Ron Turner's SPINBALL WARS (Battle-Action 1978)

The artist Ron Turner delighted comics readers in the 1950s with his superb science fiction strips such as Space Ace and Rick Random, and in the 1960s with his colour work on The Daleks for TV21. By 1978 he was illustrating The Spinball Wars for Battle-Action, and I'd like to show you a sample of that today. This episode is from Battle-Action dated 7th January 1978.

The Spinball Wars had begun life as Death Game 1999 for Action in 1976, changed to the less violent Spinball when the comic was toned down, and later became Spinball Wars to suit the war-themed Battle Picture Weekly when it and Action merged in 1977. Though not as gory as the early issues of Action had been, Battle-Action was still more brutal than most comics, as you can see from this strip with someone being riddled with bullets, his corpse staring blankly at the reader. Ron Turner's style would have perhaps been too slick for a traditional war strip but it was ideal for the futuristic Spinball Wars.

Hopefully, now that Rebellion have the rights to this old material, perhaps we'll be seeing collections of Death Game 1999 and Spinball Wars in the future?