Redfox (comics)

Publication history

Redfox herself first appeared in Dragonlords fanzine. Fox, the comic's artist and creator, used the strip to comment on barbarian fashion-sense in fantasy games, and later expanded his heroine's story into a three-issue Redfox fanzine.

The fanzine stories were revised and redrawn to form the early issues of a bimonthly US-format black & white comic, which were reprinted in the two Book of Redfox graphic novel compilations. Harrier Comics published the first ten issues in the UK. Valkyrie Press was then established solely to publish Redfox, but later took on Bryan Talbot's comic The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. After a further ten issues, publication ceased. An 8-page "origin of sorts", written by Martin Lock and drawn by Fox, was published in Swiftsure #9 (July 1986), another Harrier Comics title.

Redfox #7 (January 1987) had a specially painted cover by John Bolton. A number of the top UK professional comics artists gave their support to Harrier Comics by contributing covers in this way.

The Demon Queen Saga

Issues #5-10 comprised a story arc officially titled "The Demon Queen Saga", which was a turning point in more than one way. The series, which began as a comedy set in a fantasy world, suddenly became driven by angst and tragedy. (This was around the time when comics such as Watchmen were popularizing treatment of more serious and adult themes.)

Additionally, it was during The Demon Queen Saga that writer Chris Bell joined the creative team, usually co-scripting the story over Fox's plots. Chris Bell recounted how this happened:

The story itself was an obvious clone of The Dark Phoenix Saga. Both The Demon Queen Saga and The Dark Phoenix Saga share the following plot:

1. Character A gains a new source of power (Zebethyial's ring in Redfox, the Phoenix Force in X-Men), which turns her from one of the weakest members of the cast to one of the most powerful. (Redfox #1/X-Men #101)
2. Character A has no notion of the nature of this new power, but quickly accepts it nonetheless. (Redfox #1/X-Men #101)
3. Character A becomes more vicious and unscrupulous, prompting her friends to become concerned. (Redfox #5-6/X-Men #129-132)
4. A traumatic event causes Character A to lose control of herself to the source of her new power and become a god-like evil being. (Redfox #6/X-Men #134)
5. With her power increased to the level of a god, Character A kills a vast number of innocent people. (Redfox #6/X-Men #135)
6. In response, authorities from multiple worlds mobilize to kill Character A. (Redfox #9/X-Men #136)
7. Character A's friends fight to free her of the dark influence, but are easily overpowered. Character A renders them all immobile and begins tormenting them. (Redfox #9-10/X-Men #135-6)
8. A friend of Character A, who Character A overlooked, uses psychic abilities to free Character A from the force controlling her. (Redfox #10/X-Men #136)
9. In her moment of lucidity, Character A commits suicide in order to prevent herself from killing any more people. (Redfox #10/X-Men #137)

Fox was unashamed to admit that The Demon Queen Saga was almost entirely derived from the legendary X-Men story arc. Besides giving the story an obviously similar title, when a reader wrote about issue #5 "Is this the start of some 'Dark Redfox' kind of saga?", Fox teasingly replied that there was little resemblance because Dark Phoenix had a weaker sense of humor.

Major characters

Guest appearances

Other figures from British comics of the time helped out now and again: for example, Bryan Talbot contributed the cover art for issue nine, and Neil Gaiman wrote part of the final issue when Chris Bell was rather distracted by the imminent arrival of her baby.

Collected editions

The series has been collected into trade paperbacks: