Valiant (comics)  Valiant was a British boys adventure comics anthology which ran from 1962 to 1976. It was published by IPC Magazines and was one of their major adventure titles throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. The title went through a number of name changes and mergers, although always returning to its simpler one-word name. On 23 February 1963, it merged with "Knockout", and later, with "Smash!" in 1971. It was briefly published for one week as ""Valiant"" again on 25 September 1971, then "Valiant and TV21" on 2 October 1971. It merged with "Lion" on 25 May 1974, and with "Vulcan" on 10 April 1976. After many years, "Valiant" began to seem old-fashioned when the first of a new type of comic was launched, the first issue of "Battle Picture Weekly", in 1975. It suffered further when Pat Mills launched "Action" in February 1976. Attempts by John Wagner to update the title were initially successful, but it struggled to find a place in the market against these tougher adventure titles. "Valiant" limped on for a few months, but finally merged with "Battle Picture Weekly" on 23 October 1976. In June 1963, Valiant brought out the first two (per month) issues of the digest sized "Valiant Picture Library" which featured stories which were nothing to do with the comic. They cost one shilling each. On 19 March 2012, the Royal Mail launched a special stamp collection to celebrate Britain's rich comic book history. The collection featured "Valiant", "The Beano", "The Dandy", "Eagle", "The Topper", "Roy of the Rovers", "Bunty", "Buster", "Twinkle" and "2000 AD". "Valiant" contained a mix of conventional war stories, such as "Captain Hurricane" from the first issue, which was a semi-humorous strip set in World War II about a massive ex-sea skipper who became a Captain in the Royal Marines, and who could be provoked into "ragin' fury" berserker rages which gave him great strength; classic humour strips, such as "The Crows" who were in almost all issues from the first issue, and "The Nutts" (Ginger Nutt, the teenage daughter only really had one panel in issue 3 because basically she was too good looking to be a figure of fun), also from the first issue, and "Billy Bunter" from issue 21; as well as classic detective strips, such as Sexton Blake.