'Roy of the Rovers' Annual

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This article was in part first published in episodic form on the Boys’ Adventure Blog and content from those articles by Richard Sheaf is reproduced here with permission Tomlinson, Alan; Young, Christopher (2000), "Golden Boys and Golden Memories: Fiction, Ideology, and Reality in Roy of the Rovers and the Death of the Hero", in Jones, Dudley; Watkins, Tony (eds.), A Necessary Fantasy?: the Heroic Figure in Children's Popular Culture: Vol 18, Garland Publishing, pp.177–206, ISBN 978-0-8153-1844-6 In addition to the players mentioned above who migrated from their own strips to the main RotR strip, there were also occasional "crossovers" between strips in the weekly comic — —for instance, in an early episode of The Legend, lead character and superstar player Agostina Da Silva was shown playing against Melchester.

FA Cup – 1907, 1934, 1937, 1938, 1947, 1953, 1959, 1961, 1966, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1984, 1990, 1999 Artist Joe Colquhoun had previously drawn strips for the struggling Champion before taking on ‘Roy’. When Pepper dropped out after four instalments due to the demands of an unwieldy workload, Colquhoun assumed the writing duties, assisted by Tiger‘s editorial staff on the technical aspects of the game, admitting that he knew “damn all about soccer”. He continued to write and draw the strip, which appeared for many years under the by-line ‘Stewart Colwyn’, until February 1959, returning for a second stint as artist only from 1965-67.Originally these were two different humorous strips, both written by Fred Baker and drawn by Julio Schiaffino. [5] The short-lived Egmont Classic Comics reprints first appeared in 2009 and this collection (01/04/09 – 23/06-09) launched the line, which like the others was only on sale through WHSmiths, included a number of sports-related strips as well as “Roy of the Rovers”–“Billy’s Boots”, “The Hard Man”, “Mighty Mouse” and a few more. Re-launches as a monthly comic with grittier storylines aimed at teenage readers. Roy’s playing days are ended after nearly 40 years when he loses control of his helicopter and crashes into a field

They said, 'This is football! You're not interested in football' and I said, 'No I can draw anything.' People are people, figures are figures– just put a football shirt on them or whatever! Now of course I was sworn to secrecy and couldn't tell the Sunday papers that I didn't like football when I was doing the national footballing hero in comics! Obviously I've played it, but I'm a doer not a watcher. I loved playing football at school and in later years." [62] ROK Comics launched its digital re-publication of “ Roy of the Rovers, England Manager” in 2008 to incredible press response, but the project foundered. In 2016, the rights to Roy of the Rovers and the rest of the Fleetway comics library were acquired by Rebellion Developments, [17] [18] who subsequently rebooted the series to follow the modern-day adventures of Roy as a teenager. A series of hardcover graphic novels began publication in 2018, written by Rob Williams and drawn by Ben Willsher, running in parallel with a series of novels for younger readers written by Tom Palmer with illustrations by Lisa Henke. [19] Plot [ edit ] The first ever appearance of a youthful Roy Race McGinty, Stephen (15 January 2004), "A teen mag for boys–but will they buy it?", The Scotsman, archived from the original on 29 January 2005 , retrieved 10 June 2010Roy also rubs shoulders with a number of other comic heroes in Football’s Comic Book Heroes by Adam Riches with Tim Parker and Robert Sandland. Published by Mainstream, published in 2009, it’s a celebration of the football comic genre and the many legendary characters they produced. The Quiz Books Mighty Mouse, a Roy of the Rovers strip that began in 1979, featured Kevin "Mighty" Mouse, a successful, skilful Division One player despite being a morbidly obese, short, bespectacled medical student. Hot Shot Hamish, meanwhile, followed gentle Hebridean giant Hamish Balfour, the man with the most powerful shot in the world, and began its days in Scorcher and SCORE, before that title was merged into Tiger. Tags: Barrie Tomlinson, British Comics Reference - Titles - Sports Comics, Classic Comics, Colin Jarman, Comic Genres, Eric Morecambe, Gary Lineker, James Hart, Melchester Rovers, Rebellion Publishing Ltd, Roy of the Rovers, Tiger, Titan Books, Trevor Francis Related Articles The Amstrad CPC Resource: Roy of the Rovers by Gremlin Graphics for the Amstrad CPC/GX 4000", CPC Zone, archived from the original on 27 September 2007 , retrieved 15 August 2009 Johnston, Rich (25 August 2016). "Rebellion Buys Fleetway Archive – Roy of the Rovers, Oink, Tammy, Battle, Whizzer And Chips And More". Bleeding Cool . Retrieved 4 November 2016.

