Warrior magazine 1983 featuring Axel Pressbutton

Warrior magazine
issues 15 and 16
November - December 1983

It's surprising what you can find sometimes when you step into the smaller record and book shops.

Last summer, when I was in Horseheads, New York I stopped into a little record and book shop and saw, on a table in the back of the store, two issues of the UK comic book Warrior.

Warrior was founded by UK pop culture / comics mover and shaker Dez Skinn. It lasted for 26 issues, from March 1982 to January 1985. It was a seminal influence on comics in the UK, offering a showcase for what could come to be major talents: such Alan Moore, Alan Davis, Dave Gibbons, Brian Bolland, and John Bolland, among others.

My scans of some of the pages from these two issues should provide an idea of the layout of the magazine and its featured comics.

Since it's now December, I thought I would post an entire comic from Warrior No. 16: 'Christmas on Depravity', which first saw print in 1981 in the UK weekly magazine Sounds. 

'Christmas' features the homicidal cyborg 'Axel Pressbutton', a legendary figure in the UK comics scene.

Created in 1979 by Steve Moore and Alan Moore, Axel Pressbutton was sort of a British take on a US 'underground comix' strip. His adventures were republished in the U.S. in the mid-80s by Eclipse Comics.

'Christmas on Depravity' melds the comix art style (apparently Alan Moore illustrated this episode ?!) with a warped sensibility that seems uniquely British........................