''Sun'' was a weekly

British comics A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper. As of 2014, the three longest-running comics of all time w ...

periodical published by J. B. Allen,

Amalgamated Press The Amalgamated Press (AP) was a British newspaper and magazine publishing company founded by journalist and entrepreneur Alfred Harmsworth (1865–1922) in 1901, gathering his many publishing ventures together under one banner. At one point the ...

and

Fleetway Publications Fleetway Publications was a magazine publishing company based in London. History It was founded in 1959 when the Mirror Group acquired the Amalgamated Press, then based at Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, London. It was one of the companies ...

between 11 November 1947 and 17 October 1959. During this time it was also known as ''Sun Comic'', ''Sun Adventure Weekly'', ''The Cowboy Sun Weekly'', ''The Cowboy Sun'', ''The Sun'' and ''Sun Weekly'' at various points, and ran for 551 issues before merging with ''

Lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'', native to Sub-Saharan Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body (biology), body; a short, rounded head; round ears; and a dark, hairy tuft at the ...

''. While predominantly featuring

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

s and other historical adventure stories, the title's best-remembered character would be the World War II fighter pilot

Battler Britton Battler Britton is a British comics character created by Mike Butterworth and Geoff Campion.McNeil, Jamie"Battler Britton" ''The Slings & Arrows Graphic Novel Guide''. Retrieved April 7, 2021. He first appeared in Amalgamated Press' ''Sun'' in 1 ...

, who first appeared in 1956 and foreshadowed the popularity of

war comics War comics is a genre of comic books that gained popularity in English-speaking countries following World War II. History American war comics Shortly after the birth of the modern comic book in the mid- to late 1930s, comics publishers began inc ...

in Britain through the 1960s and 1970s.

Creation

Sale-based publisher J.B. Allen had launched the first new post-war British comic - '' The Comet'' - in 1946. It had quickly become a success and the company looked to add a companion title. However post-war

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution (marketing), distribution of scarcity, scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resourc ...

and austerity meant permission to create new titles was difficult to obtain. Instead, Allen decided to repurpose health magazine ''Fitness and Sun'', turning it into an 8-page fortnightly comic.

Publication history

J. B. Allen

The first edition of the comic was dated 11 November 1947 and led with a text comic adaptation of ''

The Swiss Family Robinson ''The Swiss Family Robinson'' (German: ''Der Schweizerische Robinson'', "The Swiss Robinson") is a novel by the Swiss author Johann David Wyss, first published in 1812, about a Swiss family of immigrants whose ship en route to Port Jackson, Aus ...

'' drawn by Bob Wilkin and a similarly formatted telling of

Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary noble outlaw, heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature, theatre, and cinema. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions o ...

in Reg Beaumont's " Sherwood Outlaw". There were also a trio of text stories - " The Cruise of the Cormorant", " Susan Storm - Girl Reporter" and "The Coffin Ship", as well as humour cartoons " Kindheart", "Old Buck and Texas Tich" and "Fuzzy". The title was a success, and the Christmas edition on December 23 saw the front page given over to a retelling of "

Good King Wenceslas "Good King Wenceslas" (Roud Folk Song Index, Roud number 24754) is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a tenth-century king of Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic) who goes on a journey, braving harsh winter weather, to give alms to a poor pe ...

". Since the change, the 'Fitness and...' had been rendered on the cover in a tiny font, and as of 6 January 1948 disappeared entirely. Further adventure serials followed with the escapades of teenage siblings John and Joan Randall, and espionage thriller " Formula X".

Amalgamated Press

In 1949 J. B. Allen were taken over by London giant

, with ''Sun'' and ''Comet'' both continuing under the new owners, both transitioning to becoming weekly comics. Leonard Matthews, one of the driving forces behind AP's successful ''

Knockout A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, ...

'' comic, was assigned as editor from the 24 May edition. Initially the change of ''Suns contents was slow, though text comics were phased out in favour of picture strips, but on 1 October the comic changed to photogravure printing, introducing two new comic serials - Westerns "

Sitting Bull Sitting Bull ( ; December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota people, Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against Federal government of the United States, United States government policies. Sitting Bull was killed by Indian ...

