Something like Crikey! doesn't happen overnight, you know.

No indeedy. The initial idea for a magazine devoted to the freakishly weird creations that inhabited British comics between the '50s and '70s goes back two and a bit years. During the course of its creation it has left behind a battlefield of corpses as it shuddered between go/no-go status over the ensuing 30 or so months.

My first notion to do a fanzine based on British comics and characters came about when I noticed that my to-read pile was increasingly made up of back issues of British comics rather than books and American comics. And even the American comics I did have in my pile tended to be of the non-superhero kind - let's hear it for Action Philosophers (a real title!).

Most of my reading enjoyment was coming from revisiting the wild, wacky and weird world of British creations from the '50s through to the mid-'70s. Roughly speaking from TV Comic and Eagle through to the end of Smash and Valiant. And when I spoke to people at comic marts they were finding the same thing. American comics were losing it and readers were looking for something different. It seemed that everyone I spoke to was on the threshold of discovering the same thing I had: British comics delivered on entertainment and high strangeness in abundance.

Driving to work one day and thinking about the prospect of creating a fanzine for those idiosyncratic iconoclasts of comic art I thought to myself, Crikey!! What a great idea. And the word summed up my mood and the project perfectly.

I soon found a Super Team of Crikey! Chums willing to dedicate their lives to spreading the word.

Tom Sweetman was first to join and his literary take on feature ideas immediately raised the ante. Having a second writer on board was just what the project needed - and then to cap it all, Tom became a fully-fledged member of the publishing team. Suddenly it wasn't just me against the world.

Tom and I quickly worked out that we'd need a cover and so we went to an old chum who I had worked with in the world of professional comics - the Do-Do Man himself, Mike Kazybrid. When Mike sent us his cover rough it just blew us away and made Crikey! a real, tangible publication.

The next thing to get was a suitable logo. Something so amazing that no human eye could pass it by without stopping and thinking; Crikey! What's that? Something over the top. Something that said Britishness with a strong sense of nostalgia married to a cool modern line.

That's what I said to Joe Matthews, another artist mate of mine. Over a weekend he designed the logo that attracted you dear reader. Nice one, Joe.

Now that Crikey! had a cover and a logo, we were able to let other people know about the project. Bob Norton, a true fan from way back whom I knew from far too many Leeds Comic Marts, pitched in with a great piece on the horror controversy. The word was out and people were offering all kinds of help. Helen D Bennett provided the girls' eye view with her piece on (not) reading Jackie comic. Gez Kelly, the organiser of the North West Comic Marts offered free tables at his marts to promote Crikey!

We were now at the stage where we had lots of words and a toppling pile of images. We needed some way of putting the two together.

Splong! Enter Captain Glenn B Fleming another comics and magazine friend of mine. Not only did Glenn take charge of the magazine and web pages, imposing his professional design eye on the title, but as he fell further under the spell of Crikey! he couldn't help but become the third member of the Crikey! Crew.

Which brings us to today. My wife Jane - yes, another comics fan - has been roped in as proof-reader and the group working to make Crikey! something special seems to expand on a daily basis. Two and bit years after starting off we have our first issue out. Issue two is ready and several features are blocked out for issue three. It has taken us a while to get here - but we wanted to do it right. It had to be something we would read ourselves. Something we would be proud of.

So - whadda you think?

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