I went back to the same shop I bought The Best Of Topper from last week and came across another comic I hadn't heard of before - Red Dagger! I picked up the first issue which was released in October 1979 by D.C Thomson and starred Twisty, with the sub-title 'Criminal-In-The-Making ... Or Soccer Star Of Tomorrow?'. On the first page of Twisty's story there is a small box reading "first published in 1976", meaning that it is the entire series collected and published in one 64 page book, and sometimes these stories were lengthened to fit into 64 pages.
The first page was Twisty's Teach-In, where Twisty Lunnon shares some top tips for playing football!
On the back cover is a slightly blurry full-page poster of Liam Brady, a football player for Arsenal until he left the following year.
Inside the back cover is half a page of facts about pigeons (Twisty had two pet pigeons, so it isn't completely random), followed by an advert for the following issue, which would be starring Alf Tupper from The Tough Of The Track. All the websites I've read to get information about Red Dagger have told me that the publication came out monthly and ended in June 1983 after 30 issues, but this advert says 'On Sale Now', suggesting that two were sold every month? I'm not sure.
I wont be showing the full story here as 64 pages would make a very long blog post, but if you'd like to read it leave a comment and I'd be more than happy to post it in several parts.
Here is a full cover gallery of all 30 issues of Red Dagger:
Issues #1 - #10:
http://www.comicvine.com/red-dagger/49-35584/?page=2
Issues #10 - #30:
http://www.comicvine.com/red-dagger/49-35584/?page=1
And if you're interested, there's a fantastic article about Red Dagger on Down The Tubes!
http://www.downthetubes.net/features/comics/red_dagger/
6 comments:
Great memories! I read a few of these - I have particularly fond recollections of V for Vengeance (surely a partial inspiration for Alan Moore) and the likes of Cast, Hook and Strike. I also remember the last issue very well - 11 Little Soccer Boys, primarily because of the lopsided nature of the team (it was pretty much a first eleven made up of strikers). DC Thomson tales were often predestrian but worked surprisingly well in this format.
It's good to see that they collected the complete runs of strips into these Red Dagger comics, it makes it a lot easier to find them all! If only it had continued for a bit longer, but all good things must come to an end...
Hello again.I have a bunch of these and a load more old British comics as PDF files I could burn to DVD for you if your interested..?
Thanks for the offer, but I have more than enough reading material to go through right now! :)
Hi Gobshyte, is it possible to download a copy of your Red Dagger comics please?
Rgds
Rick
Hi, I used to like these comics but after the first few (about 6) I found it hard to find in my newsagents. I do remember that they did come out ONCE a month but I think that the first two were on sale at the same time, not quite buy one get one free!
Whish I still had them.
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