'The Defender' (apologia)

Apart from 2000ad the only British comic that seemed worth reading during the mid-80's was the short-lived Scream.

The typical 'adventure' comic consisted of superb artwork devoted to shameful scripts and eventually the remaining artists from Speed, Tiger, Scream and Battle found themselves working for Eagle which was usually worth a browse at the very least.

In 1986, Eagle featured a one-off story about a bunch of hyper-intelligent laboratory animals getting their own back on the researchers which was illustrated by long-term Fleetway artist, Eric Bradbury. A slightly later strip, 'The Avenger' introduced a schoolteacher who spent his evenings electrocuting local ne'er-do-wells whilst the artwork leapt off the page courtesy of Mike Western.

So, out-and-out retribution seemed to characterise the average story of the period whether the settings comprised a tower block; a football pitch, a martian desert or even a battlefield. . . apply the closing footage of Rockcliffe's Babies; a hint of Watchmen, bad lettering and a deplorable sense of impending violence to the basic mix and 'The Defender' became as alarming and psychotic an anti-hero as any of those in comicbook vogue at the time.

These are among the last few pages of strip material that I consoled myself with whilst preparing for Art College during 1987/88. The story itself was never completed although the character was intended to be an industrial saboteur - a premise which was handled rather more convincingly in an episode of Between the Lines from the mid-'90's.

It was the first strip that I sought to produce to a standard any higher than that required of scratching through an exam or something; even if the storytelling went a bit haywire in places. The artwork may have fallen considerably short of the mark but UKCAC had opened my eyes to the competition and the hapless attempts of hundreds of seriously superb wannabes in their pursuit of a handful of jobs from beleaguered editors.

These black and white photocopies were the only ones taken before the first two pages were coloured and the third one lost: you know that bit of legal smallprint included by publishers (eg. Marvel U.K.) to remind anyone with an ounce of sense to submit only copies (if they must) and never original artwork. . . well, we all have to learn!