Commando: Hero From Hollywood - Eric Hebden

The British digest comic book COMMANDO is probably the longest-running war comic in history. It started in 1963 and is still going strong fifty years later, publishing four issues every two weeks featuring stories of warfare through the ages. Most stories take place during World War II, but certainly not all, and they often feature little-known historical events, as well.

I've read a few issues over the years, including this recent one, #4581, "Hero From Hollywood". It's actually a reprint from the series' first year, 1963, originally appearing in COMMANDO #84. Written by Eric Hebden, it's an excellent yarn about an American movie star of numerous Westerns and swashbucklers, Chet Marvin, who's on a tour entertaining British troops in Belgium in May 1940. Unfortunately that's when the German blitzkrieg starts, and Chet finds himself (and his horse) cut off behind enemy lines.

Fortunately, he pairs up with the story's real protagonist, British army truck driver Joe Brent, who happens to be a big fan of Chet's movies. As they try to avoid being captured by the Germans, however, Joe discovers that movie heroism and real-life heroism are two very different things.

This story covers quite a bit of time as it follows Joe and Chet's odyssey back to safety, and it's packed with action and features several surprising plot twists. I don't know anything about the author, Eric Hebden, but his script is top-notch. The artwork is credited only to "Jones", the cover art to "Alvaro", but I think their work is very effective.

I actually submitted a plot to COMMANDO years ago in another attempt to fulfill my lifelong dream of writing a comic book, but nothing came of it. Maybe I will again, one of these days. In the meantime, I plan to read more of them. I never subscribed because the shipping from England to the U.S. was more than I wanted to pay, but I see that now they have digital subscriptions, which you can check out here if you're interested. Definitely something I might do. (Thanks to Calum Laird and Michael Eriksson.)

More Western News From Sweden

Mike Eriksson has put up several new posts on his blog about his Western publishing projects. You can find them here, here, and here. Below are scans from some of his publications. He's talking about translating the novels into English, which I think is a great idea. GUNSLINGER features both books back to back, Ace Double style.

Swedish Westerns

I've been trading emails recently with Swedish author, photographer, and publisher Michael Eriksson, who is the only publisher currently bringing out Westerns in Sweden. His series "Tornado Blaze" is featured in the magazine he publishes, RETROFUTURE, and he has a Western comic book, "Montana Blue", coming up as well. He has two blogs: Cult Portal, about books, music, TV, and movies, and Trinkelbonker, with much of the same sort of material but covering his publishing enterprises as well. Both have a lot of interesting stuff on them.

At one time the Scandinavian market for Westerns was very strong. It was one of the most popular genres in that part of the world during the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, and on into the Nineties, when it started to decline. Now it's all but disappeared, and Mike deserves a lot of credit for keeping it alive. I don't read Swedish, unfortunately, or I'd be reading Tornado Blaze. I'll certainly be keeping up with his blogs. (That's model Ellinor Nordbakk as the character Tornado Blaze.)