EXTRACTS: JOHN STEEL Fleetway Picture Library Classics © 2020 Book Palace Books (272 PAGES in Full edition)

5 JOHN STEEL ™ Reg Bunn didn’t begin drawing for comics until he was nearly forty five, achieving in the ensuing twenty years an output of strip work that took others a lifetime to accomplish. Early on in his drawing career, in the late 1940s and ‘50s, he drew westerns, detective stories and historical strips and then, in the ‘60s, he turned his talent to more fantasy-based subjects, most notably, ‘The Spider’, a series that won him an international following. William Reginald Bunn was born in King’s Norton, Birmingham in October, 1905. Very little has been discovered of his life prior to his time at the Amalgamated Press other than the fact that, before his skills were put to use drawing comic strips, he used them working as a technical draughtsman with Rolls Royce. In 1944 his life changed dramatically when he suffered a traumatic, near fatal accident. As he dryly commented: “I had the misfortune to drive my car under the wheels of a corporation bus”. Through his own sheer determination Reg made a remarkable recovery but the accident left him with the realisation that he needed to embark on a less stressful occupation. In 1949 he responded to an advert for new comic artists put out by the Amalgamated Press (later Fleetway Publications) and was accepted. (The man behind the idea for the advert, editor Leonard Matthews, later admitted his disappointment in finding only two suitable artists, the other being Geoff Campion.) Bunn was delighted to have been chosen and began drawing full time for their comics, working always from a studio at his home. Bunn was immediately set to work drawing for their Australian Kit Carson and Buck Jones comic books, while, at the same time, contributing a ‘Buck Jones’ serial strip to Comet comic. Comet at this time had only eight pages but it was well printed in photogravure and in a size slightly larger than A4. Bunn contributed a single page strip consisting of between twelve to sixteen panels, delightfully printed in red and green (not unlike ‘Cinecolor’ in the movies). The panels varied in size, giving a dramatic and very readable look to the page. In 1950, because of the success in Australia of their cowboy comic books, the A.P. decided to try them out in the home country, only this time in a never-before- tried ‘pocket format’, under the title Cowboy Comics Library . It was an instant hit with young readers and, from 1950 to 1960, Bunn became the most prolific of all the artists to draw the adventures of ‘Buck Jones’. Towards the end of 1949, again in Comet , he was to begin drawing what was to become his other principal strip character of the first half of his career in comics: ‘Robin Hood’. He drew three ‘Robin Hood’ strips for Comet in 1949 and 1951 (again printed in red and green) but it was with the coming of the Thriller Comics Library that his version really took off and Bunn became the most prolific of all A.P.’s ‘Robin Hood’ illustrators. His depiction of the Sherwood outlaw set the ‘look’ for other artists to follow. So closely did Bunn become associated with the character that frequently, when another artist was drawing the strip, he would be asked to fill in the faces in order that some sort of uniformity of style would be achieved. Bunn had shown early on in the pages of Comet , his ability to draw ‘Buck Jones’ Westerns and ‘Robin Hood’ historical adventures and then, in 1950, he was given the chance to show his prowess in other genres. For Comet ’s companion paper, Sun , Bunn took on a completely different type of character when he tackled the exploits of ‘Clip McCord’, the “Ace Reporter” who becomes firstly a “Special Agent” and then a “Spaceman”. With his simple, engaging style, Bunn made this series highly entertaining. Interestingly for the many fans of Bunn’s later work on ‘The Spider’, in the ‘Clip McCord’ strip the hero was up against a “master criminal – and a brilliant scientist who plans to control the world”. The villain’s name is ‘The REG BUNN