" (initially an imported French strip originally printed in '' Coq Hardi'') and " Deadshot Sue". The latter was drawn by Hugh McNeill, recruited from DC Thomson in 1939 to launch ''Knockout'', who would be prolific contributor to ''Sun'' on both humour and adventure features. December would see a picture strip retelling

RKO RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Kei ...

's '' Mighty Joe Young'', the first of a large number of film adaptations. Typically these were based on recent hit adventure movies, and the ''Sun'' versions used a number of formats - picture strips with likenesses of the cast drawn by McNeill or Robert MacGillivray; prose pieces illustrated with stills and on one occasion - for Western '' South of St. Louis'' - as a

photo strip Photo comics are a form of sequential storytelling using photographs rather than illustrations for the images, along with the usual comics conventions of narrative text and word balloons containing dialogue. They are sometimes referred to in ...

. Amalgamated Press mounted a nationwide talent search in 1949, unearthing

Reg Bunn Reginald Bunn ( 1905–died 1971) was a British comic book artist, best known for his work on ''The Spider'' in ''Lion'', and work in other British comics during the 1960s. As a young man, Bunn produced commissioned portraits and caricatures to ...

and

Geoff Campion Arthur Geoffrey Campion (19 November 1916 — 18 December 1997)Norman Wright and David Ashford, ''Masters of Fun and Thrills: The British Comic Artists Vol. 1'', Norman Wright (pub.), 2008, pp. 7-21 was a British comics artist who drew adventur ...

. The following year saw the debut of Bunn-drawn adventure serial "

Clip McCord Clip or CLIP may refer to: Fasteners * Ammunition clip, a device for storing multiple rounds together as a unit before inserting into a magazine or cylinder * Binder clip, a device for holding thicker materials (such as large volumes of paper) t ...

", following the eponymous reporter turned special agent. 1951 saw popular new adventures of highwayman Duck Turpin in " Highway Days" and Campion's take on celebrity cowboy actor

Buck Jones Buck Jones (born Charles Frederick Gebhart; December 12, 1891 – November 30, 1942) was an American actor, known for his work in many popular Western movies. In his early film appearances, he was credited as Charles Jones. Early life, milit ...

. The former invented a female companion for Turpin in the form of highwaywoman Moll Moonlight; when some Turpin strips were modified to form the early adventures of Jack o' Justice in '' Valiant'', her character was retained unchanged, making Moll one of the few prominent female characters in boys' comics of the time. Under AP, ''Sun'' and ''Comet'' were treated as sister titles under the 'Happy Comics' banner, and frequently advertised each other. In March 1952 the pages of both were halved in size and the comic was expanded to 20 pages. This allowed space for new picture stories " Jak of the Jaguars" and " Sinbad Sails Again". Six months after the reformat, one of Sun's longest-running stories joined the line-up. "

Billy the Kid Henry McCarty (September 17 or November 23, 1859July 14, 1881), alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who was linked to nine murders: four for which he was solely res ...

" was a highly romantic and historically inaccurate take on William Boney, featuring the outlaw attempting to hang up his guns, only to constantly have to fight once more as a long string of villains passed by. The setup featured Billy using a dual identity; realising this would take up a lot of each weekly episode, Matthews ordered it extended to a then-unheard of six pages instead of the two or three pages usually used at the time for a British weekly story. Campion would be the primary artist, though the demanding schedule meant many others filled in. The result was hugely popular with readers, and the format was copied by ''Comet'' for lead feature " Strongbow the Mohawk" and later "

Buffalo Bill William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846January 10, 1917), better known as Buffalo Bill, was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. One of the most famous figures of the American Old West, Cody started his legend at the young age ...

