Signal comic #5

I've covered Signal comic before here and here (and John Freeman has provided an excellent overview here) but I've now been able to access the previously missing issues in my Signal collection, first up was issue 2 (here), then issue 3 (here), issue 4 (here) and today we have issue 5 of this 'Eagle-lite' comic...

Cover art is again by Don Harley...

Norman Willaims again provides some interior art...

John Ryan again illustrates 'Little Ruth, Sweet of Tooth'

What makes this particular issue stand-out (an in fact be EVEN MORE Eagle-like) is the inclusion (below) of a cutaway drawing! Not only that but the art is by Eagle cutaway artis Roy Cross. As far as I'm aware this was Roy's only cutaway work that didn't appear in Eagle.

Signal comic #4

I've covered Signal comic before here and here (and John Freeman has provided an excellent overview here) but I've now been able to access the previously missing issues in my Signal collection, first up was issue 2 (here), issue 3 (here) and today we have issue 4 of this 'Eagle-lite' comic...

Cover art is by Don Harley...

Norman Williams art...

John Ryan art...

Copyright date is 1963

Signal comic #3

I've covered Signal comic before here and here (and John Freeman has provided an excellent overview here) but I've now been able to access the previously missing issues in my Signal collection, first up was issue 2 (here) and today we have issue 3 of this 'Eagle-lite' comic...

Cover art is by Don Harley...

More art by Norman Williams

Another Eagle alumnus, John Ryan, provides the art to 'Little Ruth - Sweet of Tooth'

Copyright date is 1962

Signal comics #1-5 discovered

Some fierce bidding on ebay yesterday saw 5 issues (a set ?) of Signal comics sell for over £250!

Lew Stringer first covered Signal comic issue 1 here and I looked at issue 5 here and John Freeman looked at Signal over on Down the Tubes here.

One bidder (not me!) walked off with all 5 issues, with prices realised as follows...
Issue 1 was sold for £46.19 here
Issue 2 was sold for £38.09 here
Issue 3 was sold for £42.59 here
Issue 4 was sold for £60.00 here
Issue 5 was sold for £64.50 here
A total of £251.37!

Don Harley provides the cover art for all 5 issues.

If you were the winning bidding, and you are interested in sharing their contents, do just drop me a line :)

Signal comic #1 - cover by Don Harley

A while, while researching the Wonder comic from Esso (which is a blog post for another day entirely) I stumbled across an article on Lew Stringer's always excellent Blimey blog (here) about a comic called Signal.

Lew only had (has?) one issue - issue 4 - but what really piqued my interest is that the cover art is by Don 'Dan Dare' Harley. There's no information on the comic in any of Denis Gifford's reference books so the comic looked likely to remain a mystery...I don't claim to have solved the mystery but I have recently acquired another copy of Signal comic - this time #1, so let's have a look at it...

The format is just the same as issue 4 (so, 8 pages, photogravure printing, size is slightly larger than A4)…

The kids in this adventure are different from the kids that in issue 4

The adventure strip (artist looks like Pat Williams to me) Castle Glorious and the white knight is there on page 3 

John 'Captain Pugwash' Ryan is another ex-Eagle alumni who gets to contribute a strip to Signal

The Holiday Adventure strip continues on the back page...

On page 7 there is a competition that has a closing date of 31st October 1961 - so that's a better idea of a date than we had previously. Lew has confirmed that he's dated #4 as 1963 because the editorial says "...now that 1963 is here". So issue #1 in 1961, 2 issues in 1962 and (at least) one issue in 1963. The editorial comment in #1 says "...your chums will be able to get their own copies - but only of course when they go for their six-monthly check-up". So maybe it only came out every 6 months? Anyway, we've found out a little more but I'd still love to find issue 2 and 3 - can you help?