Pat Mills writes for you.
‘The film and stage musical ‘Oh! What a Lovely War 1969’ had a huge influence on me. In my early twenties, I must have watched the film version at least four times. It’s very dated today and is difficult to watch, so I don’t especially recommend it, but the stage play is still excellent. Its appeal to me was that, for the first time, it showed the leaders of the British State as the mass murderers, Machiavellian scum, treacherous plotters and absolute idiots that they really were.
Generally, Oh! What A Lovely War showed them as idiots, and in the same vein, the excellent Blackadder Goes Forth portrays Haig and co. as upper class twats. I knew that there was more to it than that: dismissing them as incompetent fools is too easy, too simplistic, and it lets the British State off far too easily, but it was more than enough to be getting on with. Previously, British war films had shown the officer class and ruling politicians as stiff-upper-lipped paragons of virtue. Yet here in OWALW were the same actors Kenneth More, Jack Hawkins, Dirk Bogarde et al portraying the instruments of the British State as the filth they actually were. That was a revelation to me. It’s fair to say I watched the performances open-mouthed. So, finally, authority could be challenged! Well, it was the sixties. But by the eighties the State would have largely reasserted its control over the media. It’s not considered appropriate to describe these evil individuals in such offensive and crude terms. And certainly not to call them evil. But how else would you describe the mass murderers of a generation? We would use terms like scum and filth to describe serial killers, so the same terms should be used to describe Grey, Haig, Lloyd George and Churchill, responsible for so much more horror and with the knowledge and forethought of what they had done. Anything less is pussy-footing around and a cop-out.
The film at least is a record of the creative skills, protest songs and gallows humour of the ordinary soldiers. Such as “Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire” and “The Bells of Hell”. The impact of such critical songs cannot be underestimated. By comparison, “Keep the Home Fires Burning” was a brilliant piece of establishment propaganda by Ivor Novello that sent many young men to their death. It was recognised as such at the time by Siegfried Sassoon, who swore he would kill Novello for its siren-song lyrics, luring the gullible and the brainwashed to enlist. Instead, he ended up sleeping with Novello.
But back to the film – it was such an inspiration, it led directly to my writing Charley’s War with artist Joe Colquhoun, still in print to this day. Once it was complete, I moved onto other projects.
It was only as I saw the impact of the revisionist historians – or rather the shameless propaganda writers for the State – in the decades leading up to the centenary of the Great War, that I realised I still needed to pick up where Charley’s War had left off. It wasn’t over.
I then discovered Hidden History, the Secret Origins of the First World War, by Scottish authors Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor and its sequel, Prolonging the Agony.
‘Hidden History uniquely exposes those responsible for the First World War. It reveals how accounts of the war’s origins have been deliberately falsified to conceal the guilt of the secret cabal of very rich and powerful men in London responsible for the most heinous crime perpetrated on humanity.’
In summary, Britain started the conflict and the world is still suffering for it today – look at the Balfour Declaration and the state of the Middle East, all down to Perfidious Albion in the Great War. Yet jingoists and all those extreme-right protestors, draped in the Union Jack and the English flag we saw in London recently, led by Tommy Robinson, still think Britain was and is a force for good in the world. Hah!
Craig Murray, one time British ambassador, said it very well in an X post on September 18th 2025:
Speaking at the UN in Geneva in favour of Scottish Independence, I stated that the UK is a force for evil in the world. And people from all over the globe interrupted with spontaneous applause.
I add my applause here, Craig.
I’ve met authors Gerry and Jim, and I’ve checked and have e-book copies of some of their sources, as well as some physical copies Jim kindly passed onto me, and I assure you they’re impeccable. If you try dismissing the case they make as a conspiracy theory, you’re wasting your time. It’s water-tight. I have establishment friends who are military experts and I refer the books to them. They check them and then they just go quiet. Well, what else can they do? It’s rocking the very ground they stand upon. The British State ensured that its propaganda organs (they’re not worthy to be called newspapers anymore – like the treacherous Guardian) never reviewed them, but the truth still got out there and it’s gone all round the world.
So, with Hidden History to inspire and guide me, I’ve pursued various anti-war projects that continued where Charley’s War ended. This is my current project: a 48-page plus comic book, Ragtime Soldier, brilliantly illustrated by Gary Welsh and Phil Vaughan. After a very successful Kickstarter, it will be published by Comic Scene, probably by the end of this year. I don’t think we dare promise that it will be out in time for Christmas, but we’re certainly aiming in that direction.
