917

Updated to include another Codename Warlord story - issue 5913

Updated to include another Cadman story in issue 5909

Updated to include another Braddock story in issue 5891

Updated to include a V for Vengeance (from The Wizard) - issue #5887

Updated to include another Codename Warlord story - issue 5841 - which is out now!

Updated to include another Kampfgruppe Falken issue (#5827) which is out now!

Updated to include another Union Jack Jackson issue (#5813) and a Sergeant Rayker issue (#5817)

Updated to include Commando 5803 (which is on sale currently). It's another Lord Peter Flint issue

Updated to include issue Commando 5799 which is on sale currently. It's another Cadman issue - art by Mike Dorey.

To celebrate the release (last week I think) of Commando issue 5759 (below) and the inclusion of Kampfgruppe Falken in it I thought I'd log the other back issues of Commando that feature other DC Thomson 'heritage' characters.

Have I missed any? Just let me know!

Commando 5929

Commando 5759

Commando 5827

Commando 5861

Major Heinz Falken is playing a dangerous game of chance. His life and those of his men hang in the balance as they fight for survival. The battle on the Eastern Front between German and Russian armies has become a war of attrition, with both sides lacking resources. When their supplies are hijacked by the Russians, Falken is forced to recover them by systematically searching Soviet stronghold bunkers. But guessing which one is the right bunker is like playing a game of Russian roulette – and they’re running out of bullets.

Braddock has two issues so far

Commando 5269

Commando 5267

Commando 5875

The daredevil bomber pilot returns! Now that his squadron had converted to Vickers Wellingtons, Sergeant Matt Braddock couldn’t wait to get airborne. But a hairy first mission soon left him without a navigator – luckily, the impressive Sergeant George Bourne was looking for a new crew. Bourne and Braddock were soon thick as thieves, but it wasn’t long before Braddock’s gung-ho attitude landed them in an Italian POW camp. Braddock was going to have to rely on more than his flying skills to get out of this one!

Commando 5891

After his daring escape from an Italian POW camp, Braddock found himself craving his next adventure. Luckily, adventure had a way of finding him! German Focke Wulf Condors were causing problems for the Allies in the Atlantic, and the Brits didn’t have any planes with the same range. Braddock’s solution? Steal one of the German kites, of course! But this mission would require a crack team, and some of Brad’s flight crew were more up to the task than others. Could they pull it off?

Commando 5919

Lord Peter Flint has appeared in 4 issues as well

Commando 5255

Commando 5263

Commando 5803

Lord Peter Flint, AKA Codename: Warlord, relied on being a 'coward' to stop being suspected as a secret agent! So when a journalist tried to write a hit piece on him, that was the least of his worries! He was busy stopping a REAL assassination plot!

Commando 5841

Britain’s finest spy, Lord Peter Flint, is on another top-hole adventure! After Warlord’s most disastrous mission yet, Flint ends up as the number one target of ‘six of the best’ assassins the world has ever seen!
But why does the phrase ‘six of the best’ seem familiar to him? Who is the mysterious sixth assassin who is an ‘old friend’ of Flint’s?
Will these questions be answered – or will this be the end of Codename Warlord?!

Commando 5913

The Libyan desert is experiencing some funny weather! Mysterious, sudden rainstorms are turning the hot sands to boggy quagmires that are beaching British tanks! But not only that, a Nazi officer has disguised himself as an Arab tribesman to sow discontent, and a German scientist has attempted to defect – something very strange is going on.
Enter Lord Peter Flint – Codename: Warlord – Britain’s best secret agent, to investigate the weird happenings. A storm is brewing, and he can sense the hand of his old nemesis, Professor Kranz, is behind it all!

Cadman has 4 issues so far

Commando 5697

That cowardly cad returns! From the pages of The Victor to Commando, Cadman the Fighting Coward looks skyward to escape the trenches - but he soon finds that life in the Royal Flying Corps isn't any easier or safer than on the ground!

5665 - interior art by Mike Dorey, cover art by Mike Dorey & Neil Roberts

5799 - interior art by Mike Dorey, cover art by Mike Dorey

Commando 5909

Lieutenant Gerald Cadman, the fighting coward, once again finds himself precisely where he does not want to be — on the front lines! The arrival of the heroic and aristocratic Captain Blickley-Phipps, however, gives Cadman an idea for how to improve his station.

But for Private Tom Smith, something doesn’t seem right about Blickley-Phipps. Ruthless in his quest for glory, the captain will gladly sacrifice his own men for victory. Even Scruff the dog can smell an impending disaster, but Cadman may be too distracted to find a way out this time!

Union Jack Jackson

Commando 5287

Commando 5813

Union Jack Jackson's back! With a little help from his pals, Jack must find an airfield which has been launching attacks on Navy convoys. But he get more than he bargained for when he sees aircraft taking off from the back of a submarine!

