Spaceman
Entry updated 20 February 2023. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
UK Comic (1953-1954). 15 issues. Gould-Light Company. Art and scripts mainly by Ron Embleton and Norman Light. Usually three strips per issue. Cover in colour, strips in black and white.
Each issue featured one or two stories starring Captain Future (unrelated to the US Captain Future). The captain is a member of the Star Rovers Patrol, formed in 2020 (34 years after the first Moon landing), who maintain law and order in space (see Crime and Punishment): his adventures include encounters with space pirates, Aliens and tyrants; crashing into the swamps of Venus; observing a rogue Star crash into a binary star; a Robot duplicate; and combating several threats to the Earth. Another regular strip was Bill Merrill of the Scientific Investigation Bureau, whose stories have a slightly more scientific bent: a hostile Mars invents a Ray to divert meteors on to the Earth; a Scientist who invents rocket-launching submarines persuades a space pirate to return to his profession's roots and use them to shoot down air freighters, to be plundered when they fall into the sea.
Published by a small company set up by Light and Arthur Gould, Spaceman's stories tend to be routine (see Clichés); the main point of interest is the strips' artwork, which is good, though the covers are noticeably less so. Light did the Captain Future tales and Embleton Bill Merrill: other artists would occasionally supply other strips. [SP]
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