NAUTICAL HILARITY FROM THE HAND OF JOE COLQUHOUN

Joe Colquhoun is best known as illustrator of Charlie’s War and Roy of the Rovers. The artist has received quite a bit of attention on Kazoop!, in particular in the series of articles covering Kid Chameleon – an adventure story presented in full colour in COR!! comic. You can refresh your memory of this beautiful strip by clicking here.

Joe Colquhoun is also one of my favourite British humour artists in comics. His weekly episodes of The Goodies that appeared in COR!! weeklies throughout 1973 are a treat to the eye; I covered the strip in a dedicated post in my COR!! series a few years ago, you can revisit the article by clicking here. A few more humorous one-offs can be found by typing the name of Joe Colquhoun in the search box of this blog.

Today’s post is dedicated to Cap’n Codsmouth – yet another comedy strip from the hand of the master. It belongs to the category of nautical humour featuring an inept skipper and his clueless crew. Few people remember the feature, probably because it only enjoyed a brief 5-month run in the short-lived JAG comic in 1968/1969, and only the first of the two serialised stories was illustrated by Mr. Colquhoun (The Calcutta Voyage, May 4th – July 20th, 1968). Here is the opening episode of the story from the first issue of the tabloid-size comic:

Mr. Colquhoun’s Cap’n Codsmouth made a comeback in the early seventies and featured in JAG Annuals 1971 – 1973 (probably also in JAG Football Special 1968 but I don’t have a copy to check). Curiously, the Annuals contain an impressive amount of Joe Colquhoun’s art – both original strips and reprints, so I strongly recommend them for JC’s fans. Below is the complete story from JAG Annual 1971. I plan to show the other two in my later posts. Enjoy! 

All Images 2015 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.