My name is David and I'm a Commandoholic. There, I've said it. I've been buying the little 64 page comics since the age of about 11, one weekend when I'd already bought Warlord and still had some pocket money left. I can still remember which three I bought - Mustang Patrol (#1859), Mission Accomplished (#1861) and Ice-Cold Courage (#1862). That was me done. Hooked. No turning back! In the next couple of years I became a thing possessed, I would count down the days till the next set of four were released and I could catch the bus into town to buy them. I'd pick up the new four, jump straight back on the next bus home and spend a happy hour devouring them from cover to cover. After a while I got into back issue mode, trawling market stalls and book shops for any older titles I could find. Each new purchase would have a back page advertising three other titles released at the same time, to whet my appetite still further. I just couldn't get enough!
As I got older I decided to concentrate on more grown up activities such as girls and beer and football instead, and my mad purchasing binges slowed down to an occasional newsagent visit, but I had kept my collection intact and it still took pride of place on my bookshelf - 1500+ Commando comics on a bookshelf looks great! A few years further on after finding myself a great girl to settle down with and slowing down on both the beer and the football, I find myself digging through the old collection again and getting into them all over again. British comics, with the exception of Commandos and the still awesome 2000AD, are mostly pale imitations of how they used to be. The quality is not there anymore, the range of titles, the characters, the story telling. Well, that is my opinion at least, I'm sure there are a dozen blogs saying kids TV is not as good as it used to be either, but hey - my blog, my rules!
I don't know what sales figures of new Commandos are these days, from what I've found whilst trawling the interweb it seems that interest has been renewed in recent times and the publication of the compilation books and the number of back issues available on sites such as eBay things are looking up. Well I'm all for that!
In this blog I hope to be able to share my love of these black and white pocket sized classics, maybe chat with other collectors, perhaps even create a few new ones. Let's keep the legend alive and kicking!
