Kojak in Comics by Ian Baker

© Universal / Peter Pan records. Who drew this? Neal Adams? Crusty Bunkers?

In the previous blog, we discussed the prevalence of the TV Tie-In paperback in the UK in the 1970s. Now lets take a closer look at how comics attempted to capitalise on the success of 1970s TV Cop sensation Kojak on the printed page.

First, to refresh your memory on the pop-cultural rise and fall of the lollipop-sucking police lieutenant from the NYPD portrayed by Telly Savalas, the show’s pilot premiered in the US on Mar 8th 1973, and its final episode first-run showing was five years later on Mar 18th 1978.

The UK was late to latching on to the Kojak phenomenon , and it wasn’t until 23 Aug 1974 - almost 18 months after the US debut - that BBC-1 premiered the pilot film - The Marcus-Nelson Murders. The BBC knew they had a hit on their hands, and quickly ran through the episodes of Season One in a totally haphazard sequence, even flowing right into episodes of Season Two before they exhausted episodes from Season One (with the exception of the never-UK-broadcast banned episode “Therapy in Dynamite”).

Back in the US, Universal Television had quickly negotiated with writer Victor B Miller to pen what would turn out to be a series of nine TV-Tie-In paperbacks, which were published in the period Sep 1st 1974 - Oct 1st 1975 in the States (see table at foot of article). These are very good episode adaptations, compelling stories written as a first person narrative by Kojak himself. 

Victor Miller, as per his website , was initially approached by Bernard Shircliff of Pocket Books to novelize three Kojak episodes from Television. He was paid $2700 to adapt the first three scripts, going on to write a total of nine adaptations. These are very readable books. Miller is no hack, has a great ear for dialogue and narrative drive, and successfully went on to write his own novels and screenplays.

Kojak was a tough, gritty show for its time, and Universal Studios had no expectations of licensing a comic book adaptation. Police comics had gone out of fashion in the US in the 1950s. 

Police Comics in the 1950s

Marvel’s Police Action had run for only seven issues in 1954 ; Quality’s Police Comics had finished its 127-issue run in 1952.  Avon published Police Line-Up for 4 issues from 1951-1952, following it up with four issues of Sensational Police Cases from 1952-1954 for thirteen issues.

Mr District Attorney ran at DC from 1948-1959 for 67 issues, surviving latterly on mysteries linked to Aliens and Invisible criminals, avoiding tough gritty storylines which might fall foul of the Comics Code Authority. Similarly, Gangbusters ran at DC from 1947 to 1958 for 67 issues, but had limped to a halt with fanciful stories about robots, frogmen, human cannonball criminals, and alligators.

From an early TV Tie-In perspective, the famous TV series Dragnet had been represented in a daily newspaper comic strip distributed by the Los Angeles Mirror Syndicate from June 23, 1952 to May 21, 1955, but that finished well before the end of that series, which had continued on television in the US until 1959.

One exception to the continued popularity of police comics based on TV properties was Dell's Car 54, Where Are You?, which had a mildly successful run for a year in 1962. Of course, the mild comedy of Car 54 was a world away from Kojak and the NYPD.

A decade later, DC dipped their toes in the water with their publication of DC Special #10 titled "STOP! You Can't Beat The Law!", hitting US stands in November 1970 with a series of early 1950s reprints from Gangbusters, but reader response was tepid despite a fabulous cover by Nick Cardy.

 So by early 1973, the received wisdom was “Police Comics Do Not Sell!”

However, by the beginning of 1975, Pocket books had published six of Victor Miller's Kojak novelizations to strong sales. Martin Goodman at the newly formed Atlas Comics had taken notice, and felt that his new Atlas Comics line could tap into this public obsession for cop shows. And so Atlas Comics released the only 1970s US comic book with “Police” in the title in Feb 1975, called “Police Action with LOMAX NYPD”, which ran for only three issues, and folded with the rest of the Atlas line that Summer.

