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Revision as of 16:27, 1 December 2007 by Charles RB (talk | contribs)(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 killed.
Lew Stringer bought the rights to Combat Colin back from Marvel UK and brought back Combat Colin in several small-press titles and fanzines, starting with Combat Colin Special; 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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