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Revision as of 23:09, 25 December 2007 by LewStringer (talk | contribs) (Copyright info corrected.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Combat Colin, a slapstick comedy adventure comic strip created, written and drawn by humour comic artist/writer Lew Stringer, appeared as a back up strip in Action Force comic in the 1980s. It then moved over to The Transformers comic for a popular run.
Colin Doobrey-Smiff, otherwise known as Combat Colin wanted to be a war hero, but couldn't get into the army as he had flat feet; instead, he lived with his Mum and Dad in a suburban English neighbourhood. In the beginning, the strips were simplistic complete slapstick half-page stories. As time progressed, the strip's popularity enabled it to become a full pager. Here, Stringer was allowed to develop the character in a series of two to six part serials. Colin also acquired an assistant, Semi-Automatic Steve, and a host of supporting characters including their girlfriends The Giggly Sisters and a catalogue of recurring villains such as Madprof, Dr.Nasty, and Megabrain.
A fan of The Prisoner tv series, Stringer often added references to the tv show in the strip, most blatantly when Combat Colin found himself in "The Place of No Return"; a village resembling the one in the tv series. Trapped in the Village, Colin discovered it to be a place where old comic characters (Stringer's comedy back-up characters for Marvel UK) were "retired" to. Starting a revolt, Colin led his fellow heroes to escape. The story has recently been reprinted as "Village of the Doomed" in the book Brickman Begins!. http://brickmancomics.tripod.com/id5.html
In the final issue of Transformers, Combat Colin fought a final battle against Megabrain. Afterwards, he and Steve threw away all their weapons to live a life of pacifism - unfortunately, one of those weapons was a nuclear bomb and they were seemingly killed.
After editorial changes dropped humour material from Marvel UK's comics in 1991, Marvel UK gave Lew Stringer the rights to Combat Colin and he revived the character in several small-press titles and fanzines, starting with Combat Colin Special, which revealed that the nuclear bomb threw the heroes back in time. The special has been scanned online at scans_daily.
Colin has recently reappeared in the Brickman back-up strips for Active Images' Elephantmen comics.
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