Speed, cover date 30 August 1980
Topps on Two Wheels seems to have been created as a sort of Evel Knievel meets The Dukes of Hazzard mash-up. Eddie Topps was a stunt rider with a huge ego and a motorbike called The Beast.
I’m not sure about the artist for this one.
Speed launched in February 1980, and for a while it was a really great comic. Exciting stories across a range of genres – sport, Western, sci-fi, war – all with a theme of people/things being fast. It was printed on quality paper, and seemed very much the fresh new comic of the 80s.
There are plenty of parables about being too quick off the blocks, however. By summer's end, Speed seemed to have crashed and burned. Three of its best stories were replaced, and production switched to a distinctly lower-grade paper stock. All this with a price rise: 12p to 14p!
(Okay, weirdly I kind of liked the switch to rougher paper at the time. It made Speed seem more like the comics I was familiar with – like this was how comics were supposed to be. But I recognise that I’m a bit odd in that respect.)
Two of the new strips were Winner! (art Ron Turner) and Supersmith (John Gillatt), replacing Journey to the Stars and Quick on the Draw – respectively by the same two outstanding artists, but superior stories to the new serials, in my opinion.
Speed’s centrepiece poster pages switched from photographs, which wouldn’t have reproduced well on the poorer paper, to drawn illustrations. An important element of realism was lost. This cartoon ambulance looks as if it’s caused the accident it’s speeding away from!
A few issues later Speed was merged into Tiger. The parent comic gained several thousand new readers as those of us with a regular order for Speed had it transferred to the new title. Hatch, Match, Dispatch: IPC’s infamous (cynical, some might say) strategy claimed another scalp.
Great News For All Readers!
Fans, fandoms – ultimately we’re just £££ in the eyes of those who control what we love. But we carry on loving anyway. And spending.
Back to Topps on Two Wheels. Eddie hadn’t seemed himself these last few episodes. He’d found himself a girlfriend, and a new artist brought a brasher, sketchier style to the strip.
I’m not sure of the artist’s identity - can anyone help?
It felt a bit like the time they changed the lead actors in Hazzard County. The art was fine but it just wasn’t Eddie Topps.
Osvaldo Torta had been the original artist. Not sure who this guy was. Then Mike Western took the handlebars prior to the series’ transfer to Tiger.
To end on a more positive note, Speed’s best strip was probably the excellent Death Wish. Blake Edwards wears a mask to hide terrible facial injuries and performs terrifying stunts in the hope each one will be his last. Art by Eduardo Vanyo.
This week’s episode is a fairly good one. For the first time, Blake finds someone who can ‘see’ beyond the disfigurement. It’s interesting, probably coincidental, that both Blake and Eddie get a female companion at the same time. Death Wish is written with greater heart, however.
Blake liked to talk to his friend Dianne, and ended up with a soul mate for life. Eddie liked to rev his engine and perform wheelies in front of Delores (or ‘Kitten’), and the relationship ended a few issues later. Slow and steady wins the race.
