Action and adventure

Sport also took off as a genre. Again, most strips were about dashing British heroes, commonly pitted against  foreign foes (sport as 'war by other means'). Soccer was a mainstay, especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s (due to England's World Cup victory and the successes of various 'classic' league clubs), and giveaway 'league ladders' were a popular gimmick. The most famous soccer hero was 'Roy of the Rovers', he of the unstoppable left-foot thunderbolt', who had been a cover star of Tiger since the mid 1950s, and who got his own title in 1976 (published by IPC). There were others, including most interestingly those created by Dan Maxted for comics like Scorcher (IPC, 1970) - a creator whose crowd scenes commonly featured individuals making comments like 'See the bend on that ball!'.
Educational comics similarly took their own direction. The leader of the pack was undoubtedly Look and Learn (IPC/Fleetway, 1962), which owed much to the high-production values, and equally high moral tone, of The Eagle. Parents bought it for their children, particularly their sons, because of the strips about classical and historical figures, and the 'How it Works' features on subjects like internal combustion engines. The kids, meanwhile, turned straight to the back pages for the remarkable science fiction strip by Don Lawrence, 'The Trigan Empire', a rip-roaring 'future-past' actioner with plenty of violence.