Secret History: Charley's War successors Part 1

Rebellion 1920; Dougie's War; Liontamer; Fred's War

Welcome to my Secret History of Comics: my new book serialised on Substack. The first section was on Marshal Law: now it’s all about Charley’s War.

If you’re joining me for the first time, you can read the intro to the Secret History here, it’s available for everyone, and so is the intro to Charley’s War.

Every subsequent post has a free preview, but if you want access to my entire rant post, you’ll need to subscribe. Full access to ALL of my Secret History of Comics as I release them every week (plus other perks, check them out), will set you back just £5 per month or £50 per year, and it helps me to continue giving you my best writing. I even have a free seven-day trial on Iconoblast, so you can try it first.

---

Charley’s War is a hard act to follow, but – given its popularity – it’s surprising that only one creator, an American (Steve Beeny) followed closely in its footsteps. After all, there have been some attempts to imitate Nemesis in 2000AD and Marshal Law has influenced other creators in major ways. The simple answer is it requires a massive amount of research – still a dirty word in comics – and an appetite for dramatising scenes without the typical action that is the hallmark of war comics. Action stretches a story; static scenes – commonplace in Charley – take up less space and are harder to write, without falling into the dreaded ‘talking heads’ trap. Thanks to Joe, that never happened. Dr. Calum Laird, who was editor of the excellent Commando Comics, told me they considered doing something in the same ilk as Charley, but decided against it. He felt I’d covered all the key areas and it also just seemed too daunting. 

Fred’s War concept art by David Hitchcock

I tried writing successors myself, but with only limited success because of the media censorship in the centenary. I won’t go into great detail about these successors because I just want to give an overview of what was published and what might have been, as this book is primarily about Charley.

But Charley himself might return. Might! It’s a hazardous task that I’m still only pondering on – see Successor #9 in a forthcoming post. There are obvious risks attached, but if the right artist comes along, I might just go for it.