Lion (comics)

Lion was a weekly British comics periodical published by Fleetway (a subsidiary of IPC, the International Publishing Corporation) from 23 February 1952 to 18 May 1974. It lasted for 1,156 issues.

Publishing history

Lion was first published on 23 February 1952, and was a weekly boys' adventure comic designed to compete with Eagle, the popular weekly comic that had introduced Dan Dare. Lion's first issue contained a mix of text stories and comic strips; its flagship story was Captain Condor – Space Ship Pilot, a science fiction adventure in the Dan Dare mould. The premiere issue also contained the first adventure of Robot Archie (called The Jungle Robot in early adventures) who would go on to become one of the title's most popular characters. The most popular story was Paddy Payne written by Val Holding and drawn by Joe Colquhoun. Reg "Skipper" Clarke ran the letters feature.

Editor Bernard Smith was always proud to say that he had the latest issue of Lion delivered to Buckingham Palace every Friday, the young Prince Charles being an avid reader. In 1960, Prince Charles was 11 years old.

Lion comics

Lion comics (லயன் காமிக்ஸ்) is a Tamil Comic Book series published by Prakash Publishers, in South India. Both Lion Comics and its sister publication 'Muthu Comics' (முத்து காமிக்ஸ்), are published monthly in Tamil language. In fact, Muthu Comics is the forerunner to Lion Comics, even though the latter has taken over as the leading brand of the comic publication. The Editor/publisher of the concern, Mr. S Vijayan, is based in Sivakasi, where the comics publishing house also is based out.

Almost all of the stories published are Tamil translations of primarily European and rarely some American comic series, including those from the British Comics Publisher of the same name - Lion. Tex Willer, along with Lucky Luke and Mike Blueberry are the most popular cowboy heroes; Steel Claw and The Spider were the more popular superheroes during the comic house's best of times.

Related publications

Muthu Comics (முத்து காமிக்ஸ்), Thigil Comics (திகில் காமிக்ஸ்), Mini-Lion (மினி லயன்) andJunior-Lion (ஜூனியர் லயன்) are some of the other publications from the same concern. Comics Classics is the a latest addition with re-printed run of more famous titles published in the past, during the so-called Golden Age of Tamil comics.