Revolver (comics)


Revolver is the title of a short-lived British comic book magazine published by Fleetway Publications in the early 1990s. Founded by Steve MacManus and edited by Peter Hogan, Revolver was a spin-off from 2000AD.
It was notable for its diverse content, reflecting the explosion of the British music scene at the time. The magazine attempted to take advantage of the 1960s revival which was sweeping British culture in the early 1990s, including taking its name from The Beatles' album of the same name. It gained a small following, but not enough for it to last beyond its seventh issue. The magazine's letters page was called "The Whole Wide Whirl."
Revolver was given the 1991 UK Comic Art Award for Best New Publication.

Publication history

Revolver was published between July 1990 and January 1991, lasting for seven regular issues and two specials. After it was cancelled due to poor sales, two of its stories were concluded in another Fleetway publication, Crisis.

Contents

Revolver featured a wide range of graphic styles and contributors, everything from a surreal inside-the-mind-of Jimi Hendrix storyline, a psychedelic superhero in the form of Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy's Rogan Gosh, distorted caricatures in Pinhead Nation, plus Happenstance and Kismet, student-house antics in Dire Streets, as well as the resurrection of Dan Dare, this time in a story called simply Dare. In Dare, writer Grant Morrison gave a new interpretation to the original Eagle character in a political story, setting Dan Dare against a thinly veiled caricature of the Thatcher government.
Two Revolver Specials were also published, a Revolver Horror Special around Halloween 1990, and a Revolver Romance Special in March 1991, two months after the cancellation of Revolver itself.
After Revolver's cancellation, Dare and Happenstance and Kismet were completed in the pages of Crisis. Dare was collected into a four-issue limited series in 1992 by Fantagraphics. Rogan Gosh was compiled into a collected edition in 1994 by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.

List of stories