Irmantas has posted an interesting article on the Maxwell Hawke strips from the Buster Annuals. As you may recall, the first James Bold serial that was printed in Cheeky Weekly, 'Fangs of Fear', was based on the original script of the first Maxwell Hawke story to appear in Buster, 'MH and The House of a Thousand Secrets' (29 October 1960 to 04 February 1961). The Cheeky Weekly version used new artwork. Apparently the final James Bold tale to appear in Cheeky Weekly, 'Island of Fear', was another re-drawn MH script, this time using the plot of 'MH and The Isle of Ghosts', which ran in Buster from 07 March 1964 to 09 May 1964 (thanks to alanultron5 from the Comics UK forum for the info re Isle of Ghosts). I've always assumed the other James Bold stories (there were 5 series in all) were also based on MH scripts.
Irmantas' latest post has given me the opportunity to check whether the plots apparent on the opening pages he has posted bear any similarities to the openings of the James Bold adventures in the Cheeky Annuals dated 1979 to 1981, namely...
1979 The Phantom
1980 Untitled
1981 James Bold and The Curse of Krah
1982 James Bold and the Ghostly Highwayman
...and I can report that they don't!
I am trying to think of a way to help you sort those stories out. Perhaps photos of the first page of the opening episode of every Maxwell Hawke story in Buster weeklies would help?
ReplyDeleteThanks very much, Irmantas - that would be great when you get some time. Maybe you could post them on your blog?
Delete...or maybe it would be less work for you if you followed the link in my post above, which shows all my James Bold posts, each of which shows the opening instalment of the respective serials, and you could look through your Buster collection and see if any of the opening episodes are similar. This would save a lot of photos and posting, but it's still a lot of work, so whichever way you choose to do it, I don't mind!
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