A lost and forgotten issue of the well regarded 80’s/90’s stripzine ‘Atomic’ has been discovered.

Early in the year publisher Tony Foster made available all 13 issues of Atomic online for free. But there was another…

In 1995 Tony was approached by Michael Duncan, one of the original team on Atomic, to produce an issue of Atomic for his publishing course in London. By then Tony had a career in marketing, was working on some student handbooks with 2000AD/Doctor Who/Atomic artist Simon Fraser and was producing weekly film newsletters for large cinema chains in Glasgow.

Tony explains, “I was more than happy to trust Michael with the title. We’d told our stories by then. Nearly 70 pages of The Two Dimensional Horror by Garry Marshall, Simon Fraser’s Thievery For Fun and Profit, Final journeys for David Cairns Cughead, Bluesman & Torso Tales by Tom Walbank and The Girl With The Flowery Trousers by John Miller. From moving around, I’d completely forgotten about the issue and didn’t have the copy I was sent.”

In 1995 a flip cover A5 black and white 48 page issue was published. Craig Conlan returned to the title, John Miller contributed ‘Flying Saucer City’ and Garry Marshall teamed up with Dennis P Elchorn For ‘Scottish Dreaming’, which had been first seen in Fantagraphics ‘Real Stuff’. By then Garry had drawn for Megazine, Roy of the Rovers and Inkling. American underground artist Mary Fleener, whose work had been published by Drawn and Quarterly, contributed to.

There was also some new talent with art by John Hamilton in a story by Michael Duncan called ‘Metamorphuncullus’ , Chris Watson with ‘Jim Crow’ and ‘Robot Love’ by Andi Watson and Barnabus Netherwood. The title is known as Atomic X.

Tony went on, “Atomic 13 was printed, glossy and US comic size. Atomic 14, or issue ‘X’, went back to its stripzine routes. It is as good as any of the previous Atomic issues. Maybe more so. Atomic had very eclectic content. In the history of British Comics that shouldn’t work, but with Atomic it did. If you get a copy, it screams Atomic at you! Michael sent me a copy again, and it was a fantastic read.”

We asked if there was an intention to make this available online? Tony answered, “Not from me. However we will be making it part of an auction lot to raise funds for some new comic projects we have in the pipeline soon. Atomic X will be available alongside the original 13 issues of Atomic and the two comic handbooks I produced with Simon Fraser. That will be a rare and true collection to Own for any comic fan!”