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25. A Guard Comics History.

***Please note that I am using a standard thumbnail image for all the full size pictures on this page. This is purely being done to save myself sometime.***

As I have been busy with other things this month, I haven’t had time to put together a Guard story. So in a panic, I’ve had to resort to rummaging around in the Green Lion Comics vast archive of material dating from the 1930’s. A lot of which has for one reason or another never been re-published. So this issue showcases some of these gems from the archive.

Surprisingly, the archive doesn’t have a mint copy of the first issue of The Guard comic. So my apologies for the slightly tattered image that has been reproduced.

In this month’s issue you can read the very first published Guard story and the Grey Shadow’s origin story. These one and two page stories are slightly different to what most people would see in comics today. Speech bubbles weren’t used widely in comic books until the 1940’s. Appearing in American comics to begin with. Prior to that, a story would be mainly text with a picture or two. Later, a picture would be accompanied by text underneath the image. (I'm referring mainly to British comics here. Other countries comics may have evolved differently. I’m not going to explain the history or development of the comic book here. There are plenty of books and documents on the www that can provide an adequate explanation). Reading these stories has inspired me to have a go at producing my own one or two page adventures for future Guard comics.

(Obviously, there have been other creators who have worn the Banff mantle before me who created those tales).

The early stories were printed in black and white, with very little colour used. (Although some title banners were published in colour). Printing a multi-colour strip back in the 1930’s would have been time consuming and costly, hence the production of Green Lion comic book strips in black and white. The early Guard comics didn't use sound effects or movement lines. These appeared in later decades.

Quick and easily played games were a regular feature of the comic around Christmas time and this continued well into the 1960’s, before falling out of favour. I’ve selected a game from a 1950’s Christmas edition.

The Guard & Flat Cap series is a fairly recent publication, but the cover of the first comic is included in this issue, as some readers may not have been aware of this series or have seen the front cover. Again, this is a difficult issue to find and expensive to buy when you do.

I decided to ‘link’ all of the adventures and other documents in this story using two child characters. So I added the additional scenes with the young children reviewing their Guard comic collection. I made use of the Big Bang Theory set that was released earlier this year by Lego. The finished structure resembles the set as seen on TV. Which is perfect for me, as it allowed me to take various shots from different angles, without the camera being impeded by walls.

I may publish another bundle of The Guards adventures from the archives in another issue at a later date.

Note - the Guard and Grey Shadow tiles were printed for me by Minifigforlife

And excellent pieces of work they are too. Thank you.

Happy reading.