I once complained while Fiction House had a character named Captain Fight in their Fight Comics and a Captain Wings in Wings Comics there never was a Captain Jumbo in Jumbo Comics. But once there was a General Jumbo in British comics, a twelve year old named Alfie Johnson who via remote control commanded model army, navy and air force vehicles that had very real weapons. Happily he used them for rescue missions and to fight crime.

He made his first appearance in The Beano #583 in 1953 and he made his last appearance in 1975 (though he still showed up in the annual The Beano Book until 1979). In the 80′s he also appeared in the weeklies Nutty and Buddy.

It’s an incredibly high concept premise just chockablock with wish fulfillment combining boys interest in toys and the military, the kind of thing that (you’d think) would be natural for toys and cartoons. But sadly except for the occasional rare appearance General Jumbo has been all but forgotten. And what’s worse (for me anyway) so far I haven’t been able to read many of his adventures.

But I did come across The Beano Book 1956. One of the interesting things about the British comics is they were known story papers because until the very early 1960′s they weren’t all comics. Rather, they were a combination of text stories, comics and a hybrid of the two, stories told through comic type illustrations and blocks of text (a.k.a. Prince Valiant style). Here’s an example of one.