Combat Colin is a slapstick comedy adventure comic strip created, written and drawn by humour comic artist/writer Lew Stringer. It appeared in a number of Marvel UK titles. Publication history Combat Colin appeared as a back-up humour strip in Action Force comic in the 1980s. Stringer had a back-up story, Robocapers in The Transformers and was asked if he could come up with something similar for Action Force and he came up with a story about a character who was originally named "Dimbo" when he submitted it. The story then moved over to The Transformers comic for a popular run. After editorial changes dropped humour material from Marvel UK's comics in 1991, Marvel UK gave Lew Stringer the rights to Combat Colin and he revived the character in several small-press titles and fanzines, including a Combat Colin Special with new material. Colin reappeared as a supporting character in the Brickman back-up strips for Image Comics' Elephantmen series. His final appearance in that comic was in the Brickman strip in Elephantmen No.24, Feb 2010. Since then, brand new Combat Colin strips have appeared from time to time in the digital comic Aces Weekly. Fictional character biography The bobblehatted Colin Doobrey-Smiff, otherwise known as Combat Colin, wanted to be a war hero, but even the army thought he was too thick for them; instead, he lived with his Mum and Dad in a suburban English neighbourhood. For many years Colin claimed to have been obsessed with military matters since he was a baby, but he would later admit that all this was a ruse. In fact, he was a comic book geek into adulthood when an alien visited Earth and gave him the "Combat Trousers," which have pockets that contain a gateway into another dimension, allowing him to access all his weapons and equipment. In the beginning, the strips were simplistic complete slapstick half-page stories. As time progressed, the strip's popularity enabled it to become a full pager. Here, Stringer was allowed to develop the character in a series of two to six part serials. Colin also acquired a gun-toting assistant, Semi-Automatic Steve, and a host of supporting characters including their blonde girlfriends The Giggly Sisters (Julie and Joanne Giggly) and a catalogue of recurring villains. Colin and Steve had many adventures battling villains all over the world and even venturing into space and travelling through time. One of the characteristics of