Look and Learn

Look and Learn was a British weekly educational magazine for children published by Fleetway Publications Ltd from 1962 until 1982. It contained educational text articles that covered a wide variety of topics from volcanoes to the Loch Ness Monster; a long running science fiction comic strip, The Trigan Empire; adaptations of famous works of literature into comic-strip form, such as Lorna Doone; and serialized works of fiction such as The First Men in the Moon.

The illustrators who worked on the magazine included Fortunino Matania, John Millar Watt, Peter Jackson, John Worsley, Patrick Nicolle, Ron Embleton, Gerry Embleton, C. L. Doughty, Wilf Hardy, Dan Escott, Angus McBride, Oliver Frey, James E. McConnell, Kenneth Lilly, Graham Coton, Ralph Bruce, R. B. Davis, Severino Baraldi and Clive Uptton.

Knockout Magazine

This magazine started 4th Mar 1939, ended 16th Feb 1963. Merged with Magnet 1941, became Knockout and Magnet until 1945, then just Knockout again. Merged with Valiant. The first, published by the Amalgamated Press (later Fleetway Publications), was launched by editor Percy Clarke and sub-editor Leonard Matthews in 1939 to compete with The Dandy and The Beano, launched by DC Thomson in 1937 and 1938 respectively. Like its rivals, it featured a mixture of humour and adventure strips and illustrated prose stories. Matthews recruited Hugh McNeill, a former Beano artist, as the title’s main humour artist, and his strips “Our Ernie” and “Deed-a-Day Danny” were very popular. 

Two characters were imported from the prose story papers – Billy Bunter, formerly of The Magnet, initially drawn by C. H. Chapman, later by Frank Minnitt, and Sexton Blake, initially drawn by Jos Walker, later by Alfred Taylor, Roland Davies and definitive Blake illustrator Eric Parker. Also Jerry Spring (Jije) renamed into Slade, Spirou and Fantasio renamed into Dickie and Birdbath. After the Second World War the title featured more adventure strips, and Matthews, who was promoted to editor in 1948, recruited artists including Sep E. Scott, H. M. Brock, D. C. Eyles and Geoff Campion to draw them. The title lasted 1251 issues, from (cover dates) 4 March 1939 to 16 February 1963, absorbing The Magnet in 1940 and Comic Cuts in 1953, before being merged into Valiant. The second ran from (issues dates) 12 June 1971 to 23 June 1973, when it merged with Whizzer and Chips.

Rip Kirby

Rip Kirby is a popular comic strip featuring the adventures of the eponymous lead character, a private detective created by Alex Raymond in 1946. Displaying the talents of more than a dozen writers and illustrators, the strip had a long run, spanning five decades. After World War II, Raymond did not return to work on any of his previous successful comic strips (Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, Secret Agent X-9) but instead began work on a new strip in which ex-Marine Rip Kirby returns from WWII and goes to work as a private detective, sometimes accompanied by his girlfriend, fashion model Judith Lynne "Honey" Dorian. Her given name and nickname were borrowed from the names of Raymond's three daughters. 

Rip Kirby was based on the suggestion by King Features editor Ward Greene that Raymond try a "detective-type" strip. First published on March 4, 1946, the strip was given a huge promotional boost, even including fully painted promotional art, a rarity in comic strip promotions. The strip enjoyed enormous success, and Raymond received the Reuben Award in 1949. During Raymond's years on the strip, the stories were initially written by Ward Greene and later, following Greene's death, by Fred Dickenson. Some sequences were also written by Raymond.

Modesty Blaise

Modesty Blaise is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talents and a criminal past, and her trusty sidekick Willie Garvin. It was adapted into films in 1966, 1982, and 2003, and from 1965 onwards eleven novels and two short story collections were written. Having conceived the idea after a chance meeting with a girl during his wartime service in the Middle East, O'Donnell elected to work with Jim Holdaway, with whom he had worked on the strip Romeo Brown, after a trial period of collaboration with Frank Hampson, creator of Dan Dare, left O'Donnell dissatisfied. Modesty Blaise debuted in the London Evening Standard on 13 May 1963.

In 1945, a nameless girl escapes from a displaced prison (DP) camp in Kalyros, Greece. She remembers nothing from her short past and wanders through post-World War II Mediterranean, the Middle East, and regions of North Africa, where she learns to survive the hard way. She befriends Lob, another wandering refugee who is a Jewish Hungarian scholar from Budapest. He gives her an education and a first name: Modesty. Sometime later Modesty creates her last name, Blaise, after Merlin's tutor from the Arthurian legends. When Lob dies is unclear, other than it being prior to her going to Tangier. In 'The Xanadu Tailisman' it is mentioned that Modesty has left Lob at a village to recover from a wound; she goes alone to sell a car tyre. In 1953 she takes control of a criminal gang in Tangier from Henri Louche and expands it into an international organization called the Network.