''The Seekers'' is a British

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 ...

drawn by John M. Burns, written by Les Lilley, succeeded by Phillip Douglas and Dick O'Neil. The strip ran from 1966 to 1971 in ''

The Daily Sketch The ''Daily Sketch'' was a British national tabloid newspaper, founded in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton. It was bought in 1920 by Lord Rothermere's Daily Mirror Newspapers, but in 1925 Rothermere sold it to William and Gomer Berry ...

''.

Synopsis

The main characters, Susanne Dove and Jacob Benedick, are two preferred secret agents employed by Una Frost, director of "The Seekers", an elite agency of

missing person A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, de ...

s retrieval. Their investigations frequently lead to adventures connected to the

sex industry The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide Sex worker, sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of s ...

, exploiting the attractiveness of both detectives, and usually leading to the downfall of sexual predators and oppressors.

Publication history

''The Seekers'' began publication on 2 May 1966 in ''The Daily Sketch''. The concept of the strip bears some resemblance to another strip Burns later drew for a brief period, ''

Modesty Blaise ''Modesty Blaise'' is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talent ...

''. The female characters were consistently drawn in an enticing manner, indicating Burns' evident intent to challenge the limits of the daily British newspaper strip conventions of the times. The initial writer Les Lilley was succeeded by Phillip Douglas starting with episode 14, ''The Missing Golfers'', occasionally aided by Dick O'Neil, who wrote one story, ''The Curse of the One-Eyed Sailor''. The strip ended on 10 May 1971, abandoned due to its lack of lasting success. It enjoyed some popularity in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

where it was known as ''I Segugi'', and the

Scandinavian countries Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swede ...

, serialised as in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

and

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

, and in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, and as it was serialized in

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

in at least three different magazines during the 1970s and 1980s. The name, Seekers, translates to ''Bloodhounds'' in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish publications of the strip.

Story list

Sources

''The Seekers - Spårhundarna''

FFF ;Footnotes

External links

''The Seekers'' archives
on Thrilling Adventures! {{DEFAULTSORT:Seekers, The Crime comics British comic strips 1966 comics debuts Comics characters introduced in 1966 British comics characters Fictional British secret agents Fictional secret agents and spies in comics Spy comics 1971 comics endings