EXTRACTS: The Art of Commando (illustrators special) © 2019 The Book Palace (144 PAGES in Full edition)

97 © IPC Media © IPC Media © IPC Media Guts’, ‘Mercy For None’ and ‘Hun Bait’. No Noel Coward types need apply! Rival titles toughened up however, and competition intensified through the 1960s and 1970s. In publishing terms this was full-scale warfare: by 1971 DC Thomson was producing eight Commando s a month—a frequency that continues to this very day—although these were still outnumbered by the opposing Fleetway axis, with Battle and War Picture Library publishing eight and 12 issues a month respectively. By the early 1980s, the glory days were ending: TV, video tapes and home computer games were winning the struggle for eyeballs, and Fleetway left the battlefield altogether in 1984. Commando was the last title left standing. My little part in the Commando saga started a lot later—in London back in 1997, when I attended an Nowhere was Commando ’s focus on action and rugged individualism more apparent than on its covers, which were in sharp contrast to its rival’s more staid offerings.