Striker (comic)
| Striker | |
|---|---|
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | The Sun newspaper, Striker 3D and Nuts Magazine |
| Publication date | November 11, 1985 - Present |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Pete Nash |
| Artist(s) | Manuel Benet, John Cooper, Simon Ravenhill, Juan Cabrera, Will Turner, Luca Bonomo and Joel Carpenter |
| Editor(s) | Steve McKenlay |
Striker is a fictional British comic strip and former magazine, which is created by Pete Nash and features in the British tabloid newspaper The Sun. The strip first appeared in The Sun on Monday November 11, 1985 and ran in the newspaper daily until August 2003, when the author decided to launch the strip as a weekly independent comic book. However, the strip returned to the The Sun during October 2005, after the comic book had published 87 issues and suffered financial problems. Over the four years the newspaper strip was published daily until the end of September 2009, when it transpired that Nash had served a years notice to bring the strip to a conclusion. However, Striker returned on January 26, 2010, as a full-page comic strip in the weekly UK lads magazine Nuts, where it was published as a weekly strip until October 2010. It subsequently went unpublished until January 7, 2013, when it started to be published in The Sun newspaper. Over the next three years it was published seven days a week, before it was announced that Striker would no longer be published in the paper after February 13, 2016. Later that year, it was announced that the strip would be brought back to the paper by popular demand, with matches shown live on the internet for the first time.
When it was first published, the strip revolved around the life of striker Nick Jarvis, who was playing for an amateur side Oakvale, who had just been drawn against Manchester United in the third round of the FA Cup. Oakvale were well beaten in this match, but Jarvis played well and eventually signed for Thamesford Football Club on a permanent basis.
Since its inception, the strip has mainly revolved around the life of striker Nick Jarvis, who began his career as an apprentice footballer with First Division side Thamesford, before joining Warbury Warriors in 1994 as player/manager. The club were then a non-league side and Nick eventually led them to the Premier League. Several promotions and relegations have followed since then. Although Warbury won the European Champions League in 2009 they have never actually won the Premier League.
Although Warbury Warriors is a fictitious team (as was Thamesford) the comic strip features them playing against real teams and players from England's Premier League and Football League every week.
Nick's own playing career was ended in 2003 by a shark attack off Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. In May 2013, with Warbury in Division 2, Nick briefly made a playing comeback at the age of 45 to help them reach promotion to the Championship.
Striker was created during 1985 by Pete Nash, who had just become a design sub-editor on The Sun newspaper, where he was exposed and took inspiration from the original artwork of strips like George and Lynne and Axa. As a result, he decided to create a newspaper cartoon strip and explored a number of ideas, before deciding on a football theme, as the only other strip was Roy of the Rovers, which he personally believed had become "tired and dated". Nash subsequently drew the first ten panels and despite the amateurish, overdrawn and messy look to them, he showed the strips to The Sun's managing editor at the time Kelvin MacKenzie. Kelvin subsequently asked Pete to show the strip to his deputy and managing editor, before the first newspaper strip was published on November 11, 1985. Over the next few years, the strip was published, in a pencil, brush and ink format in A3, before it was reduced in size by photocopier to the size it would appear in the paper. During August 1990, Striker started to be coloured in with Pantone markers, after being reduced to publication size. During 1994, as Striker approached its tenth year, Nash felt that the newspaper strip needed a "major update" with fresh faces and new characters. As a result, Nick left Thamesford FC and joined Warbury Warriors as their "Player-Manager" during July 1994, with the challenge of taking them from the conference to the Premiership in successive seasons.
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