Some random British comics weirdness, and good new for fans of Misty!

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I am indebted to the entertaining and informative Britishcomicart blog for this strange little series (of which I only have these two pages

Meet Kid Chameleon! (No, not the videogame character, a different one... what do you mean you didn't know there was another one? Actually, given how old it is, many of you have probably never heard of the videogame one either!)

Aaaaaanyway, back to the post at hand;



And you thought Black Condor had a strange origin (For those unfamiliar with it, the Golden Age condor was an infant who had been rescued from bandits in Outer Mongolia by a condor, who basically pulled a Romulus/Remus (or Tarzan) on him and raised him as her own, following which he learned to fly by "studying the movement of wings, the body motions, air currents, balance and levitation" of his avian siblings".... ooooh-kay, we'll just let that one slide.

Yet even that is not quite as "Biology doesn't work like that" as the origin of the Kid, whose adventures appeared in the pages of "Cor!" comic from 1970 to 1972. (Art is by Joe Colquhoun, more of whose multide of work can be seen here)





So apparently from a young age he wove himself a suit from (hopefully shed rather than skinned or peeled) reptile skins and he learned out to trigger the scales colour-changing abilities through the power of narrative, and wore a pair of one-size fits forever flesh-coloured briefs because otherwise this would ever have been able to be printed. (Someone in story notes that the main weakness of his ability is that his blond hair isn't covered by the suit and so is always visible, but for some reason no one else in any story ever comments on this so it's best overlooked)

I love that, aside from some odd exclamations, his speech and thought processes isn't natural since he's never been educated and the language

After two years of stories, searching for his parent's killer, and helping other people along the way, Kid's story came to an end as he DID find the killer, handed him over to justice and then rather than goign for the more normal "..and now I shall live amongst humans and learn the ways of my real people" decides to say a polite "Sod that for a lark" and return to the Kalihari to continue to live with those he still considered his family, the lizards!

Now, five years ago (Gosh, that long ago!) I made a Halloween post featuring stories and art from a 1970's and 80's British comic, which featured fantasy and horror stories aimed at the teenage girl market; Misty.

I am delighted to say that it was announced this week that Rebellion, the publishers of 2000AD are to return Misty to print, with reprints of some of the stories that were so well beloved, starting with Pat Mill's classic "Moonchild" about a young woman with telekinetic powers.

A nice quote from one of the publishers

Ben Smith, head of books and comic books, said: “When Pat Mills tells you there are great comics hidden in an archive and someone should really publish them, a sensible publisher sits up and takes notice.

Pat was talking about Misty and girls comics in general to graphic novels editor Keith Richardson and myself on a plane to San Diego Comic Con and was so enthusiastic about the material we had to go looking for it.

Heralding from an era when comics for girls outsold comics for boys, Misty was shortly-lived but burned terribly bright. It remains unlike anything else with its collection of shocking and varied subject matter. It’s a great pleasure to be able to bring this spell-binding work back into the public eye and we look forward to surprising people all over again.

Emphasis in the last paragraph there mine, but worthy of note.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Kid Chameleon is very odd indeed.

I'm glad Misty is coming back into print - I learned to read comics by reading Misty and Tammy and Jackie annuals as a kid but somehow they were never considered comics!

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Kid Chameleon is very odd indeed.

I would expect no less from the country that gave the world House of Dollman, "Jack Silver and the Fizzfist", a TV Gladiators based licensed comic and others too numerous to mention.

I recall learning new words from the Dandy, Whizzer and Chips and the Beano, so I can relate to your experience! :)

[q99]

-
Meet Kid Chameleon! (No, not the videogame character, a different one... what do you mean you didn't know there was another one? Actually, given how old it is, many of you have probably never heard of the videogame one either!)-

I remember never getting all that far in the video game...

[astrakhan42]

Why is it that the most seemingly unrealistic thing is that he talks like Tonto?

[pyynk]

Thanks for the reminder about Misty, it looks great! I'll definitely have to check that out.