‘Used as dartboards’: rare British war comic art rescued from bins, skips and floods

When the war comic was at the height of its popularity, titles included Battle, Warlord, Valiant, the Hotspur and the pocket-sized Commando, which is still published today.

Many of the stories published in the 1950s and 1960s relayed the gung-ho heroics of plucky British troops, often up against the odds, fighting two-dimensional German foes who routinely barked phrases such as “Schnell!” or “Gott in Himmel!” from their limited vocabulary.

But most of the original artwork for those comics – now worth hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds – was seen as of little value at the time, and was binned, burned or used to mop up floods in the basement of the publisher. Now a dedicated platoon of comic collectors and researchers has tracked down the surviving pieces and the results are to be shown in an exhibition telling the story of the British war comic.

Predominantly featuring original pages from the likes of the War Picture Library or the Battle and Action comics of the 1960s and 1970s, the exhibition, at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock from next month, will showcase the gritty artwork that made war comics so popular.

But very few original pieces survive, and Oxford-based Rebellion – the comics company that publishes science fiction weekly 2000AD and which has collaborated with the museum on the show – has been on a mission to gather up those that have.