EXTRACTS: The Fleetway Picture Library Index Volume 2: The Thriller Libraries © The Book Palace (284 PAGES in Full edition)

10 FLEETWAY PICTURE LIBRARY INDEX VOLUME 2 and very soon acquired the first of its companion titles. The new style British pocket-sized comics was really beginning to take off. III: Heroes of the Sword and Pistol In the opinion of many collectors, the swashbuckling historical adventures that appeared in the long-running Thriller Comics Library are amongst the best drawn, best scripted and most thoroughly enjoyable adventure comics ever to appear. From the offset Thriller Comics ( Thriller Comics Library from issue 41) concentrated on historical adventures. The first two issues featured the Three Musketeers and Dick Turpin and the following two numbers were of Robin Hood and an adaptation of Treasure Island . In much the same way that Cowboy Comics had relied on reprints for its early issues, in three of the four issues of Thriller Comics there was little that could be called new – but Edward Holmes had some fine work to draw upon when it came to swashbucklers, even if the choices seemed a little odd in places. ‘The Three Musketeers and the Man in the Iron Mask’ was a reprint from Knockout (1949) with many panels omitted as well as additional frames (drawn by the original artist, W. Bryce-Hamilton) inserted in order to change the ending. In the original Knockout version, based on the 1929 silent movie starring Douglas Fairbanks, all four of the Musketeers died, an event that would not have made an auspicious beginning for a library intending to portray many further adventures of Dumas’ famous creations. The second issue contained three stories of Dick Turpin, the first of which was a reprint of ‘Dick Turpin’s Ride to York’, also from Knockout (1948). Although the strip had obviously been squeezed into the small format and had lost its epic sweep, it was still easy to appreciate the graceful artistry of Derek Eyles. This was one of the finest of his strips. According to its writer, Leonard Matthews, ‘The Ride to York’ was to have lasted a great deal longer but Eyles found the pressure of drawing two pages of strip a week too much and the project had to be cut short. It was another odd choice of strip with which to start a series of Dick Turpin adventures because the highwayman’s horse, Black Bess – who was to appear in all subsequent issues – died after the exhausting ride. Treasure Island (no. 4) was a reprint of a 1945 Knockout serial, drawn by Mike Hubbard and based on the 1934 film starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Coogan. Again, this did not fit too well into the small library format and Hubbard’s artwork did not appear to its best advantage. Its saving grace was its delightful cover by Philip Mendoza. More Knockout stories were to follow in early issues of the new library. ‘Hunted on the Highway’ (no. 9) was a reprint of H. M. Brock’s superb serial, ‘Breed of the Brudenels’ ( Knockout , 1949-50), and two Captain Flame issues appeared in fairly quick succession (no. 12 and no. ever to appear in a comic. Once more, the reprints were a pale shadow of the originals, the wide panels being cut short for the library, the longer panels elongated and with extra figures drawn in, in the first issue by Stephen Chapman and in the second by Reg Bunn. A happier compromise was reached with some issues such is The Children of the New Forest (no. 38). Apart from having a fine Sep. E. Scott cover (based on one of the interior panels which was itself inspired by the famous painting ‘When Did You Last See Your Father?’ by William Frederick Yeames), the library issue had a number of new panels especially drawn by the original artist, Eric Parker. Despite this, the story does not achieve the poignancy and stature of the original strip as it appeared in Knockout (1945). Another Eric Parker Knockout strip was completely ruined when it was adapted for the library. As it appeared in Knockout , ‘The Secret of Monte Cristo’ (1949) was arguably the finest of all Sexton Blake strips. It was written by Edward Holmes who had borrowed the picturesque setting of the lonely island castle owned by descendents of a famous French nobleman from his 1940 Detective Weekly serial, ‘A Case for Sexton Blake’. This was Parker's only Blake strip and was a masterpiece of mood and mystery. For some reason Holmes decided to change the names of Blake and his assistant, Tinker, and engaged Reg Bunn to adapt the strip to the library format. Whether it was his brief or not, Bunn more or less re-drew the strip and made a thorough hash of it, destroying all the magic of the original. By the fifth issue, Thriller Comics had begun publishing new stories especially drawn for the library format and resizing reprints was kept to a minimum. Although the reprint stories were well chosen, the resulting issues always suffered in comparison with their original appearances in the weekly comics. Thriller Comics soon settled into a routine with regular appearances of The Three Musketeers, Dick Turpin and Robin Hood, these issues usually being made up of three or four stories. Intermixed among these regular characters were full-length adaptations of classics like Gulliver’s Travels , ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’ and The Black Arrow . Westerns were kept to a minimum, presumably so as not to rival Cowboy Comics , but Thriller Comics made the best of its broader remit with excellent adaptations of three of Clarence E. Mulford’s novels. ‘The Outlaw Orphan’ (adapting Mulford’s The Orphan ), featured some of Colin Merrett’s best artwork while the other two Mulford adaptations were mostly interesting to young readers for featuring the writer’s famous hero, Hopalong Cassidy, who was shown to be totally unlike his screen portrayal. In the beginning, it had been intended that Thriller Comics would cover ‘thrillers’ in the usual sense of the word. Monty Haydon had been the controlling editor of Union Jack and the Sexton Blake Library from the mid- 1920s and was editor of The Thriller , which had run from 1929 to 1940, publishing some of the finest crime writers of the era. In the first issue of The Thriller , Haydon had published a new J. G. Reeder novella written by Edgar