Британдық комикстің тарихы: «Страйкер» жолағы

British comic strip

Striker was a fictional British comic strip created by Pete Nash in1985 and ran in various formats until its last issue was published in 2019. The strip first appeared in The Sun newspaper on November 11, 1985, and was published daily until August 2003 when the creator decided to launch the strip as a weekly independent comic book. However, the strip returned to The Sun during October 2005, after the comic book had published 87 issues and suffered financial problems. Over the four years the newspaper strip was published daily until the end of September 2009, when it transpired that Nash had served a years notice to bring the strip to a conclusion. However, Striker returned on January 26, 2010, as a full page comic strip in the weekly UK lads magazine Nuts, where it was published as a weekly strip until October 2010. It subsequently went unpublished until January 7, 2013, when it started to be published in The Sun newspaper. Over the next three years it was published seven days a week, before it was announced that Striker would no longer be published in the paper after February 13, 2016. Later that year, it was announced that the strip would be brought back to the paper by popular demand, with matches shown live on the internet for the first time.

Striker was created during 1985 by Pete Nash, who had just become a design sub editor on The Sun newspaper, where he was exposed and took inspiration from the original artwork of strips like George and Lynne and Axa. As a result, he decided to create a newspaper cartoon strip and explored a number of ideas, before deciding on a football theme, as the only other strip was Roy of the Rovers, which he personally believed had become "tired and dated". As a result, Nick left Thamesford FC and joined Warbury Warriors as their "Player Manager" during July 1994, with the challenge of taking them from the conference to the Premiership in successive seasons. During June 1999, the author decided to set up his own company Striker 3D, and set about recruiting staff in order to improve Striker, while laying foundations for future projects like a website and a comic book. However, at around this time Nash's long term relationship with The Sun started to deteriorate, as, in addition to the newspaper strip, the author wanted to publish a weekly comic that would feature Striker as a major part of its content. On August 28, 2003, Nash published Britain's first weekly comic strip in twenty five years, with a launch budget of around £300 thousand, after he had put his house firmly on the line. As a result of this, the author decided to convert Striker 3D into a public limited company, which eventually meant that Nash could sell shares in his company to the comics readers. After the comic folded Nash was offered the chance to take Striker back to The Sun, on terms that he hoped would pave the way for a better relationship. It subsequently transpired that Nash had served a year's notice to bring the strip to a conclusion, with the last strip appearing on September 18, 2009, as he had run out of ideas and wanted to pursue other avenues. However, due to the harsh economic climate, the magazine was not able to find a corporate sponsor for the strip, which meant that the income was not sufficient to cover the artwork and production costs. As a result, the author decided that it was not viable to continue producing the strip and served a months notice, that the final strip in Nuts would be published on October 5, 2010. During the opening months of 2016, the then editor of The Sun, Tony Gallagher decided to end the two surviving comic strips in the paper, Hagar and Striker. However, less than two weeks after The Sun had dropped Striker from the paper, the paper asked the author to bring Striker back following a protest from fans, but initially only offered space for 3 panels a day. According to Nash, they explained that the decision was taken as a result of cost cutting measures caused by declining sales and advertising revenue, however, the author announced that he did not wish to place all of his eggs in their basket again. As a result, long negotiations ensued including with another unnamed newspaper, before Nash achieved a deal with The Sun, enabled him to explore the commercial opportunities for Striker outside of The Sun. The comic strip returned to the paper during August 2016, with a two week catch up on previous events, before the new era kicked off on August 29, 2016, with daily motion comic videos of the episodes shown on both The Sun's and Striker's website as well as Striker's YouTube channel. He stated that there were 4 main problems with the previous weekly comic publication, which were that the overheads were too high, they couldn't afford to advertise, they were trying to please people of all ages and that it was too Striker specific. Striker subsequently exceeded their target and raised over £43 thousand, which was then used to launch the comic during September 2018.

Over the years, the strip has mainly revolved around the life of striker Nick Jarvis, who originally played for Oakvale, before moving to Thamesford during 1986. Over the next five years he played regularly for Thamesford, before he briefly moved to the Italian club A. C. Tornado, during the 1991 story Burnout. However, Nick returned to Thamesford at the end of that story as the club was wound up and ceased to exist. During the following year, Nick became the chairman of Thamesford, after he brought a house which the owner had just inherited from his father. Over the next two years During May 1994, after Thamesford had won the FA Cup, Nick decided to give away all of his shares in Thamesford to the season ticket holders in order to continue playing in the Premier League. Oakville were subsequently well beaten in this match, however, Jarvis played well and was spotted by Jim Cassidy and Alex McCabe, who were the manager and chairman of the fictional Thamesford Football Club. Cassidy and McCabe subsequently approached Jarvis to play on a trial basis for Thamesford, however, he initially rejected this offer, but later changed his mind and played against Ashton. The kidnappers subsequently asked McCabe for half of Jarvis reported value of £900 thousand. McCabe initially refused to negotiate with the kidnappers, but was told that he would need to look for a whole new team and manager if he didn't pay the ransom. Lewis subsequently turned up with an ex girlfriend of Jarvis's to the player of the year awards, where he got drunk and attempted to drive them both home. McCabe's widower subsequently sold the club to a gangster called Eddie Carlton for £11 million, who becomes the chairman of Thamesford. However, he struggled to find another club and that managers felt intimated by him because he used to be the chairman at Thamesford and was scared of him stamping his authority on them.

As the comic era opened, Eric and Vanessa were taking money out of a cash machine, while three bank robbers ran out of the bank dressed in masks of Prince Charles, The Queen and Tony Blair carrying £100 thousand in cash. Eric subsequently managed to delay the robbers by pretending that his car which was parked in the way of their getaway vehicle wouldn't start. As a result, the robbers subsequently abandoned the money and ran off, as the police turned up before Warbury were drawn at home to Manchester United in the Carling Cup later that day. The robbers subsequently hatched a plan to get revenge on Openshaw by kidnapping his wife and placing a £2 thousand bet on Warbury to lose to Manchester United 9–0 in four different bookies. They subsequently traced her movements before kidnapping her ahead of the game and taking her to their hideout where Pickaxe Pete was waiting for them as he wanted in on their plans.