Roy of the Rovers (Comic/Series)

Roy of the Rovers is a long running strip about the life and times of footballer Roy Race of Melchester Rovers. The series began in IPC's Tiger issue #1 on 11th September 1954, written by Frank Pepper (as 'Stewart Colwyn') and drawn by Joe Colquhoun, and quickly established itself as Tiger's most popular strip. Roy graduated to his own weekly title, Roy of the Rovers, on 25th September 1976; Roy's own strip was the lead feature, backed up by strips including, at various times, Billy's Boots by John Gillatt, Goalkeeper by John Stokes, and Hot Shot Hamish & Mighty Mouse by Sciaffino. The failed title Hot Shot was incorporated into it on 4th February 1989, but was cancelled after 853 issues on 20th March 1993 and relaunched as a monthly from September 1993, lasting a further 19 issues until March 1995. The monthly contained some new Roy of the Rovers strips but the majority of the other material was reprint, including Look Out for Lefty and classic Roy stories. A 48 page Roy of the Rovers book containing reprints was published by Ravette Books in March 1993, and a 96 page Roy of the Rovers Collection featuring the Roy newspaper strip (by Kim Raymond) from Today newspaper was published in 1987. Roy of the Rovers Annuals were published from 1958 well into the 1990s. Following the cancellation of his own title, Roy Race's story was continued in Match of the Day magazine from 1997 until the magazine's cancellation in May 2001. Another monthly title, Best of Roy of the Rovers featuring classic reprints, was published from 1988 to 1993, and Roy also featured for a time in Shoot magazine between January 1994 and January 1995. No new material has appeared since 2001 but a 64 page Roy of the Rovers Collectors Edition was published by Egmont in April 2009 featuring strips from the 1980s and two Best of Roy of the Rovers books were published in June 2008 and 2009 featuring material from the 1970s and 1980s respectively. Following just four installments written by Frank Pepper, artist Joe Colquhoun also wrote the strip for four and a half years, succeeded by Derek Birnage. The longest serving writer, though, was Tom Tully, who wrote the strip intermittently from 1969 and then continuously from 1974 until the cancellation of the weekly in 1993. Ian Rimmer was the main writer during the strip's final years.