''The Really Heavy Greatcoat'' is a British cartoon, by John Freeman and Nick Miller, that is now published as a webcomic.

History

''The Really Heavy Greatcoat'' debuted in the

Lancaster, Lancashire Lancaster (, ) is a city and the county town of Lancashire, England, standing on the River Lune. Its population of 52,234 compares with one of 138,375 in the wider City of Lancaster local government district. The House of Lancaster was a branch ...

listings magazine '' On the Beat'' in February 1987, and its successor, '' Off the Beat''. It is now published primarily online as a web comic on the web comics platform

Tapastic Tapas, formerly known as Tapastic and originally known as Comic Panda, is a South Korean webtoon and prose publishing website and app owned by Tapas Media, a Kakao Entertainment company. It was created by entrepreneur Chang Kim in 2012, who is ...

. The strip has previously been by the community web site virtual-lancaster.net and published for mobile b
ROK Comics
and in the international comics magazine ''

Comics International ''Comics International'' was a British news and reviews magazine about comic books. Founded in 1990, it was published monthly by Quality Communications until 2006, and then by Cosmic Publications Ltd. until 2010. Over time, ''Comics Internation ...

'', one of the most respected journals in the comics industry, and has been selected for publication in various titles, including ''The Norm'' published by syndicated US cartoonist

Michael Jantze Michael Jantze is an American cartoonist and illustrator, best known as the author of the syndicated newspaper comic strip ''The Norm'' . Born in Middletown, New York, he grew up in Normal, Illinois. He now lives in Seattle, Washington. He att ...

Jantze, Michael (May 14, 2005). "The Norm Extra". ''The Norm Magazine, No. 8'', Pg. 41 and ''Paper Tiger'', an independent UK comics anthology. The cartoon is written by former

Marvel UK Marvel UK was an imprint of Marvel Comics formed in 1972 to reprint US-produced stories for the British weekly comic market. Marvel UK later produced original material by British creators such as Alan Moore, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Steve Di ...

and

Titan Magazines Titan Magazines is the magazine-publishing division of Titan Publishing Group. Titan Magazines' publishing directors are Ricky Claydon and John Dziewiatkowski. History Titan Magazines launched in 1995 with '' Star Trek Magazine'' with John ...

editor John Freeman and drawn by Nick Miller, a cartoonist whose work has appeared in various UK and US magazines for many years including US publisher

Eureka Productions Eureka Productions is an Australian-American television production company which develops and produces scripted and unscripted programming in both countries and is owned by Fremantle. The company has produced numerous popular series including '' ...

. The strip, often poking fun at newsworthy events as well as satirising comics counterculture, centres on a greatcoat brought to life sometime in the 1960s after being exposed to mind-enhancing drugs stuffed in its pockets. The strip has a dedicated following in Lancaster and on the internet, with a detailed listing on The Comics Database,Comic Book DB - The Really Heavy Greatcoat (1987)
/ref> and has spawned several spin-offs, including The Underversity drawn by Paul J. Palmer. In 2014, John Freeman began to publish an archive of the strip on the web comic platform

. New strips are added intermittently. In 2015, Nick Miller began the weekly ''The RHG'' on the same service, a satirical strip which occasionally features the Greatcoat and its modern-day owner, layabout Kevin.

References

External links

''The Really Heavy Greatcoat'' at Down The Tubes
detailing background to The Really Heavy Greatcoat
''The Peculiar History of the Really Heavy Greatcoat''
an ongoing archive of the strip on Tapastic
''The RHG''
The latest adventures sometimes featuring the Greatcoat, largely written by Nick Miller
Team Sputnik
artist Nick Miller's web site
ComicBookdb.com - Comic Book Database

1987 comics debuts 1980s comics 1990s comics 2001 webcomic debuts 2000s webcomics 2010s webcomics Satirical comics Fictional objects Self-reflexive works Metafictional comics British webcomics Tapastic webcomics Webcomics from print Webtoons {{Webcomic-stub