Review by Karl Verhoven

In 2006 an assortment of characters who starred in the British boys’ weekly comics of the 1960s were revived. The premise of Albion was that these strips were based on real people and artefacts, so where are they now? It worked because while never previously exploited to such an extent, there was an inherent darkness to those characters.

Albion Origins reprints around a hundred pages of their exploits in two-page segments, in each case starting with the earliest episodes.

Half the page count is occupied by ‘Kelly’s Eye’, in which adventurer Tim Kelly carries the Eye of Zoltec. As long as it’s in his possession he can come to no harm. Cue cliffhangers from writer Tom Tully of the eye dropping out of Kelly’s hand, falling into a swamp, and its powers counteracted by a magical drum! Everything is neatly drawn by Francisco Solano López, but that can’t compensate for the melodrama, contrivance and what today would be considered a borderline racist portrayal of the Seminole people: “I must flee! There is no answer to the white man’s powers!” Extra points, though, for managing to include a shark fight in a story set in the Florida swamps.

Tully also writes ‘The House of Dolmann’, which is slightly better for being utterly ridiculous. Maverick genius inventor Eric Dolmann creates a selection of two-foot high robots, each with a different speciality, and sends them out on missions. Here Tully definitely has his tongue in his cheek. The small selection of strips are creative and given a fine mood by artist Eric Bradbury.

Janus Stark is more interesting still, a whippet thin boy during the Victorian era able to squeeze in or out of the tightest spaces, taught to exploit his talents in order to serve his form of civil justice, which isn’t the same as following the law. Also written by Tully, the combination of escapology and robbery is a winner, although much of the success is down to Solano López’s shadowy recreation of Victorian deprivation.

We finally meet Cursitor Doom, so deceptively pivotal to the Albion parent graphic novel. Under Ken Mennell and Bradbury the defender of the supernatural is a sprightly strip. Solving the puzzle of leading characters needing someone to talk to, Mennell has Doom hire muscle in the form of former squaddie Angus McCraggan. Along with Doom’s raven, they see off malevolent dwarf Karnak. It’s still fun if you’re in the right frame of mind, and Bradbury again proves a master of mood.

There’s a lot of silly stuff here, but beautifully drawn.