Reconciling the continuity of the monthly strip with the stories that preceded and followed it presented difficulties, forcing the story's writers to alter its history in a number of ways, a technique known as retroactive continuity. Significantly, the strip rewrote various parts of Melchester's history, and shortened Roy Sr.'s recorded playing career to a more realistic level. [37] Young manager Dan Wayne was to face constant battles as manager of Western League minnows Durrell's Palace, who he became manager of in the first episode of the popular series in April 1981. Over the next few years he and veteran assistant/groundsman Joe Croke fought valiantly to keep the club in business amid a series of off-field difficulties, but enjoyed success in non-league cup competitions and even appeared at Wembley Stadium in 1984. The club folded the following year but Wayne remained in the comic in the new Wayne's Wolves story for a year. This saw him managing top-flight side Wolverdon, who were financially crippled. After bringing former Palace players Jess Barton and Duke Dancer with him and operating on a shoestring budget, Wolves defied the odds to avoid relegation and win the FA Cup. [ citation needed] The Marks Brothers [ edit ] In the original strip, the club was only relegated to the old Division Two once, and made a hasty return the following year. In the years between the end of the 1990s monthly comic and the Match of the Day strips, the club was relegated from the Premiership to the new Division One, spending two seasons there before being promoted under Roy's guidance.In 2018, following the acquisition of the strip's rights by comic book publisher Rebellion, a brand new rebooted Roy of the Rovers story, following the adventures of a 16-year-old Roy in the present day, began publication as a series of original graphic novels and prose novels. Following the closure of the weekly title in 1993, [8] the strip appeared in a relaunched monthly publication in September that year, with grittier storylines intended to attract teen and young adult fans who had read the weekly comic in their youth. Between January 1994 and January 1995, the monthly strips were mirrored by a weekly edition in Shoot magazine, [9] which had in the late 1980s published a parody called Ray of the Rangers. [10] The relaunched Roy of the Rovers comic ended in 1995. Collectors Corner – Memorabilia", Roy of the Rovers.com, archived from the original on 15 July 2011 , retrieved 16 June 2010 Published in 2014 by Century this is “the greatest story ever told by the world’s most beloved sportsman, Roy of the Rovers, in his own words for the first time.” Billy was one of several characters in the comic to not age in real time, as he remained a young boy throughout the long-running storyline.

The monthly stated that the Roy whose career ended in 1993 had been born in 1954 (the year the strip first appeared), and had debuted, aged 16, in the Rovers' European Cup Final win of 1970 (which had actually taken place in 1969, not 1970, in the strip). All stories before then were implied to have featured his father, also named Roy. Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Explorer (previously known as Star Trek Magazine) and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War and “Dan Dare”. Thousands of football fans up and down the country used to follow the fortunes of Roy Race and Melchester United in the weekly Roy of the Rovers comic stripsRoy also appeared in a short-lived daily strip in Today in 1986, drawn by Kim Raymond, and a longer-lived one in the Daily Star, which was drawn by Yvonne Hutton until her death at the end of 1991, and by Mike Western for four years after that. Jones, Dudley; Watkins, Tony (2000), A necessary fantasy?: the heroic figure in children's popular culture, New York: Garland