Johnny Galaxy and the Space Patrol

I think the first time I came across Johnny Galaxy in a K.G. Murray comic was in an issue of Climax Adventure Comic. It wasn’t until much later that I was amazed to find there was a series of four issues preceding the Climax instalments (I think Mark Cannon first mentioned this to me). I don’t know much about the publishing history of Johnny Galaxy, but here’s a few tidbits I’ve come across.

Johnny Galaxy and the Space Patrol was published in the UK as Space Ace by Atlas. I understand it also appeared as a back-up feature in various Marvelman-related titles published by L.Miller &Sons Limited

Many instalments are signed/credited to Jose Bea, a Spanish artist. According to various internet sites Bea co-created Johnny Galaxy (“Johnny Galaxia”) and worked for the Spanish agency Selecciones Ilustradas (SI). As we know this agency provided comics to English-speaking markets such as Australia.

I believe some of the chapters are illustrated by Fernando Fernandez (they appear to be signed “Fernando”). Ramon Escolano Metaute is another artist who also worked on Johnny Galaxy.

It’s curious that as early as 1968 K.G. Murray was publishing material which appears to have been sourced direct from SI, which we associate with the Gredown horror magazines of the 1970’s. I assume they dealt directly with SI because the series is not called Space Ace as it may have been had it been sourced via a UK publisher. It begs the question: Why would SI distribute the series under two different English names?

As Kevin Patrick says: “KG Murray, which used to rely almost solely on DC Comics material for its editorial content, began using European/Spanish material in its non-superhero titles, such as Super Giant, and their various Western comics including Bumper Western Comic and Fastest Gun Western…. While SI was by no means the only Spanish agency syndicating comic strips worldwide throughout the 1970s, they were arguably the largest - and could well have been responsible for the lion's share of translated Spanish/European comic strips appearing in Australian comic magazines during that decade, including those published by KG Murray and Gredown…”

Given Johnny Galaxy predates K.G. Murray titles such as Super Giant and the horror titles such as Creepy, it may be that Johnny Galaxy was K.G. Murray’s proverbial toe-in-the-water in dealing with SI. As far as I know neither Johnny Galaxy nor Space Ace nor Johnny Galaxia were published in the US, so presumably there was no conflict in dealing with a European agency at the same time as the agency which provided the DC material to K.G. Murray.

But again, this is all speculation. It’s just bits and pieces of information loosely held together by guesswork and deduction.

What I can confirm is that instalments of Johnny Galaxy appeared in Climax Adventure Comic #’s 7,8,9,10 and 13. (Something tells me that Johnny Galaxy may have also appeared in early issues of Super Giant, but file this under TBC for the moment).

In fact the cover for Climax #10 is a reprint of the first panel of the Johnny Galaxy story reprinted in that issue. It works quite fine, but it certainly doesn’t match the painted SF Pulp images on the covers of the self-titled issues. In my opinion if nothing else these covers warrant seeking out the issues - they are the main attraction for me, and I now have copies of all four issues, which is quite a feat really as they are not very common, especially in reasonable condition.

Which also says two things to me – 1. They were not big sellers, and 2. Those who bought them read them over and over.

Postscript August 2009: See James' article on Johnny Galaxy.