Hook Jaw
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"Hook Jaw" is a British comic adventure story published in the weekly
anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...
''
Action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...
'' from 14 February to 12 November 1977 by IPC Magazines. The story is centred around a
great white shark The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large Lamniformes, mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major ocea ...
with a gaff hook lodged in its lower jaw. Created by
Pat Mills Patrick Eamon Mills (born 1949) is an English comics writer and editor who, along with John Wagner, revitalised British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has remained a leading light in British comics ever since. He has been called "the godfath ...
and Geoff Kemp, the strip largely happened from Hook Jaw's point of view, portraying the shark as a creature simply following its instincts and forever under attack from amoral humans. Mills would later describe it as an ecological story. "Hook Jaw" was heavily criticised by the British tabloid press for its level of violence.


Creation

Given a short period to create the new action-adventure comic ''
Action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...
'' in 1976,
Pat Mills Patrick Eamon Mills (born 1949) is an English comics writer and editor who, along with John Wagner, revitalised British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has remained a leading light in British comics ever since. He has been called "the godfath ...
and Geoff Kemp quickly hit on the idea of taking popular films and television shows and adding their own twist. Their inspiration was
Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is ...
's blockbuster '' Jaws''; while yet to be released in the UK the film had broken box office records in America and its Christmas release was highly anticipated. The basic idea of doing a shark story was pitched by Ken Armstrong during a brainstorming session with Mills and John Wagner, as he was aware of the impact of "a shark version of ''
Moby Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...
''". He wanted to emphasise that man was the aggressor in the story; Mills - who had similar views, later stating "I wanted nature to win!" - worked with Armstrong on the story, and along with IPC editorial director John Sanders encouraged the story to become more gory, with Armstrong recollecting this was to show the reality of shark attacks in detail. Ramon Sola, a Spaniard with a talent for drawing wildlife and described by Mills as "an artistic genius", was assigned to draw the story. He had first worked for IPC on the romance comic '' Valentine'' in 1974, and had recently moved to
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
from
Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
. Several minor characters in the story were named after ''Action'' staff, including Mills, John Wagner and Ian Vosper.


Publishing history

"Hook Jaw" rapidly became a favourite with readers, helped by being placed in the centre colour pages for most of the issues, allowing the blood to pop. It also added to the comic's street cred by covering a violent film some of the audience were not allowed to see; ''Jaws'' had been released in the UK on 26 December 1975 to strong box office and considerable publicity due to controversially being rated A (requiring children to be accompanied by an adult). Right from the start, ''Action'' received attention for its high level of violence, with "Hook Jaw"'s frequent dismemberments, maulings and devourings attracting its share of criticism, and after the 16 September 1976 the comic was withdrawn for drastic retooling on the orders of the IPC board. Sola was replaced as artist by Felix Carrion from the start of the second storyline in the 15 May 1976 edition. Despite - or perhaps because of - this the strip was consistently rated the most popular in ''Action'' by readers. Carrion left the strip in the interim; a modified version of his last episode was belatedly published in the 4 December 1976 edition as ''Action'' returned to publication, after which British artist John Stokes (primarily known for his work on " Fishboy" for '' Buster'') took over on the strip. Among the steps taken to tone down the returning ''Action'' by new editor Sid Bicknell was demoting "Hook Jaw" from the colour pages to lessen the impact of the much-reduced bloodshed. The storyline was also heavily re-edited, with Hook Jaw briskly redirected from the
English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...
to more abstract tropical climes, and a marked increase in the competence of the authorities to deal with the shark. While it remained one of the more popular strips in ''Action'', under the new direction sales slumped and the comic was merged into "
Battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force co ...
"; due to its lack of a military angle it was not selected to continue. Mills later used "Hook Jaw" as a template for the '' 2000 AD'' strips "
Flesh Flesh is any aggregation of soft tissues of an organism. Various multicellular organisms have soft tissues that may be called "flesh". In mammals, including humans, ''flesh'' encompasses muscles, fats and other loose connective tissues, ...
" and " Shako!". Some episodes of "Hook Jaw" were included in the 1988 224-page softback ''Big Adventure Book''. In 1991 the pre-ban episodes of "Hook Jaw" and a selection of the unedited the unpublished episodes were included in Martin Barker's ''Action - The Story of a Violent Comic'', published by
Titan Books Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of the British entertainment company Titan Entertainment, which was established as Titan Books in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cine ...
. The volume also included analysis of the strip. Spitfire Comics released a collection of the pre-ban strips in ''Collected Hook Jaw vol.1'' in 2007.


