Created by Steve MacManus & Colin Maxwell
Can something be both cheeky and cheesy?
It’s the early seventies, and former Vietnam chopper pilot turned “freelance fixer” JACK DERRINGER is working the “Golden Triangle” of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas, because “that’s where the money is.”
His motto?
“Whatever the problem, I’m the solution.”
And that’s what he offers his clients, who tend to be the super-rich. He’s aided and abetted in his (literally) high-flying comic book adventures by his Vietnamese ward, So’n, he of the genius-level IQ, the Kung Fu kicks and the deep and abiding passion for all things pulp.
Their debut in Blazer! #1 is certainly pulpy enough, but it’s mostly a tease, a brief retro sampler full of of unconnected, era-appropriate action scenes (Choppers! Hang gliders! Martial arts!), and Derringer even bears a suspicious resemblance to Magnum P.I.’s Tom Selleck..
The story in the second issue is more rewarding, in that it’s an actual story, filling in some of the blanks, with Derringer and So’n discussing their latest case in their Sunset Strip office. It involves rescuing a young girl from some crazy, Zorro-worshipping cult (yeah, Zorro), while issue three finds the duo in Atlantic City, where they’re called in by one of Jack’s buddies from Nam to help protect a big-bucks poker tournament.
The fourth issue gave us “Good Morning Vietnam!,” which serves as a prequel, taking us back to Vietnam and how Jack and So’n met. It ends with the promise that there would be more “MORE EXPLOSIVE ACTION NEXT WEEK!”
There was no next week. But of course that was just part of the schtick; that these were weekly magazines, all published in the nineteen seventies, with the debut issue boasting a cover date of April 1, 1974. In reality, Blazer! began publishing in 2021.
It’s a tribute/parody/labour of love from U.K. comics legend Steve MacManus and The77 Publications, recalling Britain’s weekly indie comic magazines of the seventies. To both MacManus and The77’s credit, they’ve done a fine job of keeping the joke going, loading each issue with sight gags, dubious contests and ads (like the one pictured for the Derringer film), limited colour (most of the pages are black and white), loads of pulp action and enough period cheese to clog any UK fanboy’s arteries — all printed on cheap-ass paper.
They’ve even saddled the whole venture with a tongue-in-cheek backstory — that a long-lost stash of 90,00 copies of Blazer! had only recently been discovered in a delapidated warehouse on the Singapore docks, and are now being made available — finally!— to the public.
So far, Derringer & So’n have appeared in just the four stories, but creator and writer MacManus tells me the duo will return in the Blazer! Annual, set for publication in the autumn of 2025 — just in time for Christmas.
The cover date is 1976.
Of course…
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The whole Blazer! thing began when UK comics writer and editor Steve MacManus wrote The SheerGlam Conspiracy, a 2019 novel set in the world of British comic book publishing. The novel served as the basis of several of the strips that ultimately appeared in Blazer! — and the UK comics scene is something he certainly knows something about, having toiled in the UK’s comic book trenches since the early seventies. He’s worked with such big writers and artists as John Wagner, Alan Grant, Alan Moore, Peter Milligan, Dave Gibbons, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, and Denny O’Neil on a slew of titles, including  2000 AD, Judge Dredd Magazine, Crisis, and Judgment on Gotham, a Batman/Judge Dredd crossover.
Colin Maxwell is a Scottish comic book writer and artist, known for King Robert the Bruce and The Wars of Independence, and the incredibly long-running Commando Comics series. His stories have been published in several anthologies including Comicscene Annual 2021, Bite Me, Swift at 350, Time & Space: An H.G. Wells Comics Anthology, 13th Moon and Scrieve.
COMICS
BLAZER!
(2021-24, The77 Publications)
4 issues
British comics anthology, focussing on 70s-style pulp-style comics, including Derringer & So’n.
Writers: Steve MacManus, Colin Maxwell
Artist: Colin Maxwell- “Derring & So’n” (April 2021; Blazer! #1)
- “A Daring Rescue —On the Streets of San Francisco” (2021, Blazer! #2)
- “Big Deal in Atlantic City” (2022, Blazer! #3)
- “Good Morning Vietnam!” (2024, Blazer! #4)
- BLAZER! ANNUAL 1976Â |Â Buy the annual
(2025, The77 Publications)
COLLECTIONS
- THE DIGITAL BUNDLE | Buy the bundle
(2025, The 77 Publications)
Collects all four issues of Blazer!
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
