Britain used to have a comics industry. I guess it still does after a sort, but it's nothing like it used to be. It used to be the case that there were dozens of titles coming out each week from multiple companies and covering a wide range of genres. Now, outside of around 4 or 5 titles, we're mostly down to licensed stuff tied to various cartoons and the like. I can accept that, I guess, as a sign of the times, but what really saddens me is the wealth of material currently languishing mostly forgotten, so little reprinted, most only available if you can track down the back issues - and compared to the US back issue market, it tends to be harder and more expensive to track down a full run of a British title. I'm guessing most comic readers today, even the British based ones, don't even know most of these old titles and characters even exist, and those that do only know them through short run minis like Albion (hugely underrated in my opinion, but I do have the advantage of being able to spot most of the Easter Eggs), or through analogues of them used in series by various British writers. Consider that writers such as Paul Grist, Ian Edginton, Garth Ennis, Brian Bolland, Warren Ellis, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison all remember these characters with a level of fondness that prompted them to pay homage to them in their own work; the best of the old British characters are every bit as vibrant and worthy as Marvel or DC's top characters. So, for those of you who might be reading this, and who were wondering what new comics you might want to check out, I urge you to hunt down and try what few collections there are, and discover these characters for yourself. Dan Dare and the 2000 AD characters are lucky ones - they are generally well served with TPB collections, and well worth trying. But look out also for the Charley's War series, the quintessential British war comic, and  hunt down copies of King of Crooks (so titled because they couldn't use the name of the main character, the Spider, in the title for trademark reasons) and Steel Claw: The Vanishing Man, both sadly only the first installment in what proved to be incomplete reprint runs. Seek out the Albion Origins hardcover that prints a selection of stories featuring various characters who later turned up in that series. If you are very, very lucky, you might be able to track down copies of the Cursitor Doom or Phantom Patrol complete TPBs, though I sady doubt it, as they had very limited print runs. They are different from the US fare, paced more dramatically due to the need to fit stories into weekly installments of three or four pages, more than a little quirky in most cases, and yes, you'll have to get used to the art being in black and white. But they are also truly wonderful adventures, featuring tales and characters somewhat darker than the average American hero of the same era. Most people quite literally don't know what they are missing.