The Deathless Men - 'V for Vengeance' (The Hornet #99, 31 July 1965).
Alan Philpott was a British artist of adventure comic serials with a career spanning from the 1930s through the 1970s. Besides a couple of smaller publishing houses, he worked mainly for the comic books of the Amalgamated Press and DC Thomson. In 1952, Philpott was notably the original artist of the 'Robot Archie' comic in Lion magazine. He later turned to DC Thomson's war comics, drawing the long-running serial 'The Deathless Men', among other things. He is also referred to as F. A. Philpott or Frederick Philpotts.
Early life
Frederick Alan Philpott was born in 1916 in the Lewisham area of southeast London. After school, he took evening classes at the Sir John Cass School of Arts and Crafts, and later attended Woolwich Polytechnic. His first published comic story was 'Deerfoot the White Indian', which he submitted to Mickey Mouse Weekly. In the Autumn of 1939, it was published in the Mickey Mouse Christmas Special. During World War II, Philpott joined the Royal Air Force as a wireless operator-air gunner. His aviation career was cut short when his plane, loaded with bombs for an attack on the Japanese at Kuantan, collided on the runway with another fully loaded bomber plane. Both planes blew up, and Philpott was the only survivor. By Hospital Ship, he was transported to Karachi to undergo treatment for severe burns. Remaining grounded for the rest of the war, he was recruited by the RAF as artist for the Delhi Air Headquarters Training Command, where he drew Japanese aircrafts for recognition training.
Comic book adaptations
Back in England after the war, Philpott resumed his attempts at becoming a comic artist, initially by offering his services to small publishers such as A. Soloway and Amex. For the latter, he made several installments in the 'A Classic in Pictures' series, adapting Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', 'Henry V' and 'Macbeth' to comic stories. He then moved over to the Amalgamated Press (AP), where he continued this line of work, but then for comic features based on popular western films in Film Fun magazine.
The "birth" of Robot Archie in 'The Jungle Robot' (Lion #1, 23 February 1952).
Robot Archie
On 23 February 1952, the Amalgamated Press launched Lion, a comic weekly filled with exciting adventure serials to compete with the popular Eagle title of competitor Hulton Press. Already in the first issue, Philpott was present as the illustrator of the serial 'The Jungle Robot', written by E. George Cowan. It marked the debut of the classic Robot Archie character, "the world's most powerful mechanical man", created by Professor C. R. Richie to accompany his nephew Ted Richie and his friend Ken Dale on their jungle explorations. Initially intended as a one-shot adventure serial, both Philpott and Cowan moved on to other serials. It wasn't until 1957 before Cowan revived Robot Archie and made him a fixture in Lion's pages, by then drawn by A. Forbes and eventually Ted Kearon. Besides Lion, the 'Robot Archie' comic also had some considerable success abroad.
'Rebels of Ancient Rome' (Lion #33, 4 October 1952).
Adventure comics
Immediately after 'The Jungle Robot', Philpott drew the historical 'Rebels of Ancient Rome' serial for Lion. During the 1950s, Philpott was a productive artist for the AP's 'Super Detective Library' and 'Cowboy Comics Library', drawing installments with characters like 'John Steel Special Agent World War II', 'Kit Carson', 'Buck Jones' and the 'Kansas Kid'. From the start of the 1960s, Philpott worked almost exclusively on war comics published by DC Thomson, appearing in The Victor with serials like 'The Smasher', 'The Flaming Vulture', 'Crib Carson-Fighter' and 'The Shadow over Scrapper Grey', and also in Warlord and Commando. In June-July 1966, Philpott briefly drew 'The Astounding Adventures of Charlie Peace' in IPC's Buster magazine, a feature based on the real-life exploits of 19th-century thief Charles Peace, previously drawn by Eric Bradbury, Tom Kerr and Jack Pamby. Alan Philpott's art also appeared in the AP's 'War Picture Library' and in ITV's television tie-in magazine Look-In. Between 1973 and August 1974, Alan Philpott succeeded John Fox as the artist of the 'Klanky' feature, about an alien robot who befriends two earth kids, in DC Thomson's Sparky magazine.
Super Detective Library #173 - 'John Steel Special Agent World War II' (1960).
The Deathless Men
A long-running serial drawn by Alan Philpott was 'The Deathless Man' (1965-1980), about a faceless resistance group within Nazi Germany. The concept originated from the wartime serial 'V for Vengeance' that ran in 1942 issues of Wizard magazine. In 1965, it was adapted by Alan Philpott into a new picture story serial for DC Thomson's The Hornet, where it ran until 1975. Between 1976 and 1980, 'The Deathless Men' was continued in The Hotspur. The group was a grey-clad, grey-masked secret army of escaped prisoners from Nazi concentration camps. Each member was code-named Jack, followed by a number. Their leader Jack One was the secret identity of Colonel Von Reich, second-in-command of the Gestapo, but in reality the infiltrated British secret agent Aylmer Greyson. Later episodes are drawn by other artists.
Death
Alan Philpott died in Yeovil, Somerset, in the fall of 1997.
'The Deathless Men' from The Hornet #106 (18 September 1965).