uk comics story

winsumlusum

I am trying to remember a story that ran in a uk comic many years ago possibly 1970's. It was about an army of red ants that were on the rampage and attacking everyone in its path. It would roll into a ball to cross water. the heros were on the run from it. Ring any bells? Thanks

karma_

Could be Ant Wars from 2000AD?

winsumlusum

karma_ wrote: »

Could be Ant Wars from 2000AD?

thanks but no. It was an english comic like Hotspur or Wizard. There was a doc solomon too i think leading the people fleeing from the ants

karma_

winsumlusum wrote: »

thanks but no. It was an english comic like Hotspur or Wizard. There was a doc solomon too i think leading the people fleeing from the ants

Was it a text based story or illustrated with panels?

karma_

found this - From the Victor issues 47-57

March of the Ants, The (series characters; African adventure; text; featuring Doctor Solomon; Red Ant army; artist not known).
47 - 57.

Looks like it might be a text adventure and dates from 1962. Sound about right? Or I wonder was this a later retelling of that story that was illustrated.

Interesting.

winsumlusum

karma_ wrote: »

found this - From the Victor issues 47-57



Looks like it might be a text adventure and dates from 1962. Sound about right? Or I wonder was this a later retelling of that story that was illustrated.

Interesting.

that sounds about right but i think it must have been later as it was in the 1970's i read it and am almost certain it was picture story illusttrated. I remember seeing the ball of ants, they would form into a ball to cross the river.

Do you have a link to the full story? I tried but could not find it but may have found reference here,scroll down to african themed stories

karma_

I'll make some enquiries for you and let you know if someone can pin it down.

In those older anthology titles the text adventure story would come with one or 2 panels of illustration, that could explain what you remember. I'll let you know if this rings a bell with anyone else though.

winsumlusum

I found out it was called War March Of The Ants.

Here is a summary of the story.

Doc Solomon's affinity with animals and birds is so well known that a wounded lioness makes her painful way through the Tanganyika jungle to get treatment from him. This empathy and his ability to get them to do his bidding prove useful in his struggle against some soldier ants. Kombo, the son of Chota, the chief of the Bukoba tribe, arrives to ask Doc to cure his father's fever. As Doc approaches the settlement he gets angry because he can see the arrangements being made for the annual entrapment of thousands of birds. He warns Kombo that they will regret such wholesale slaughter if they suffer a plague of insects, but both Kombo and Chota refuse to change their plans. Playing a reed pipe Doc produces an alarm signal which diverts them elsewhere.
As Doc returns to his own hut he sees a red ant, a soldier ant, easily an inch long with vicious mandibles, and realises that it is a scout, miles from its normal habitat in the Belgian Congo. Doc goes down to the Kageru river and sees hundreds of thousands of these invaders crossing it, their legs laced together in four-foot-wide balls. Doc rushes back to warn the Bukoba tribe and to organise the essential resistance. The ant army clears the entire contents of a hornet's nest, and eats alive a boa constrictor within the space of a few hundred yards. This apparently intelligent army, which seems to have a clearly-defined command structure, is an almost insuperable problem for Doc. With his reed pipe he repeatedly calls in his birds to gorge themselves on the ants. He uses fire but they regroup. He creates water barriers but the ants resort to burrowing under these defences. Eventually, Doc discovers that the ants cannot stand the smell of the oily juice of the kavarango plant. He is then able to plot their defeat.


The person who told me wrote the above summary and wants to stay anonymous. i post in case anyone here is interested