Showing posts with label Victor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Victor. Show all posts

Sunday, 25 August 2013

The most forgettable comics I have ever owned. Part 3: The Victor Book for Boys, 1973.

Victor Book for Boys, annual, 1973
I definitely owe today's offering an apology. Not only is it not forgettable but it features one of the things I remember most strongly from my childhood.

For years I remembered reading a story that featured a mystery runner called W.H. Oami who broke some sort of cross country record before being exposed as a fraud. The clue was in his name: "WH Oami" = "Who Am I" [Gettit?].

For years I couldn't recall where I'd read that tale.

And then, blundering around the internet, I came across this very cover. Instantly the scales fell away from my eyes - and my feet - because I'm pretty sure this is where I read it.

I also recall that the cover references an interior story of some plucky British Tommies stealing a German bus and doing whatever it was they did.

To be honest, Weird War Tales aside, war stories never did anything for me as a kid, and by 1973 I was already well into American comics at the expense of British ones. So it's perhaps not so shocking that the existence of this book had gradually slipped my mind.

I do feel I should know more about old British comics, as they do seem more accomplished to me now than they ever did at the time. I fear the fault was mine rather than theirs.