Jet-Ace Logan Explained

Jet-Ace Logan
Author:Mike Butterworth
Current:David Motton, Kenneth Bulmer, Frank S. Pepper
Illustrator:Geoff Campion, John Gillat, Brian Lewis, Ron Turner, Francisco Solano López, Kurt Caesar
Status:Concluded
First:1956
Last:1968
Publisher:The Comet
Tiger
Thriller Picture Library
Genre:Adventure

Jet-Ace Logan was a British comic strip that appeared in The Comet (1956 - 1959) and Tiger (1959 - 1968),[1] Thriller Picture Library,[2] and the 1969 and 1972 Tiger Annuals.

Publication history

Mike Butterworth created Jet-Ace Logan. He scripted the first adventure, which was drawn by Geoff Campion, and published in The Comet. All subsequent adventures (approximately 20 in all) appearing in The Comet were scripted by David Motton,[3] and drawn by John Gillat.[3] Motton also scripted Jet-Ace Logan stories for Thriller Picture Library — namely "Times Five", "Seven Went To Sirius," and "Ten Days To Doom."

Other writers contributing scripts included David Motton, Kenneth Bulmer, and Frank S. Pepper;[4] other artists illustrated the character's adventures, including Brian Lewis,[5] Ron Turner, Francisco Solano López, and Kurt Caesar.[6]

Fictional character biography

The hero, Jim "Jet-Ace" Logan, was an ace interplanetary pilot of the RAF; stories were set about 100 years in the future (for example, the story in the 1963 Tiger Annual is set in 2063). In all but the earliest stories, his regular copilot, Plum-Duff (sometimes Plumduff) Charteris, accompanied Jet-Ace.

Many of the insightful scenarios, written in the 1950s, seem applicable more than a half a century later. For example, in one adventure, Jet-Ace was involved in fighting a group of aliens who endeavored to destroy humankind by contaminating the planet's atmosphere.

In later stories, Jet-Ace and Plumduff belonged to various law enforcement agencies, such as the Solar Police rather than military organizations.

In popular culture

The Finnish cartoonist Petri Hiltunen created a spoof of Jet-Ace, named Rocket Reynolds, under a pseudonym, "Valentin Kalpa".

Sources

Notes and References

  1. [Denis Gifford]
  2. http://belatednerd.com/thriller-picture-library-jet-ace-logan/ Thriller Picture Library: Jet-Ace Logan
  3. Norman Wright and David Ashford, Masters of Fun and Thrills: The British Comic Artists Vol 1, Norman Wright (pub.), 2008, pp. 14
  4. Andrew Darlington, "Captain Condor: Space Hero in Search of an Artist", The Mentor 84, October 1994, pp. 5-8, 11
  5. Steve Holland, Brian Lewis, Bear Alley, 3 June 2008
  6. http://www.dandare.info/sf/sf_uk.htm British sci-fi lexicon