Product Description

Rick Random, Space Detective, was a comic book character who appeared in "Super Detective Library", published by Amalgamated Press, from 1954.His first appearance was in the "Super Detective Library" number 37 in a tale titled "Crime Rides the Spaceways". Random worked for the Interplanetary Bureau of Investigation, and among his arch-enemies was a futuristic bank robber, John Jolson, who used a matter transmitter in one story to steal gold from London's Interplanetary Bank. Random's female companion was Detective Superintendent Andi Andrews.Rick Random proved as difficult to kill off in the real world as he did in his sci-fi adventures. He was resurrected in the late seventies in 2000 AD, where he enjoyed a whole new audience.Now you can enjoy ten of Rick's original interplanetary adventures all over again, with the wonderful artwork of Ron Turner reproduced larger and more excitingly than ever before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #112967 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 656 pages

About the Author
Steve Holland is the author of over 1,000 articles and a dozen books relating to comics and pulp culture, including The Trials of Hank Janson, nominated for the Silver Dagger Award by the Crime Writers Association. His latest book, The War Libraries Index charts the extraordinary history of Fleetway's war picture libraries.

Customer Reviews

A must-buy for fans of British comics
With all the many books on classic UK comics appearing these days (from Commando to Modesty Blaise) people can't afford to buy everything. However, if you're trying to choose between Rick Random and the other Fleetway library reprints I'd suggest this is the best one to get.

Over 600 pages of artwork by Ron Turner makes it well worth the price. He proves here to be a master of black and white composition and his retro-future designs are fantastic. The stories are solidly crafted well-told tales and are more sophisticated than those of the Fleetway weeklies of the period.

The only faults are that, because the pages are scanned from the old comics and not the long-lost original art, some of the finer lines in some pages have "dropped out". (Everything is still legible though.) On the whole reproduction is very good and the best one can expect. Try this book, - it's a British classic!

Wonderful, quaint sci-fi
Rick random's stories are a delight to read. Quaint science-fiction, yet more plausible than some of Flash Gordon an Dan Dare adventures, they somewhat predate Jeff Hawke in their matter-of.fact approach. the graphic is fantastic, expecially in the "Emperor Moon" and "Robot Planet" stories.
A must have for thescience Fiction comic collector!

Fantastic Fifties SF
This book is a treat. From the colourful cover, through the attractive endpapers, to the stunning artwork inside.

Rick Random was one of the great sf strips of the 50's, equalling the EAGLE'S Dan Dare for exciting storylines and imaginative artwork. Although hidden away in the lesser known, SUPER-DETECTIVE LIBRARY comic, it has never truly received the credit it deserved. At last, some of these mini-graphic novels have been reprinted and a fine collection they are too including, Kidnappers from Mars and Emperor of the Moon, and others such as Robot Planet and Perilous Mission, written by famed sf writer, Harry Harrison before he became a best-selling author.

But it's the outstanding artwork by artist, Ron Turner, which brings the work to life - anyone who remembers the Daleks colour strip on the back of the TV21 comic, will be familiar with his work. Although these Rick Random stories are in black and white and a good ten to twelve years before the Daleks strips, Turner's inventive genius shines through in this collection, filled with an equally, imaginative interpretation of futuristic technology. Spacecraft and machines are so realistically drawn it's as if the artist had a window into a parallel universe, where space travel in the fifties actually existed.

If you like well-written sf and gorgeous artwork, then go for this book. You won't be disappointed.