EXTRACTS: PIRATE TALES Fleetway Picture Library Classics © 2020 Book Palace Books * 272 PAGES IN FULL EDITION

FLEETWAY PICTURE LIBRARY ™ CLA SS IC S 6 the coming of the Thriller Comics Library that his version really took off and Bunn became A.P.’s main Robin Hood illustrator. His depiction of the Sherwood outlaw set the ‘look’ for other artists to follow. So closely did Bunn become associated with the character that frequently, when another artist was drawing the strip, he would be asked to fill in the faces in order to achieve some sort of uniformity of style. Bunn had shown early on in the pages of Comet his ability to draw Buck Jones westerns and Robin Hood historical adventures and then, in 1950, he was given the chance to show his prowess in other genres. For Comet ’s companion paper, Sun , Bunn took on a completely different type of character when he tackled the exploits of ‘Clip McCord’, the “Ace Reporter” who becomes firstly a “Special Agent” and then a “Spaceman”. With his simple, engaging style, Bunn made this series highly entertaining. Interestingly, in the ‘Clip McCord’ strip the hero is up against a “master criminal – and a brilliant scientist who plans to control the world”. The villain’s name is ‘The Hawk’ but one can see a certain resemblance to Bunn’s later creation, ‘The Spider’. With the coming of the Thriller Comics Library and the Super Detective Library , there were yet more outlets for Bunn’s talents. His Super Detective strips featuring ‘Ernest Dudley, the Armchair Detective’ were pleasing but it was for the Thriller Comics Library that he really came into his own, working on such diverse titles as ‘The Scottish Chiefs’ and ‘Captain Kidd of the Spanish Main’’ as well as three stirring western tales of the U.S. Cavalry, ‘The Border Trumpet’, ‘The White Invader’ and ‘Sabre and Tomahawk’. Bunn’s work for Comet and Sun had been notable for its open, rounded, jovial, warm- spirited style, filled with robust characters, a style that was fairly juvenile in its expression. His work for the Thriller Comics , however, began to show a more adult quality, his figures becoming more realistic, taller and more elongated. There is little that remains of the carefree manner of his early strips: the jolly conviviality of his earlier Buck Jones and Robin Hood adventures began to transform into a harder and grimmer reality. Two of his strips, ‘The Waxer’ and, particularly, ‘The Spider’, certainly benefited from these style changes and, together with the atmosphere of ominous foreboding that Bunn inculcated, earned ‘The Spider’ near cult status with a whole new generation of readers. Together with writer, Ted Cowan, Bunn created the character of a mysterious scientist whose desire is to become the greatest master criminal the world has known. By the time ‘The Spider’ began in the pages of Lion in 1965, Bunn’s new style, the panels rendered with finely-etched line work, had completely changed. Reg Bunn can be said to have been at the forefront of this country’s first real steps into the world of the adventure picture strip, his style perfectly appropriate for the post-war comics. As the years passed and new types of strips were required, so Bunn’s style adapted to fit the changing times, while at the same time retaining that all-important ‘readable’ quality that he always brought to his work. He was a true professional.