Don Lawrence (1928–2003)

When I was a wee lad my parents said they would pay for me to get two comics a week (one fun one, and one adventure one) as long as I also got an educational one of their choosing. The one they chose was “Look & Learn.” - What they didn’t realize was L&L was the home of the greatest historical science-fiction epic ever told in British comics - The Trigan Empire.

I have an earlier hardback volume that includes selected chapters, but in 2020 Rebellion Comics set out to reprint the entire saga over multiple volumes - a treatment it fully deserves.

Trigan Empire uses the framework of the Roman Empire, mixed in with tropes from other Earth empires such as the Greeks, Aztecs, Arabian, Egyptian and other contemporary cultures then adds in supersonic aircraft, hovercraft, spaceships, strange alien fauna and flora, to tell a generation tale of the intrigues of a star-spanning empire born on a distant world. - All sumptuously told through the astounding painted artwork of Don Lawrence, a master illustrator and story teller.

When I first read these in the mid-sixties I understood what comics could be. Now I’m in my own personal sixties I still regard this as a masterpiece of the medium that puts most modern comics art to shame.… (mer)

I have mentioned in an earlier review I wrote, how Batman: Year One was my Ground Zero for graphic novels. This preceded it in my life by about 20 years, but it's an altogether different animal.

I wasn't a fan of Look and Learn. However, this arrived in my Christmas stocking when I was six, priced £2.95. I still have it. I still occasionally read it. It remains on my shelf as a reflection of simpler times in my life, and its content - without much in the way of sex or gore - is a reflection of when good story-telling didn't need high stakes of death and destruction that we look for now. It's very much "Boys Own" stuff, but still beautifully-drawn, with (what certainly were when I was six) engaging stories for a youngster.

This isn't a review per se - more a reflection of a little piece of my life. But still worth the read again, for all of you who have a dusty copy in your garage or roofspace.… (mer)

I was forbidden comics as a child - maybe one of the reasons I'm so hooked on them now - but I was allowed the occassional education magazine, and when I was nine I was given a year's subscription to Look & Learn.

It was a great mag but the highlight was The Trigan Empire, a DPS, a fantasy adventure graphic featuring a Roman-style civilization of Aryan warriors plus men with blue skins and strange animals on the planet Elekton.

The Trigans transpormed from primitve nomads to space travellers with a magnificent city and a huge empire within a few decades, led by Trigo, and displaying an incongruous mix of high and low technology where men wearing Grecian-style shirts wield swords in one hand and laser guns in the other, as much at home on horseback as they are in atmospheric craft.

The primitive nomadic warriors dream of a great city is made real by Peric, a scientist and engineer, who plays Merlin to Trigo's Arthur. Although parallels are drawn between the stories and The Roman Empire, I am reminded more of Camelot - despite the flimsy clothes, where the Trigan Empire , like Britain, is under threat for the Hericons and Lokans - or warring tribes of Britons.

The stories are great, the colours vibrant and the drawing dynamic: people are not that well rendered and the artist cannot draw women at all - but the buildings, landscape and artifacts make up for all defects.

This is dick fic, pure and simple - very pure actually, sex never rears it's head, there are no romances and, other than Peric's daughter, women seldom grace the pages. I loved the Trigan Empire and was delighted to find the Hamlyn collection, featuring the early stories, on a visit to England.… (mer)