Commando 5917

Union Jack Jackson and his pals were on a mission to steal an experimental radar receiver from the Japanese when they hit a hurdle. The USS Red Bank, the destroyer they were going to sail away on, was sunk by Japanese suicide pilots… men who would self-sacrifice their lives to sink their enemies.
So then, why was one of the pilots — Kamikaze Ken — floating, alive, in the water beside Union Jack Jackson?

Sergeant Rayker

Commando 5817

Last seen in Warlord in 1984, Sergeant Moses Rayker returns! Trapped behind enemy lines, Rayker encounters an unfriendly face in the form of Buford ‘Bubba’ Ballard. Will Rayker end up smacking the tar outta him before they make it back?

Commando 5857

Legendary Warlord character returns to Commando! Sergeant Rayker was tasked with rounding up four drunken US Marines. But not long after he finds himself under enemy fire with the drunken marines in tow. Perhaps this job isn’t as easy as it sounds!

from the pages of The Wizard - Commando 5887 - V for Vengeance: Prisoner 7234

As air raids wreak havoc over the skies of Berlin, dread pervades the Nazi party. High-ranking officials are being assassinated one by one by the mysterious group named ‘The Deathless Men’. At the scene of each crime, the killers leave a list of future victims alongside a proclamation titled ‘V for Vengeance’.
Desperately, those whose names are listed seek answers, but their only clues link each assassin to deceased prisoners of a concentration camp – are the dead returning to seek revenge?

UPDATED: Small press comics - Isabel Greenberg

I've long been a fan of the work of Isabel Greenberg (check out her website here) and I have a number of her longer comics work (The encyclopedia of early Earth, One hundred nights of hero and Glass town) but I don't know enough about her small press work.

These images below are (mainly) from my own collection but I'd love to know what other titles she might have produced. Any help much appreciated.

UPDATE: this is c/o friend of the blog Simon Russell

Rites, customs and histories of the great empire of Migdalbavel - Isabel Greenberg

Love in a very cold climate - Isabel Greenberg

This was the name of the short story that won Isabel the Obsever/Cape graphic short story prize (see here) so I wonder if this came before or after the prize??  

Dreadful wind and rain - Isabel Greenberg

published October 2014

Described here thus...

A short comic based on the traditional folk ballad The Two Sisters. This book was made for an exhibition at Cecil Sharp House with the English Folk Dance and Song Society, and printed with a risograph.

The tale tells of two sisters, seduced by the same lover, and the ruinous consequences that followed. The story can also be found in the graphic novel The One Hundred Nights of Hero.

The river of lost souls - Isabel Greenberg

Described here thus...

A short story commissioned by the Guardian for a series on water, entitled The River of Lost Souls.

Toad, episode one - Isabel Greenberg

Described here thus...
A self-published risographed comic, written by Alexis Deacon and illustrated by Isabel Greenberg.

Confinement - Isabel Greenberg

From 2023 - more details here - this will be published in full in 2028 (!)

UPDATED: Cartoon museum publications

I've long wanted to catalogue publications that the Cartoon Museum (here) (and its previous incarnation as Cartoon Art Trust) have published. I'm not sure how many there are out there but this is my way of starting to finding out!

Update - Now with some images added for the Phil May centenary catalogue from 2002. 

The art of Laughter - The Ashmolean museum (1992)

Giles - 50 years of work for Express Newspapers (dates unknown)

Lottery laughter - an anthology of Lottery cartoons (20th October - 18th November 1999)

The 100 British Cartoonists of the century (exhibition 26th Feb - 12th April 2000)

Flotsam and Jensen: Celebrating 55 Years of Cartooning, Illustration and Caricature (2002?)

The art of leaving out : Phil May 1864-1903, a centenary exhibition (2002)

Cartoon Art Trust Museum/University of Gloucestershire, 2002

24 pages

Mixture of Gin and Buttercups: a Retrospective Exhibition of the Cartoons and Caricatures of Michael Ffolkes at the Cartoon Art Trust Museum : 4 September - 1 November 2003

Thelwell country (exhibition 6th January - 6th February 2004)

Grin and Blair it! (exhibition 27th October - 18th December 2004)

Mars in their eyes (exhibition dates TBC but thought to be 2006)

A view of Dightons - the Dighton family, their time, caricatures and portraits (2007?)

Heath Robinson's helpful solutions (exhibition 5 July - 7 October 2007)

Eurobollocks! (exhibition 10 October 2007 - 20 January 2008) 

Pont - observing the British at home & abroad (exhibition 23 April - 27 July 2008)

A peep into clubland (exhibition 18th February - 3rd May 2009)

Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! (exhibition 6th May - 26th July 2009)

Ronald Searle - graphic master (exhibition 3rd March - 4th July 2010)

Bell époque - 30 years of Steve Bell (exhibition 25th May - 24th July 2011)

HM Bateman - the man who went mad on paper (exhibition 11th April - 22nd July 2012)

Steadman @ 77, (exhibition 1 May - 8 September 2013)

The Windsor tapestry (exhibition, 16th November 2024 - 30th March 2025