Tiger was a weekly British comics periodical published by Amalgamated Press, Fleetway Publications and IPC Magazines from 11 September 1954 to 30 March 1985.
Over the course of its run, Tiger featured columns by numerous famous sports figures, including Ian Botham, Geoff Boycott, Tony Greig, Trevor Francis and Charlie Nicholas.
The latter would take over script duties under the pen name 'Stewart Colwyn' - not being a fan of football himself, Colquhoun frequently sought out technical advice from other AP staffers.
[9] As well as "Roy of the Rovers", the first issue also featured racing driver Len Dyson trying to clear his name after an unwarranted jail term in George Forrest's "The Speedster from Bleakmoor", Edward Home-Gall's backwater prize-fighter "Young Hurricane" and Brian Leigh's young cyclist Rick Howland in "The Two-Wheeled Whirlwind" (initially a prose story before graduating to a picture strip in 1956).
Feature pages included the first of series on "Thrilling Stories of Sport" and "Daring Escapes", as well as a missive from the purported blazer and club tie-clad editor, known as 'The Skipper'.
", in which a binocular wielding self-professed export on sports tested readers on rulebook minutiae for football, cricket, horse racing, speedway, water polo, table tennis and more.
[10] Priced at 3d and featuring 20 large newsprint pages, the first issue appeared on Tuesday 4 September 1954,[a] subtitled 'The Sport and Adventure Picture Story Weekly' and brandishing a 'Space Gun Novelty' at new readers.
Initially the title had a stable line-up as 'The Skipper' encouraged readers to write in with their three favourite strips, and in January "Speedster from Bleakmoor" was switched out for a different motor-racing story, "Rivals of Rocky Mountain Roadrace"; other like-for-like swaps were the replacement of "Will Strongbow" with more historical adventure in "The Swordsmith's Adventure" and "Young Hurricane" with boxing legionnaire "Lightning Lorant".
Other notable debuts under the joint banner included long-running Ancient Rome saga "Olac the Gladiator" (drawn for a time by Don Lawrence) and 'frogmen daredevils' "Spike & Dusty".
The comic was reformatted into a 40-page standard-sized weekly, while the arrival of comedy-adventure "Typhoon Tracey" and motor-racing drama "Skid Solo" also boosted circulation.
While never achieving the same fame as Roy Race, Skid Solo would be a popular character with Tiger readers, running until 1982; among the strip's fans were a young Martin Brundle, who would later use 'S.
Agent" while the boom in superheroes that followed the Batman TV series saw a run for crimefighter "The Black Archer"; however, Tiger would always gravitate back to sports.
[15] Taking advantage in the massive boost in interest in sport that followed England's 1966 World Cup win,[7] Tomlinson would strive to promote the series with numerous star contributions and photo ops (with Pelé and Peter Sellers among those persuaded to pose reading the comic).
[16] Tomlinson also strove to learn the new web offset printing method IPC were bringing in to replace letterpress, allowing Tiger to take full advantage of the advancements - including running front cover photographs of sports stars.
Tomlinson meanwhile sought permission to drop the use of 'The Editor' in favour of using his own name in the hope of emulating Eagle creator Marcus Morris' relationship with his readers.
Subsequent winners included long distance runner Brendan Foster, cricketer David Steele, racing star James Hunt, athlete Sebastian Coe and footballer Peter Shilton.
[20] Among the changes made in the hope of revamping the title, Skid Solo was retired - unusually for a dropped character, his career was ended by an accident which left him in a wheelchair.
[11][14] This received strong reader response, leading to Gettens using his editor's letter to promise updates on the injured character, who was revealed to be regaining some mobility in a later editorial.