". Later in the year

also appeared in new strips, written by Mike Butterworth and later 'Barry Ford' - the pseudonym of Joan Whitford, who chose to hide her gender due to the growing audience segregation of British comics. Ironically, 'Ford' was one of the title's most popular writers, particularly of Westerns, and also provided popular factual feature "Barry Ford's Western Scrapbook". Other genres were catered for by the likes of " Max Bravo - The Happy Hussar" and " Jeremy Blaze the Boy Buccaneer". 7 January 1956 saw the debut of

, a

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

fighter ace. At the time the conflict had rarely been a subject of British comics, which had largely served as an escape for children. Devised by Mike Butterworth and initially drawn by Campion, Battler's swift success with readers suggested it was no longer a traumatic subject. A growing number of war stories would appear in AP and

DC Thomson DC Thomson is a media company based in Dundee, Scotland. Founded by David Couper Thomson in 1905, it is best known for publishing ''The Courier (Dundee), The Courier'', ''Evening Telegraph (Dundee), The Evening Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Pos ...

boys' comics going forward. Another new addition was

Tom Merry Tom Merry is the principal character in the "St Jim's" stories which appeared in the boy's weekly paper, ''The Gem'', from 1907 to 1939. The stories were all written using the pen-name of Martin Clifford, the majority by Charles Hamilton who wa ...

, who provided

Billy Bunter William George Bunter is a fictional schoolboy created by Charles Hamilton using the pen name Frank Richards. He features in stories set at Greyfriars School, a fictional English public school in Kent, originally published in the boys' weekly ...

-esque boarding school japes, both by himself and as part of the Terrible Three. Like Bunter - who was enjoying a popular revival in ''Knockout'' - he was an old character from boys' story papers, having debuted in ''

The Gem ''The Gem'' (1907–1939) was a story paper published in Great Britain by Amalgamated Press in the early 20th century, predominantly featuring the activities of boys at the fictional school St. Jim's. These stories were all written using the pe ...

'' in 1907. For the time being Westerns were still the biggest draw however, to the extent that for a time in 1957 the comic was renamed ''the Sun Cowboy Adventure Weekly'', and began featuring a

Roy Rogers Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye; November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998), nicknamed the King of the Cowboys, was an American singer, actor, television host, and Rodeo, rodeo performer. Following early work under his given name, first as a c ...

strip. Accordingly, as Westerns fell in popularity at the end of the fifties ''Suns sales suffered, and Len Wenn took over as editor from Matthews. The title's name was changed to ''The Sun'' and then ''Sun Weekly''; the photogravure paper disappeared in favour of cheaper newsprint while an attempt at modernising was undertaken with the likes of "The Martian" (based on

Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American writer, best known for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best known for creating the characters Tarzan (who appeared in ...

' ''

A Princess of Mars ''A Princess of Mars'' is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of his Barsoom series. It was first serialized in the pulp magazine ''All-Story Magazine'' from February–July, 1912. Full of swordplay and da ...

'') and Battler Britton being moved to the front page. A slew of reprints from ''Picture Library'' titles failed to halt the slide, and shortly after Amalgamated Press were purchased by the

Mirror Group Reach plc (known as Trinity Mirror between 1999 and 2018) is a British newspaper, magazine and internet journalism, digital publisher. It is one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, publishing 240 regional papers in addition to the national ' ...

and reorganised into

both ''Sun'' and ''Comet'' would be cancelled. While ''Comet'' was incorporated into ''

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is a large Felidae, cat and a member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Asia. It has a powerful, muscular body with a large head and paws, a long tail and orange fur with black, mostly vertical stripes. It is ...

'', ''Sun'' was merged with ''

'' from 24 October 1959; the name ''Lion and Sun'' would remain in place until 26 March 1950. Only "Billy the Kid" would continue in the combined title. Since 2018 the rights to the material originated for ''Sun'' have been owned by Rebellion Developments..

Titles

*''Fitness and Sun'' - 11 November to 23 December 1947 *''Sun'' - 6 January 1948 to 4 November 1950 *''Sun Comic'' - 11 November 1950 to 22 March 1952 *''Sun'' - 29 March 1952 to 11 August 1956 *''Sun Adventure Weekly'' - 18 August 1956 to 6 April 1957 *''The Cowboy Sun Weekly'' - 13 April to 30 June 1957 *''The Cowboy Sun'' - 6 July to 13 July 1957 *''The Sun'' - 20 July to 17 August 1957 *''Sun Weekly'' - 24 August 1957 to 17 October 1959

Stories

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sun (comic) 1947 comics debuts 1959 comics endings Comics magazines published in the United Kingdom Defunct British comics Fleetway and IPC Comics titles Magazines established in 1946 Magazines disestablished in 1959