Warrior was a British comics anthology that ran for 26 issues between March 1982 and January 1985. It was edited by Dez Skinn and published by his company Quality Communications. It featured early work by numerous figures who would go on to successful careers in the industry, including Alan Moore, Alan Davis, David Lloyd, Steve Dillon, and Grant Morrison; it also included contributions by the likes of Brian Bolland and John Bolton, while many of the magazine's painted covers were by Mick Austin.
Publication history Creation The title Warrior was recycled from a short-lived fanzine Skinn had once edited/published; in 1974-1975, he had produced six issues of Warrior: Heroic Tales Of Swords and Sorcery. The fanzine featured reprints and new strips, art, and writing from such creators as Steve Parkhouse, Dave Gibbons (who designed the logo), Michael Moorcock, Frank Bellamy, Don Lawrence, and Barry Windsor-Smith.
Following the success of House of Hammer and Starburst, Skinn was head-hunted by Stan Lee of Marvel Comics to take over the company's ailing British division. There, his work included creating the well-received anthology Hulk Comic, which mixed reprints of extant American material and work sourced from the burgeoning British comics scene, much of it drawn from Skinn's contacts in both the industry and fanzines. In 1980, Skinn left Marvel UK – later explaining that he felt the demands on the wing's output had reduced it from making "quality material" to "quantity material". In response he set up Quality Communications, planning to follow the same successful template with a creator-owned ethos. He revived the name of the 70s fanzine for the project:
The contents of Warrior deliberately mimicked the successful elements from his work for other publishers - Marvelman was planned to emulate the revival of Captain Britain in the Hulk Weeklys Black Knight strip, V for Vendetta traded on similar motifs to Night Raven, Axel Pressbutton had a similar theme to Abslom Daak from Doctor Who Monthly and Father Shandor fitted the sword-and-sorcery profile of Conan the Barbarian. Skinn recruited many of the writers and artists he had previously worked with at Marvel, including Steve Moore, Gibbons, Steve Dillon, Steve Parkhouse and David Lloyd, adding established creators like Bolland and Bolton, as well as emerging young talent such as Alan Moore and Garry Leach. Leach would subsequently be assigned as the magazine's art director.
Part of the attraction for the creative staff was Warriors unusual payment model. While page rates for the initial work were lower than those offered by rivals IPC Magazines, DC Thomson, and Marvel UK, the creators of each strip would receive a share in their output's ownership and increased royalties for reprints, instead of the normal industry practice of work-for-hire. Skinn hoped to follow the example of the French anthology Métal hurlant, with the various strips both syndicated overseas and, as each reached enough material, in collected albums.
Contents The 52-page magazine had colour front and back covers (the latter usually carrying advertising, but occasionally containing a 'clean' version of the front cover) but was otherwise in black-and-white; initially it was priced at 50p. The first issue was dated March 1982, with Skinn's editorial noting work had begun in April 1981, but the creators had been encouraged to work at getting the first issue "right" rather than working towards a deadline. The issue included a two-page article introducing the creators behind the magazine. Both the editorial-cum-contents page and Skinn's replies to readers' letters would adopt a similarly candid approach, giving a generally unvarnished look at the magazine's frequent production problems. Letters page 'Dispatches' would print both positive and negative missives, with the latter often being upbraided by Skinn or other members of the creative team.
A Summer Special was planned in 1982 to be a separate special edition alongside the regular issues, featuring self-contained stories. However, various production issues saw some of the planned material merged into various regular issues of Warrior instead; in 2007, Skinn would attribute this to himself getting excited and overextending. Repurposed material included the cover for #4 – which bore the text 'Summer Special' instead of a date. As a result, both Big Ben and Raiko from Demon at the Gates of Dawn were featured in the illustration but not in the magazine's content, causing some confusion to readers. The Summer Special also bequeathed The Golden Amazon, the V for Vendetta strip "Vertigo" and the two-page Madman strip "ChronoCycle Mk.1" to Warrior #5. The magazine would fluctuate between monthly and bi-monthly, which Skinn would state was in response to the industry slowing down in the winter.
In late 1983, the magazine had a print run of around 30,000 copies. Warrior #15 saw the first of the 'Sweatshop Talk' articles featuring interviews with creators – beginning with Steve Moore being 'interviewed' by his pseudonym Pedro Henry; the pair being one and the same was something of an open secret at the time. Later issues saw 'Henry' interview Skinn, Alan Moore, Leach and Austin.