Titan Comics

Since 2016 the rights to "Hook Jaw" have been owned by
Rebellion Developments Rebellion Developments Limited is a British video game developer based in Oxford. Founded by Jason Kingsley (businessman), Jason and Chris Kingsley in December 1992, the company is best known for ''Sniper Elite'' and multiple games in the ''Lis ...
. In 2017, Rebellion licensed the rights to "Hook Jaw" to Titan Comics, who produced a five-part mini-series written by Simon Spurrier and drawn by Conor Boyle. Spurrier was a fan of the original strip, noting "it was disguised as something rather lowbrow... but it concealed some very smart and subversive twists". The Titan series rebooted the story and was set in the present day, with an oceanographer Mag as the sympathetic lead human protagonist. Titan also published a collected edition of the ''Action'' strips to tie in with the series. Mills claimed not to have read the new series, but had heard it was "dire".


Rebellion Publishing

In spring 2020 Rebellion published an ''Action Special 2020'' under its Treasury of British Comics imprint. The special included a new "Hook Jaw" strip by Quint Amity and Dan Lish. In September of that year, a new version debuted in ''2000 AD''. With the title now styled as 'Hook-Jaw', it was written by Alec Worley and illustrated by Leigh Gallagher. It re-imagined the shark as an elemental water god capable of changing shape.


Plot summary

In 1972, a group of game fisherman attempt to capture a great white shark in the Caribbean, planning to cut it open and photograph it. However, it kills them, despite a hook getting rammed in its jaw. Learning of the incident, the press nicknames the shark 'Hook Jaw'. A year later it re-emerges during construction of an offshore oil rig in the area. Rig boss Red McNally plans to kill Hook Jaw, rapidly becoming obsessed despite the warnings of the more reasonable lead diver Rick Mason. Blinded by greed and driven insane after a string of disasters hit the rig, McNally eventually dives into the sea to battle Hook Jaw one-on-one and is devoured. Mason escaped the destruction of the rig and finds himself working for the exploitative Doctor Gelder, who is trying to turn the island of El Salvados in the
Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...
into a resort called Paradise Island, with little respect for the natives or the marine life. Hook Jaw soon arrives and begins to disrupt Gelder's plans, leading to the developer putting a bounty on the shark. The bounty hunters take heavy casualties and rapidly become more extreme, culminating in explosives opening up a volcanic rift under the island. In the chaos Mason is killed by Hook Jaw, and his furious native friend Sharkie kills Gelder in revenge as El Salvados is evacuated. Hook Jaw, finding the seas around the island polluted, moves on again. Hook Jaw ended up in the English Channel in the midst of a criminal gang's attempts to hijack a shipment of
gold bullion A gold bar, also known as gold bullion or a gold ingot, is a quantity of refining, refined metallic gold that can be shaped in various forms, produced under standardized conditions of manufacture, labeling, and record-keeping. Larger varietie ...
. The shark's feeding prevents the gang from getting their loot to shore, and gang-leader Jack Gunn is the latest to become obsessed with killing Hook Jaw before a
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
minesweeper appeared and arrested the criminals. Thereafter Hook Jaw prowled the
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
before seemingly being destroyed by a treasure hunter's exploding ship.


Collected editions


Reception

Reviewing the 2017 Titan collected edition for Slings & Arrows, Ian Keogh gave the volume a broadly positive review, applauding the "hilariously bad taste" and that "Hook Jaw’s episodes follow a formula, in small doses it’s still a thrilling and often funny formula", but felt that ultimately the strip had already began to drop off in quality before the cancellation.


References

{{Buster 1976 comics debuts 1977 comics endings British comic strips Fictional sharks Nautical comics Action comic strips Comics by Pat Mills 2007 comics debuts Comics about fish