British Comics: A Cultural History 
James Chapman, Reaktion, £15

RECENTLY published in paperback, this entertaining, thoughtful and detailed analysis of British comics from the late Victorian period to the present day is not to be missed. Written with insight and passion, if you don’t see yourself as interested in comic books then this might well be the text to get you started.

And let’s be honest, comics haven’t had a very good press, not just from mainstream commentators but from many on the left. Depicted as the worst of an already low and trashy culture, they have often been labelled violently right-wing, racist and misogynistic so much so that in the late 1940s and ’50s the Communist Party of Great Britain joined hands with some unlikely allies to campaign against what were seen as reactionary and effectively pro-imperialist imports.

Chapman is by no means an admirer of all British comics but what he excels at is challenging many of the myths that have grown up around this cultural genre, arguing instead for a much more critical, nuanced and, yes, sometimes celebratory approach.

The first thing that the reader becomes aware of is how British comics have a far longer history and variety in form than is often assumed. 

Turn of the 20th century Boy’s Own pro-empire stories began to face stiff opposition from the relatively innocent Dandy and Beano of the 1920s and ’30s. In the immediate post-war period we not only saw the Manchester-created avant-garde sci-fi of Dan Dare but a number of ersatz British superheroes in the manner of Marvel and DC. 

More girl-oriented magazines such as Judy and Bunty had a readership of millions, as did the war-themed publications Battle, Action and Commando, the latter often being produced by conflict veterans.

In the 1980s the football adventures of legendary Roy of Rovers witnessed a whole move into sport and things were to change again with the launch of the dystopian terror of Judge Dredd and the often funny but occasionally downright offensive adult humour of the notorious Viz.

How to understand all of this? What quickly becomes apparent is that not all British comics have been inimical to progressive politics. We don’t need to be Gramsci to understand how if capital reproduces itself culturally in every sphere, then so must the left in its bid for counter-hegemony.

For readers in the 1980s the epic Charley’s War introduced hundreds of thousands to class politics, to courageous conscientious objectors, to red-led mutinies and to ruling-class hypocrisy and the lies of their media. Crisis magazine was overt in its exploration of social and ecological crisis, referencing Third World debt, corporate greed and mindless consumerism throughout a regrettably short history.

It’s noteworthy for those who still do see comics through the lens of the US how much influence British writers such as Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis and Alan Moore have had on the genre, as did the earlier art and stories of Dan Dare which helped change sci-fi forever. 

It’s a shame that more space couldn’t have been given to some of my other personal teenage favourites. Attack International’s “Breaking Free” watched Tintin and his associates on slightly different territory battling police, fascists and bosses in the London of the late 1980s, while Peter Loveday’s monumental and often hilarious “Russell” series explores the neglected world of punks, peace poets and new-age travellers inhabiting a world of shared housing, squats, free festivals and demos.

In earlier years, underground magazines  like Oz, Frendz and International Times similarly made interesting use of graphics to the same degree that sister publications in the United States did. Not space for everything, though, and didn’t detract from my own enjoyment one bit.

Drawing upon a nice range of sources which gives it balance and body, Chapman has attentively listened to not only writers, artists and producers but also readers and critics and by setting the narrative within a wider social, cultural and political context the fortunate result is that the book doesn’t read like a revamped thesis or gushing fanzine.