Garth (comic strip)

Garth
Garth as drawn by Frank Bellamy
Author(s)	Steve Dowling
Launch date	July 24, 1943; February 21, 2011 (reprints)
End date	March 22, 1997
Publisher(s)	Daily Mirror
Genre(s)	Action-adventure

Garth was a comic strip in the British newspaper Daily Mirror from July 24, 1943, to March 22, 1997. The strip belonged to the action-adventure genre and recounted the exploits of the title character, an immensely strong hero who battled various villains throughout the world and many different chronological eras.Garth was widely syndicated throughout English-speaking countries during its long run. The 1960s Australian fast bowler Garth McKenzie was nicknamed after the comic strip hero.

Steve Dowling and Gordon Boshell were the originators of the Garth character. Dowling wanted to create a British adventure comic strip, and took inspiration from the American comic strips Superman,Flash Gordon and Terry and the Pirates. Dowling and Boshell took on 15-year-old John Allard to work on Garth, who stayed with the strip for its entire lifetime. After 59 adventures Dowling retired and handed Garth over to Allard, which he carried on until 1971 when Eagle comics' Dan Dare artist, Frank Bellamy, took over the art with Allard writing the scripts.Garth's longevity had been established by Don Freeman, who created almost every basic Garth plot on which the saga was built. Peter O'Donnell, Jim Edgar and Angus Allan also wrote extensively for the strip during its decades-long existence. Philip Harbottle is a leading Garth expert and collector of the strips, and he wrote several of the stories during the 1990s. Martin Asbury became Garth's artist after Frank Bellamy's death in 1976, drawing the strip and writing many of the stories until its final episode in 1997.

In 1993, Bill Storrie produced perhaps a dozen or so 60-page photocopied magazines titled The Gopherville Argus Special Edition No. 1 featuring Garth as a tribute to the writers and artists who had been involved with the strip. Most if not all Garth strips are now owned by Mirror.