British Comics Top-10 Issue-Count Chart – 2021a edition!

The officially unofficial guide to the most successful British Comics ever! (In terms of the number of issues, that is.)

Most Popular Posts of 2020!

Looking back on Rusty Staples' most popular posts of 2020!

Comics That Never Were #9

2000AD went missing for five weeks at the end of 1978 and to be honest, I'm still not completely over it.

Oddities: Judge Dredd movie promo badge

Judge Dredd badges are not that odd as such -- I'm the proud owner of the best part of a dozen of various different styles -- but the one we're featuring today is a little unusual because it's fairly rare, and it's rather large. But first, a bit of a preamble (it wouldn't do at …

Retro interview: Steve Dillon, 1990

This interview was first published in issue #7 of FTL -- the magazine of the Irish Science Fiction Association -- in October 1990. It was reprinted in issue #33 of Journey Planet in December 2016. Steve Dillon is a young British comic artist living in Dublin. Well, perhaps “artist” is too limiting a term – …

Happy 30th Birthday, Judge Dredd Megazine!

(Bear with me, folks... this one is going to ramble a bit. For a change.) Long before Judge Dredd The Megazine was launched in 1990, the words "Judge Dredd comic for older readers" were being whispered in the hallowed halls of comicdom. Although only around since 2000AD's second issue in 1977, Dredd had proved to …

Hatch, Match & Dispatch – September 2020

Welcome to the twelfth monthly Hatch, Match & Dispatch feature here on Rusty Staples! It's a hefty one this time, chums, and took me a rather long time to compile (I'd like to thank the decision-makers at WordPress for forcing me to use their new editor and thus making the process even longer). Standard disclaimer: …

Oddities: “Hero” Lawman Found Topless in Tabloid Mag!

One of my first glimpses of Sylvester Stallone in the role of Judge Dredd came from a copy of The National Enquirer, dated November 15, 1994. I've never been the sort of person who normally reads mags of that type -- I'm just not that interested in suspect "miracle cures" or the mundanities of the …

Support the Cartoon Museum, London

The excellent Cartoon Museum in London has a huge collection of rare and vintage comics and cartoons, and regularly features exhibitions on specific themes, artists or publications. Not counting visits to family members, for me it's the #1 reason I'm itching to go back to London. The museum moved to a new, larger premises last …

Tenuous Comics Link #20200719…

Those who know me well probably also know that alongside British comics another of my great passions is the German band Alphaville. I've loved them ever since I first heard their debut single "Big in Japan" back in 1984. Now, obviously, Rusty Staples is a comics blog, so what do Alphaville have to do with …