With the success of Kojak on TV in the UK (and with an eye on World Distributors’ UK success with publishing paperbacks of TV Private Detective Frank Cannon), Star Books (an imprint of W.H. Allen) kicked off UK publication of some of Miller’s Kojak novelizations, starting with book #2 “Requiem for a Cop” in August 1975, following up with “Girl In The River” (book #3) in September 1975. The first book had sold 100,000 copies in the UK, and by the time that the third book “Marked For Murder”  (a retitled version of US book #5  “Death is Not A Passing Grade”) was published in December 1975, 165,000 copies had been sold. 

Kojak was a popular mass-market paperback phenomenon in the UK at a time when most mass market paperback series success stories involved soft porn in the vein of Timothy Lea’s “Confessions Of…” series. 

By 1976, Kojak’s star was starting to wane. The publication of the US paperbacks by Victor Miller had ended in Oct 1975, but Star persevered in the UK printing a few more books into 1976.

Kojak had started its 4th season in October 1976 on BBC-1 in the UK, now in lockstep with US transmission dates . Public enthusiasm was waning, and the show was routinely moved to a late time slot in the UK.

Counter-intuitively, publishers Stafford Pemberton of Knutsford, Cheshire, jumped in to the market with a 1977 hardback children’s Kojak Annual for Christmas 1976.  The book was a mix of illustrated text stories  and comic strips. I assume that they picked up licenses cheaply now that the show was in decline ; it was certainly no longer dominating pop culture in the UK.

Jon Davis artwork

The strips in the Annual were drawn by artist Jon Davis (1928-2020),  aka John Fox. Most of his previous output had been for licensed titles made in cooperation with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's TV production company Century 21.  In the girls' title Lady Penelope, he illustrated 'The Angels', a spin-off of 'Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons', but also the non-Anderson feature 'Daktari'. He was also present in Joe 90: Top Secret (1969) and TV21 with 'The Champions' and 'Secret Agent 21'. In the 1970s, he continued his Anderson-related work at Polystyle Publications, drawing 'Joe 90' and episodes of 'UFO', 'Thunderbirds', and 'The Secret Service' for Countdown (1971-1973).   (Per lambiek.net)

In parallel in 1977,  there was a single attempt at a Kojak comic strip in the US as an adjunct to a Kojak book and record set of two original Kojak stories played by session voice actors. (Peter Pan Records #BR 518 "Five Star Final' & 'A Question of Honor'). The strip was drawn by Alan Kupperberg according to GCD, claiming that Neal Adams did the album cover. Peering at the cover at the top of this blog, I think I see more of Dick Giordano’s work, so perhaps it was a Crusty Bunkers collaboration.  The script was by David Dann.

Artwork Alan Kupperberg?

Over in the UK, the 1977 Kojak Annual was deemed a success. Remember that children’s Annuals were typically purchased by doting aunts for their nephews and nieces, not generally bought by the recipient. And so Stafford Pemberton followed up at Christmas 1977 with a follow-on Kojak Annual for 1978.

Artwork Jon Davis

Sales were nowhere near as good.By March 1978, the TV series was cancelled in the US, and would finish its run in the UK in a few months by August. Yet Kojak's appearances in comics was not yet done. 

Polystyle Publications was looking for licensable characters for its new TV-oriented comic strip weekly Target. They acquired the rights to Kojak, and the strip appeared in  Target Issue 1 cover dated 14th April 1978, a month after the show’s US cancellation. When Target was amalgamated with TV Comic, the strip continued in August 1978, ending its run with issue #1408 on 24th Nov 78.

Jon Davis had initially continued to draw the strip in Target, at some point handing over the reins to David Lloyd of subsequent V for Vendetta fame to close out the strip. (per Down the tubes).

A typical Kojak Strip from TV Comic

A total of 64 pages of black and white artwork was drawn during this period.

Reading the strips, they are a strange curio of rambling narrative interspersed with violent action. Jon Davis’ artwork is serviceable ; David Lloyd’s art contains hints of the masterly work for Warrior and DC a few years later.

There is a similar story linked to publication of Cannon TV tie-ins which resulted in a comic strip in Target also.

For those of you further interested in US TV Tie-In’s I recommend TV Tie-Ins by Kurt Peer, which purports to list every US-published TV tie-in. It’s a good reference book, although by excluding books published only in the UK, it only tells part of the TV Tie-In story. 

Table of Kojak TV Tie-Ins