The Collector (comic strip)
Encyclopedia
The Collector was a comic strip
published in the British
comic book
Eagle
, from issue 1
(dated March 27, 1982) to issue 48 (dated February 19, 1983), and occasionally thereafter in annual
s or summer specials.
The strip was a series of one-off morality tales with occasional horror
and supernatural
undertones, underpinned by the literary device of The Collector, who had an extensive array of macabre items. Each issue he would narrate a tale to the reader
relating to an item in his collection.
Many of the early strips in Eagle were photographic rather than hand-drawn; The Collector himself, featuring at the beginning and end of each strip, would be drawn, while the tale he related would be photographed. Occasionally a special effect
would be drawn directly onto the photograph in an attempt to overcome the limitations of photography. Such hand-drawn effects would certainly be considered crude by today's standards, but enabled the strip to extend the scope of the tales.
The strip had a rotating series of writers, including Roy Preston, Brian Burrell
, Alan Moore
, and Gerry Finley-Day
; photographers, including Gary Compton
, Sven Arnstein, Carin Simon, and Henry Arden amongst others; and with Pat Wright as regular artist.
Typical plots included:
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
published in the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
Eagle
Eagle (comic)
Eagle was a seminal British children's comic, first published from 1950 to 1969, and then in a relaunched format from 1982 to 1994. It was founded by Marcus Morris, an Anglican vicar from Lancashire. Morris edited a parish magazine called The Anvil, but felt that the church was not communicating...
, from issue 1
Issue 1
Issue 1 is an expression which refers to the first edition of a publication such as a magazine, comic, or e-zine, and is also used to denote the initial direction or output of creativity.Issue 1s are often sought for the following reasons:...
(dated March 27, 1982) to issue 48 (dated February 19, 1983), and occasionally thereafter in annual
Annual publication
An annual publication, more often called simply an annual, is a book or a magazine, comic book or comic strip published yearly. For example, a weekly or monthly publication may produce an Annual featuring similar materials to the regular publication....
s or summer specials.
The strip was a series of one-off morality tales with occasional horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
and supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
undertones, underpinned by the literary device of The Collector, who had an extensive array of macabre items. Each issue he would narrate a tale to the reader
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
relating to an item in his collection.
Many of the early strips in Eagle were photographic rather than hand-drawn; The Collector himself, featuring at the beginning and end of each strip, would be drawn, while the tale he related would be photographed. Occasionally a special effect
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
would be drawn directly onto the photograph in an attempt to overcome the limitations of photography. Such hand-drawn effects would certainly be considered crude by today's standards, but enabled the strip to extend the scope of the tales.
The strip had a rotating series of writers, including Roy Preston, Brian Burrell
Brian Burrell
Brian Thomas Burrell is an American actor best known for his roles in Cantonese television productions in Hong Kong. Burrell is also one of the only 4 foreign actors in Hong Kong broadcaster TVB's artiste profiles over the years.-Early life:...
, Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
, and Gerry Finley-Day
Gerry Finley-Day
Gerry Finley-Day was a prolific British comics writer from the 1960s to the 1980s, best known as the creator of Rogue Trooper.He started out at D. C. Thomson & Co., before becoming the editor of IPC's girls' title Tammy in 1971, for which he wrote strips such as "Ella on Easy Street" and "The Camp...
; photographers, including Gary Compton
Gary Compton
Gary Compton is a former American football wide receiver in the Arena Football League. He played college football at East Texas State....
, Sven Arnstein, Carin Simon, and Henry Arden amongst others; and with Pat Wright as regular artist.
Typical plots included:
- Two highly competitive chessChessChess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
players named Marvin Knight and Peter King, who have never met as they play over the telephone (Knight lives in the USA, and King in the UK), eventually pay the price for their excessive playing; Knight loses his jobEmploymentEmployment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...
, houseHouseA house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
and marriageMarriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
--- and finally suffers a fatal heart attack. Obsessed with winning this final game, King contacts a medium, only to have Knight's ghostGhostIn traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
possess the medium and suck him into the afterlifeAfterlifeThe afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
to continue playing, leaving only a single pawnPawnPawn may refer to:* Pawn , the weakest and most numerous piece in the game* Pawn, another name for a pledge in certain jurisdictions ** Pawnshop/pawnbroker* Pawn , an embeddable programming language...
behind for The Collector.
- Two fraudulent gardeners are delivered a rare plant, growing into an extremely large plant with tendrilTendrilIn botany, a tendril is a specialized stem, leaf or petiole with a threadlike shape that is used by climbing plants for support, attachment and cellular invasion by parasitic plants, generally by twining around suitable hosts. They do not have a lamina or blade, but they can photosynthesize...
s and a mouthMouthThe mouth is the first portion of the alimentary canal that receives food andsaliva. The oral mucosa is the mucous membrane epithelium lining the inside of the mouth....
. One of them becomes obsessive about nurturing the plant, feeding it raw meatMeatMeat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
, leading the plant to become carnivorous and eat the two men, and then --- with no-one left to tend it --- withering and dying of hunger.
- A trampTrampA tramp is a long term homeless person who travels from place to place as a vagrant, traditionally walking or hiking all year round. In British English meanwhile a tramp simply refers to a homeless person, usually not a travelling one....
who gives a video game consoleVideo game consoleA video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
to children who are addicted to computer games. The console plays a video game involving defending a house from missiles; damage to the house in the game causes the child's own house to be damaged --- and ultimately obliterated --- in real life. After each house is destroyed, the tramp retrieves the seemingly-indestructible console from the rubble and moves on, in order to "find someone else who thinks he cannot be beaten!".