Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Soldier Sharp-The Rat of the Rifles
From the first ("Great news chaps!") merged issue of Battle & Valiant dated, 23 October 1976. This strip comes over from Valiant with nice art by Joe Colquhoun. Kind of an unusual strip this one. Sharp was an interesting character: he was the antithisis of the usual 'hero' being an utter scumbag, who'd sell his own mother to save his skin. From what I remember, he had his comeuppance in the end...
From what I remember, he had his comeuppance in the end...
ReplyDeletenot as i recall it - in the final page he slipped away as an old russian woman refugee- the only one with british army boots according to the text
He got away did he? Interesting. Usually the villain gets it in the end. I wonder if Titan books would reprint it?
ReplyDeletecan you determine what was the first edition of Valiant that the story was in, and the last edition of Battle and Valiant.
ReplyDeleteeg the date of the first edition of Valiant and the date of the last edition of Battle and Valiant, as this was my favourite story of all the war comics, but I only read a few editions at the time.
I had always thought the story was called "rat of the rifles", but in fact it is soldier sharp!
I liked also the story of Captain Hurricane and Maggot Malone.
Hi.
ReplyDeleteI did a bit of Googling and according to the Comicvine website, Soldier Sharp's first appearance was in Valiant on 22nd January 1976 and the last episode was in Battle on 22nd January 1977.
There's a reprint edition of The Steel Commando which has a crossover with Captain Hurricane in it.
https://shop.2000ad.com/catalogue/RCA-B0050
@crow the first date isnt right, havent checked the others, Soldier Sharp started on 28th Feb 1976
ReplyDelete