Warrior universe and Challenger Force Skinn wanted the material in Warrior to share a fictional universe, with connections between the strips to be gradually developed, with the various heroes eventually forming a Justice League-style super-team tentatively called Challenger Force. Marvelman, Warpsmith/Aza Chorn, Big Ben and a new character called Firedrake were among the mooted members. As part of the plans for the book, Alan Moore and Steve Moore sketched a far-reaching chronology tying together some of the events from Marvelman, V for Vendetta, Warpsmith and Axel Pressbutton. Due to being potentially irreconcilable due to their relatively close time periods, V for Vendetta was designated as taking place in an alternate universe where Marvelman had never returned; Skinn would joke that V was killed by Kid Marvelman early in his life in the 'regular' universe. Fate, the computer from V for Vendetta, was posited as an invention of Marvelman Family creator Emil Gargunza. The Marvelman strip "The Yesterday Gambit" was set three years in the universe's future, featuring the title character teaming up with 'Warpsmith' to battle Kid Marvelman, with a call-out for the mysterious Firedrake and "the others". Otherwise few of these connections reached print before the title was cancelled, and neither the completed V for Vendetta nor the ongoing Miracleman showed any sign of being connected. However Moore did incorporate the Warpsmiths in Miracleman, making several references to "The Yesterday Gambit". A draft of the timeline was printed in George Khoury's Kimota! The Miracleman Companion in 2001.
A second attempt at more strongly connected series of strips was planned in 1985, with strips Big Ben, The Liberators, The Project Files and Wardroid planned to all be connected to a mysterious foundation called The Project. However, only Big Ben and The Liberators would reach publication before the magazine's cancellation.
Creative and legal problems The high level of creator control led to problems; issues began to turn up late when contributors missed deadlines and fill-in artists could not be commissioned, as the originating artists owned the properties. Laser Eraser and Pressbutton stalled when Skinn lost contact with Dillon; material intended for Warrior #16 was replaced by a reprint of one of Pressbutton's appearances from Sounds, and then a one-off war strip by Parkhouse and John Ridgway. Tensions were also growing among the creative staff, with those behind the magazine's more popular features feeling the division of spoils was unfair as they were carrying the less popular features. This was exacerbated by the general lack of spoils themselves; despite acclaim Warrior was losing money, being propped up by the takings of Skinn's Quality Comics store. Deadlines were also a problem, as the difficulty in using fill-in artists meant one strip being late could knock a whole issue off schedule. Further problems arose when creative staff began receiving offers from American publishers and had less time to contribute to Warrior, slowing or curtailing storylines.
Marvelman became something of a nexus in the problems surrounding the title. Firstly Alan Moore and artist Alan Davis fell out over an unrelated matter, involving their parallel work on Marvel's Captain Britain, and refused to allow anyone else to continue the story - vetoing a mooted continuation by Grant Morrison. Secondly, Alan Moore's relationship with Skinn deteriorated; a key point of the dispute was a growing suspicion that the editor had not correctly licensed the character in contrary to what he had told the writer. Thirdly, the publishing of a one-off Marvelman Special in July 1984 had drawn legal action for trademark infringement from Marvel Comics; while the strip had already stalled this made potential syndication partners wary as Skinn was attempting to find a package deal for entirety of Warriors contents. From Warrior #25, the magazine briefly expanded when fellow Quality magazine Halls of Horror was merged into the title.
Publicly, Skinn railed against Marvel and their legal tactics, even going as far as printing his correspondence with the rival publisher's British legal representatives in columns in Warrior while implying that the action was preventing the continuation of Marvelman. However, before the matter could go to court or the creative impasse could be resolved Warriors losses finally became too much for Skinn. After 26 issues he shuttered the title, and would later estimate that its run had cost him between $36-40,000 in losses. He would later state the loss of Marvelman played no role in the cancellation. As well as the planned 'Project' stories, other victims of the cancellation included Leach superhero strip Power, Steve Moore and Jim Baikie's Claustrophobia and Grysdyke Dean, which was a submission by readers Paul Alexander and Mike Nicholson.
Instead Skinn focused on attempting to sell the reprint rights for the lucrative American market. After some unsuccessful negotiations, Alan Moore and David Lloyd broke ranks to make their own deal with DC Comics, while Skinn and Mike Friedrich of Star*Reach brokered a deal with Pacific Comics for the remainder. Before anything could be published the Pacific folded and its assets were purchased by Eclipse Comics. Eclipse would publish series based on Marvelman (renamed Miracleman) and Pressbutton but would go bankrupt themselves in 1994. Warrior Marvelman and Warpsmith material has since been reprinted in updated form in Marvel's 2014 Miracleman series.
Stories V for Vendetta
Created by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. A masked vigilante battles a fascist British government in an alternate 1997. Episodes of the serial appeared in all but one issue of Warrior, only missing #17. Following the demise of Warrior, the story was picked up by DC Comics, who eventually published the material and its continuation in a ten-issue 1988 limited series.
Marvelman
A revival of the Mick Anglo-created Golden Age British superheroes Marvelman, Young Marvelman and Kid Marvelman. The strip was written by Alan Moore and initially drawn by Garry Leach before he handed over to Alan Davis. Marvelman featured in #1-11, #15-16, #18 and #20-21; related flashback strips drawn by John Ridgway appeared in #12 (Young Marvelman) and #17 (Marvelman Family). The story was later renamed Miracleman in 1985 when it was published by Eclipse Comics, and would continue until 1993 when the American company folded. Following a long hiatus while copyright issues were resolved, the series returned to publication under the auspices of Marvel Comics in 2014.
Laser Eraser and Pressbutton