Cursitor Doom is a fictional

British comic A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper. British comics are usually Comics anthology, comics antho ...

book character who debuted in a self-titled

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

in the 15 March 1969 issue of the

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

'' Smash!'', published by

IPC Magazines TI Media (formerly International Publishing Company, IPC Magazines Ltd, IPC Media and Time Inc. UK) was a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year. Most of its tit ...

. Created by Ken Mennell, Cursitor Doom is a powerful mystic who protects Earth from supernatural threats.

Creation

Odhams Press Odhams Press was a British publishing company, operating from 1920 to 1968. Originally a magazine publisher, Odhams later expanded into book publishing and then children's comics. The company was acquired by Fleetway Publications in 1961 and th ...

had been the original publisher of ''Smash!'' as one of their short-lived line of

Power Comics Power Comics was an imprint (trade name), imprint of the British comics publisher Odhams Press (itself a division of IPC Magazines) that was particularly notable for its use of material reprinted from American Marvel Comics. Appearing chiefly du ...

, an ambitious series of British weekly comics that had briefly prospered and then crashed due to a flooded market and an over-reliance on

Marvel Marvel may refer to: Business * Marvel Entertainment, an American entertainment company ** Marvel Comics, the primary imprint of Marvel Entertainment ** Marvel Universe, a fictional shared universe ** Marvel Music, an imprint of Marvel Comics ...

and

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

reprints. The latter, stripped of their colour and otherwise edited to fit the format of an anthology serial (seeing the 18-page American issues split up into episodes of around six pages), failed to find a lasting audience, and were further compromised by the devaluation of the pound making the once-cheap American licences prohibitively expensive. Odhams were taken over by IPC, putting them under the same umbrella as rivals Fleetway. With the Power Comics collapsing in a series of mergers until ''Smash''! was the sole survivor, the decision was made to turn the comic into a more traditional boys' comic in the Fleetway mould. As such, ''Smash!'' received a number of stories intended for a planned horror anthology called ''Blackjack'' which IPC management had vetoed, with "Cursitor Doom" among them.

Publication history

The 15 March 1969 issue introduced "Cursitor Doom", " The Incredible Adventures of Janus Stark", "His Sporting Lordship" and "Master of the Marsh" to the comic. Cursitor Doom was written by Ken Mennell, a long-standing editor with a reputation as the comics division's "ideas man", and drawn by veteran

Eric Bradbury Eric Bradbury (4 January 1921 – May 2001) was a British comic artist who primarily worked for Amalgamated Press/ IPC from the late 1940s to the 1990s. He studied at Beckenham Art School from 1936, and served in the RAF as a rear gunner o ...

on the strength of his work on "Maxwell Hawke" in '' Buster''. Initially Bradbury only drew the opening arc;

Geoff Campion Arthur Geoffrey Campion (19 November 1916 — 18 December 1997)Norman Wright and David Ashford, ''Masters of Fun and Thrills: The British Comic Artists Vol. 1'', Norman Wright (pub.), 2008, pp. 7-21 was a British comics artist who drew adventur ...

took over for the second before Bradbury returned to handle art duties for the remainder of the run.

Scott Goodall Scott Goodall MBE (7 November 1935 – 7 March 2016) was a British comics writer. Career Goodall started out his comics career in the early-to-mid 1960s. He was part of a rotating cast of writers for the spooky strip ''The Strangest Stories Ever ...

and Chris Lowder later wrote the strip. However, sales of ''Smash!'' continued to fall, leading to a rapid turnover of strips as the editorial team tried to find a winning formula, and "Cursitor Doom" ended after 31 January 1970.

