Ranger (magazine)



Ranger was a British weekly comic/text magazine published by Fleetway Publications which debuted on 18 September 1965 and ran for 40 un-numbered issues until 18 June 1966. The title was then incorporated into Look and Learn from issue 232, dated 25 June 1966.

The title was created by Leonard Matthews but edited by John Sanders, with Ken Roscoe as assistant editor and Colin Parker as art editor. The first issue included a free booklet featuring information on the then recently introduced BOAC VC10.However in issue No 191 September 11, 1965 of Look and Learn the advertisement for the first issue of Ranger shows the front page simply stating FREE inside a GIFT for YOU.Whilst further down the advertisement it states this to be A Superb Booklet of the VC10,BOAC'S Wonder Aircraft what is pictured is a balsa/plastic type model of the VC10.Issue(s) of Ranger do exist stating on the cover that the free gift is in fact A SUPER PLASTIC FLYING MODEL OF THE B.O.A.C. VC.10 AIRCRAFT.Whether different prints of the coverpage with different free gifts were issued in different parts of the UK is not certain.

Content
The content was a mixture of factual articles, photo features and comic strips designed to appeal to boys.

Nowadays it is best remembered as the birthplace of the science fiction strip The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire originally drawn by Don Lawrence which ran continuously from issue 1 of Ranger until the final issue of Look and Learn in 1982.

Other notable strips include:
 * Rob Riley, drawn by Jesus Blasco (a school story set in Westhaven-on-Sea)
 * Dan Dakota, drawn by Arturo Del Castillo (a Western)
 * Britons Never Never Never Shall Be Slaves (a translation of Asterix from the French magazine Pilote with Asterix renamed Beric and the action moved to Great Britain. In this version (never reprinted), Obelix became the son of Boadicea.
 * Treasure Island, drawn by John Millar Watt (based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson)
 * Space Cadet, drawn by Geoff Campion (space adventure)
 * King Solomon's Mines, drawn by Michael Hubbard (based on the novel by H. Rider Haggard)
 * Blood on the Prairie, drawn by Alberto Giolitti (a Western based on the novel by Paul Wellman)
 * Moby-Dick, drawn by Franco Caprioli (based on the novel by Herman Melville)
 * Allan Quatermain, drawn by Michael Hubbard (based on the novel by H. Rider Haggard)
 * Rodney Stone, drawn by Carlos V. Roume (based on the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Text serials included Sea Change, reprinting Richard Armstrong's Carnegie Medal-winning novel, and Champion of the Spanish Main, which reprinted a serial by Capt. W. E. Johns from the pages of Modern Boy.

Johns was also represented with a series of articles on pirates reprinted from the book The Biggles Book of Treasure Hunting (1962).

In November 2004, most of the content of Ranger was purchased from IPC Media by Look and Learn Magazines Ltd.