Key Moments in My Comics History 6

If you wanted to set your son on the road to a broad general knowledge which would give him confidence and ability at school in the 1960s and 70s, you could have done worse than my father did and subscribe to the amazing magazine Look and Learn which was packed with articles on science, history, geography, nature and much more, along with incredible artwork and comic strips ranging from Bible stories to the science fiction adventure ’The Trigan Empire’.

‘The Trigan Empire’ ran from 1965 to 1982, and concerned the long-past events of an empire on the distant planet of Elekton. Elekton’s societies seemed to be based on ancient cultures that had existed in history, including the Trigan Empire, apparently modelled on the Romans -their clothing was similar to that of the Romans, with many of the populace dressed in togas, or Roman-style armour. Trigan City was built on five hills, in a similar fashion to the seven hills of Rome. However, the Trigans flew ‘atmosphere craft’, had ray weapons and so forth.

Meanwhile, Hericon, the chief rival to the Trigans, mirrored the Byzantine and the Persian Empires.

The fledgling Trigan nation is established under the leadership of Trigo, with the trappings of a Roman civilization, but with ray guns, aircraft and a high-tech navy. Later, the Trigans create a rocketship in months to fly to one of Elekton's moons.

The detailed and well-drawn strip first appeared in the first issue of the British magazine Ranger in September 1965 and then in Look and Learn magazine from issue 232 (June 1966) when the two titles merged after the 40th issue of Ranger.

‘The Trigan Empire’ ran in Look and Learn until the title ceased publication with issue 1049, April 1982, an amazing 854 issues between Look and Learn and Ranger.