Fictional character information

Plot

Demobbed British soldier Angus McCraggan answers an advertisement that leads him to the home of Cursitor Doom, a portentous mystic who claims to fight mystical things beyond the comprehension of men and lives with a

raven A raven is any of several larger-bodied bird species of the genus ''Corvus''. These species do not form a single taxonomic group within the genus. There is no consistent distinction between "crows" and "ravens", common names which are assigned t ...

called Scarab. He hires McCraggan as his driver and muscle. The pair are soon called into action when a London journalist called Sneed carelessly frees evil sorcerer Karnak the Dwarf from imprisonment and begins to work with the villain. Thanks to Cursitor Doom's encyclopaedic knowledge of the occult and McCraggan's bravery, Kalak was vanquished - though the investigator warned his assistant this was likely to be only the first sinister and mystic foe they faced. Sure enough they were soon called in to investigate sightings of the ghost of

highwayman A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to footp ...

Black Patch. Later the pair thwarted the return of the Snake-Mummy of Samotoya, saved South American president Velasquez from the influence of the ancient sorcerer Scorpio, Dominic Devine's attempts to release an unspeakable evil from the Door with Seven Locks, preventing a deranged cult from resurrecting the dark mage Mardarax, freed scientist Brice Talbot from sinister influences, and halted the maniacal rival sorcerer Attagory.

Powers and abilities

Cursitor Doom is a

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...

and has some

telepathic Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

abilities, being able to detect McCraggan's thoughts from considerable distance when the latter was in distress. He has extensively studied magic and the occult; thus he can carry out various rituals and spells, and his vast working knowledge allows him to rapidly devise counters to his foes' powers.

Revivals

The character was subsequently revived in by

Quality Communications Quality Communications was a British publishing company founded by Dez Skinn that operated from 1982 to 2008. The company's most notable publications were the monthly comics anthology ''Warrior'', which featured early work by writer Alan Moore; ...

in 1986 after they signed a deal with Fleetway to handle repackaging material for the American market. In 1986 the "Cursitor Doom" stories themselves were modified and coloured for inclusion in ''Spellbinders'', an anthology of supernatural stories that also included of " Sláine" and "

Nemesis the Warlock ''Nemesis the Warlock'' is a comic series created by writer Pat Mills and artist Kevin O'Neill which appeared in the pages of the British weekly comics anthology '' 2000 AD''. The title character, a fire-breathing demonic alien, fights agains ...

" from '' 2000 AD''. The character featured in a new framing sequence (drawn by

Garry Leach Garry Leach (19 September 1954 – 26 March 2022) was a British comics artist and publisher. Biography Garry Leach's early work for ''2000 AD'' included mainly one-off stories featuring '' Dan Dare'' and '' M.A.C.H. 1''.The Steel Claw" from ''

Valiant Valiant may refer to: People * James Valiant (1884–1917), English cricketer * The Valiant Brothers, a professional wrestling tag team of storyline brothers ** Jerry Valiant, a ring name of professional wrestler John Hill (1941-2010) ** Jimmy ...

'' as an ally of Lewis Randell. For these appearances the character was renamed Amadeus Wolf. Another short-lived revival came in the 1992 ''2000 AD Action Special'', which saw several classic British characters updated by ''2000 AD'' creators. Cursitor Doom's strip was written by John Tomlinson with art by

Jim Baikie James George Baikie (28 February 1940 – 29 December 2017) was a Scottish comics artist best known for his work with Alan Moore on ''Skizz''. He was also a musician. Biography Baikie served as a Corporal with the Royal Air Force in 1956–1963 ...

. However, any chance of further new adventures were killed off when the ''2000 AD'' staff belatedly discovered the pre-1970 IPC characters had been sold to Danish publisher

Egmont Group The Egmont Group (formerly The Gutenberghus Group) is a Danish media corporation founded and rooted in Copenhagen, Denmark. The business area of Egmont has traditionally been magazine publishing but has over the years evolved to comprise mass me ...

. In 2006 the Egmont library was licensed to DC Comics, and the ''

Albion Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scot ...

'' mini-series was created by the DC subsidiary

WildStorm Wildstorm Productions, (stylized as WildStorm), is an American comic book imprint. Originally founded as an independent company established by Jim Lee under the name "Aegis Entertainment" and expanded in subsequent years by other creators, Wilds ...

