newsagents all over England. The content was mostly American newspaper strips and the first issue sported a cover strip by Will Eisner. Okay lasted only until 26 February 1938, or a total of twenty issues. At about this same time, other British publishers experimented with reprinting American comics and imports of the real thing began to land on British shores. It rapidly became apparent that a significant British market for American comic books existed. However, the British declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939, immediately halted the official importation of American comics into the United Kingdom although masses of American comics intended for G.I.s began arriving in 1942. Already with a taste for American comics, Thomas Volney Boardman, Sr., made an arrangement with Everett Arnold of Quality Comics to produce British editions of two titles, Feature Comics (#29–33) and Smash Comics (#7–11) all appearing in 1940–1941. Because Boardman needed low priced titles to please his primary outlet, Woolworths Group's Department Stores, the British editions reprinted only about half the content of the American originals. To use the rest of the pages, Boardman created two additional corresponding titles in the American style, Super Funnies (#29–33) and Mystery Comics (#7–11). British Army in World War II Drafted in March 1940, Denis McLoughlin served with the Royal Artillery's 101st Light Anti-Aircraft and Anti-Tank Regiment (later the 1st Armoured Brigade). He managed to practice his art by painting a rhino insignia on the regiment's vehicles and by painting at least 37 murals of different sizes in various military buildings. His unofficial position of regimental painter gained McLoughlin much greater freedom than the common soldier and allowed him several opportunities to practice his art. In the beginning, he painted officer's portraits for 5/- each. Soon, however, a London publisher, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., offered him work painting book covers at the rate of £5 each. The first of these covers was for Frank Gruber's Navy Colt which appeared in 1943. Other covers followed for Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. which eventually recommended McLoughlin to Boardman Books. Having no work, however, Boardman passed Denis on to Australian-owned Kangaroo Books. Kangaroo Books For Kangaroo Books (their logo looked amazingly like that of America's Pocket Books), McLoughlin painted a few paperback covers but primarily produced joke books. The publisher paid £18 each for these which included writing about 50 jokes, illustrating them, and producing the