Ragtime Soldier is influenced by Charley’s War, but also Peaky Blinders and When the Boat Comes In – showing the conflict and then what happened after the war was over.
There are two stories in Ragtime Soldier, the first one, ‘Beating Churchill’, tells the story of how the people of Dundee kicked Churchill out as their MP. This page is beautifully drawn and inked and shows a sick Churchill being carried around by ‘native’ bearers like an Eastern potentate. A hostile member of the crowd offers a bearer money to drop him! Major Pollard, the sinister, real-life James Bond of the Great War, tells Churchill that he’s been outwitted by Ragtime Soldier. As the Dundee election showed, the establishment are not all-powerful, as they like us to think: they can be defeated. Even Winston Churchill. The great man looks suitably annoyed.
In this next image from the second story ‘Trench Raider’, Robbie McTaggart, the Ragtime Soldier, and his mates are given Forced March tablets – cocaine and caffeine – before they go on a trench raid. In the final picture they are all psyched-up and drugged-up to kill and give the famous Dundee battle cry: ‘Marmalade!’
In the last image, the Raiders slip out of their trenches. They have to hit the deck when a German flare illuminates No Man’s Land. Then Robbie realises he has pressed his face down into a decaying corpse. A friend of mine heard a similar story from a World War One Survivor, who had his arm blown off and carried it back to the medical aid post. Like so many other vets (e.g. Harry Patch the last Tommy) he was anti-war, and refused to attend the Cenotaph ceremony because ‘What was there to celebrate?’ Such views are rarely heard today in our tightly-controlled State media. Instead, the newspapers and television will go on dishing out the same jingoistic faux-patriotic lies. But I was very struck by the veteran’s story of the dead soldier and changed my script to include this shocking detail.
Hearing stories from the veterans of the Great War themselves is always the greatest inspiration.1
The Ragtime Soldier comic is still being worked on and we will give a further update soon. I’m sure you can tell from the finished and pencilled pages above it is going to be an amazing book.
Meantime there will be an interview with creators Pat Mills, Gary Welsh and Philip Vaughan in the 200 page ComicScene Yearbook 2026. There are three days to back it. The Yearbook is only available via the kickstarter – once it’s gone, it’s gone! You can also pre order Ragtime Soldier on the kickstarter too. Pledge here
Contents are;
State of the Nation – the future of comics
Comic Review of 2025
What Are The ComicScene Awards
ComicScene Award Winners
Secrets of Peter Pan
Peter Pan Puzzles
Back From The Beyond full colour picture strip
Bear Alley Steve Holland on Mytek the Mighty
Britains Comic Revolution of 1976
Steve McManus on Blazer and his favourite annuals
Eamonn Clarkes favourite Mega City Book Club episodes
David MacDonald on 20 Years of Hibernia
50 Years of Action Comic
Paul Trimble on celebrating 50
years of Battle
Ragtime Soldier interviews with Pat Mills, Gary Welsh and Philip Vaughan
Tara Togs preview
Blake and Mortimer – comics behind the movie
Barrie Tomlinson on what Roy of the Rovers comic would look like now, 50 years later!
The Trigan Empire returns in 2026
Richard Sheaf on Jeff Hawke
DownTheTubes John Freeman on Superman Comics In The UK
Your greatest comic writer, artist, comic and comic movie of all time
2000AD zine including John Wagners comics before 1977, Rok of the Reds, Batman v Dredd, Death and Judge Anderson at 45, Big Dave, Rogue Trooper, The Apocalypse War, Third World War, DiceMan, Starlord, Mazeworld, Metalzoic, Mach One, Toxic – an alternative 2000AD, Halo Jones, Slaine, Dan Dare, 2000AD AKA Tapes and more! The additional 100 pages of ‘ComicScene AD’, the 2000AD ‘fanzine’, will only be available as part of the ComicScene Yearbook 2026 Kickstarter. It collects and reformats all the great 2000AD articles we’ve featured in ComicScene Magazine over the years and is a true collectors item. Includes the 2000AD AKA Tapes. Don’t miss the Kickstarter – ends 30th October.
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