. The comic combined numerous

Amalgamated Press The Amalgamated Press (AP) was a British newspaper and magazine publishing company founded by journalist and entrepreneur Alfred Harmsworth (1865–1922) in 1901, gathering his many publishing ventures together under one banner. At one point the ...

/Fleetway/

characters; Cursitor Doom's appearance was low-key but important as he spent most of the series unnamed and comatose before being revealed as the father of main protagonist Danny (based on the previously unconnected ''Valiant'' character Danny Doom) in the final issue. When

Rebellion Developments Rebellion Developments Limited is a British video game developer based in Oxford, England. Founded by Jason and Chris Kingsley in December 1992, the company is best known for its ''Sniper Elite'' series and multiple games in the ''Alien vs. Pre ...

created their own classic character crossover ''

The Vigilant ''The Vigilant'' was an English language, English-language newspaper published from Khartoum, Sudan.Galander, Mahmoud M. Mass Media in Sudan: Towards History of Media-Politics Interplay'. Kuala Lumpur: IIUM Press, 2001. p. 60Akol, Lam. Southern Sud ...

'' in 2017, writer

Simon Furman Simon Christopher Francis Furman (born 22 March 1961) is a British people, British Script (comics), comic book writer who is best known for his work on Hasbro's ''Transformers'' franchise, starting with writing Marvel Comics, Marvel's The Tran ...

wanted to use the character due to his fond memories of the strip. However, he was unable to do so as the character was not among the post-1970 properties then owned by Rebellion. This was rectified in 2018 when the pre-1970 library was purchased by Rebellion, allowing Furman to feature Cursitor Doom in the " Doctor Sin" back-up strip in ''The Vigilant: Legacy''. The character then appeared in the ''Smash! Special 2020'' in an all-new strip by writer Maura McHugh and artist Andreas Butzbach, which featured Cursitor Doom teaming up with ''Valiant'' character Jason Hyde, something suggested by Rebellion editor Keith Richardson. Doom and McCraggan made a cameo appearance in the last episode of 'Portals & Black Goo' in 2000 AD Prog 2347.

Collected editions

To tie in with ''Albion'', one of the original "Cursitor Doom" serials ("...and the Dark Legion of Mardarax", originally printed 4 October to 8 November 1969) was published in the companion hardcover ''Albion Origins'' in 2006. Three years later, Steve Holland licensed the complete original run as well as strips from two ''Smash! Annual''s and a text story from the ''Smash! Holiday Special'', published via his Bear Alley Books imprint and featuring a new colour cover by John Ridgway.

Reception

Despite the relatively short run, the character was well-remembered. Comic historian Steve Holland has credited this to the "considerable style of Bradbury's art, and has also suggested the straight depiction of the supernatural in the series (compared to the likes of Maxwell Hawke, where ghosts were typically revealed to be illusions created by criminals) as a factor.

Dave Gibbons David Chester Gibbons (born 14 April 1949) is an English comics artist, writer and sometimes letterer. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Alan Moore, which include the miniseries ''Watchmen'' and the Superman story "For the Man ...

Steve MacManus Steve MacManus (sometimes credited as Ian Rogan) is a British comic writer and editor, particularly known for his work at '' 2000 AD''. Biography Born in London and educated in Devon, MacManus joined IPC in 1973, aged 20, as a sub-editor on ...

and

Lew Stringer Lew Stringer (born 22 March 1959 in England) is a freelance comic artist and scriptwriter. Biography Stringer began his career from the late 1970s with a series of fanzines, many featuring his popular '' Brickman'' character; these were read by ...

have also praised the stories.

Notes

References

External links

Cursitor Doom at International Hero
Fleetway and IPC Comics strips Fleetway and IPC Comics characters British comics characters 1969 comics debuts Fictional occult and psychic detectives British comic strips {{Buster