Ranger was a weekly British comics periodical published by Fleetway Publications from 18 September 1965 to 18 June 1966. Intended as an educational publication, the cover described it as "The National Boys' Magazine" and the content mixed comic strips with a much larger quotient of factual articles than most other Fleetway children's titles of the time. Ranger lasted 40 issues before being merged with Fleetway's fellow educational title Look and Learn in 1966.

Despite its mainly factual remit, Ranger is best remembered for debuting Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence's fantasy epic comic strip "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire".

Creation

Fleetway veteran director of publications Leonard Matthews had devised the educational Look and Learn weekly magazine in 1962, and assigned his prodigy John Sanders to edit the magazine after becoming unhappy with the direction taken with original editor David Stone. The result was judged a success, and by 1965 Sanders was looking for a fresh challenge. Matthews assigned him to the newly conceived Ranger, which was another of Fleetway's attempts to match the success of Eagle by blending exciting adventure serials with the respectability of factual content and higher production values. Despite feeling the dummy was "a poor man's Eagle", Sanders took the assignment to gain experience of working with picture strips.

Printed on high quality photogravure 10" x 13" paper, the first issue of Ranger was 40 pages, around half of which were in colour, and priced at 1/-. Throughout the title's life the cover featured specially commissioned painted artwork, based on a factual subject that was covered inside. Regular educational features included "Your World Today", a collection of spectacular or interesting photographs from recent events around the world; "Bobby Moore's World of Sport", an illustrated column purportedly by the West Ham and England captain; military history strand "The Story of the Soldier"; eyewitness historical account series "At First Hand"; aviation thoughts from test pilot Neville Duke; a car feature from Formula Three racing driver Graham Tomlinson; annotated machinery in "Looking into Things"; a succession of real life tales penned by Biggles creator W. E. Johns (taken from The Biggles Book of Treasure Hunting); and historical picture quiz "What Why Where Who When?".

Picture stories also had an educational undercurrent. "The Adventures of Macbeth" retold the William Shakespeare tragedy, while classic literature was represented by an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Elsewhere, "Britons Never, Never, Never Shall Be Slaves!" attempted to repurpose René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's Asterix series into a comic history of ancient Britons, with Asterix the Gaul renamed 'Beric the Bold' and Obelix referred to as 'the son of Boadicea'. The British weekly perennial of a school serial was provided by "Rob Riley". Fantasy was delved into by two other stories; "Space Cadet" followed Jason January of the Royal Space Force Academy, and was peppered with occasional facts about space and history, while "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire" was initially an ersatz retelling of legends of Ancient Rome through the filter of the Earth-like Trigan people of Elekton. Most of the strips were devised by Matthews and Sanders but written by Mike Butterworth, and featured art from many of the company's most talented artists including Don Lawrence, Jesús Blasco and Geoff Campion, while Frank Hampson (albeit via unused previous work), Ron Embleton, Ferdinando Tacconi and Eric Parker would contribute to covers and factual pieces. Dated 18 September 1965, and Ranger was heavily advertised in other Fleetway titles. The first issue included a booklet on BOAC's new Vickers VC10 airliner as a free gift; the second included a Donald Campbell's Book of Record Breakers album and a selection of colour picture cards for the readers to glue into place inside; the balance of the cards were included in the third issue.

250px|thumb|The cover of Ranger from 26 March 1966.

Despite this and the starry line-up, initial sales were sluggish and the contents were reconfigured Sanders himself would note Ranger was "a huge floperoo" and led to considerable schadenfreude given his previous status as Matthews' "golden-boy editor". He would later recall that Matthews, who had long desired to make a magazine like Ranger, largely refused to relinquish full control of the title, preventing Sanders from making the changes he felt were necessary to make it a success.

To avoid the costly process of cancellation, as was typical of the time Ranger was merged into another title, a practice which would typically result in a boost in the 'new' combined publication's circulation. The chosen target was the purely factual Look and Learn, and Ranger was incorporated into the educational magazine from 25 June 1966, with the masthead reading Look and Learn incorporating Ranger Magazine to avoid a clumsy-sounding compound name. As Look and Learn already had a plethora of factual pages, only the strips "Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire", "Space Cadet", "Rob Riley" and "Dan Dakota - Lone Gun" continued, while a second attempt was made to adapt the Asterix material as "In the Days of Good Queen Cleo". Sanders was uneasy with adding fictional content to Look and Learn, though he would agree that "Trigan Empire" was "the best thing in Ranger" and deserved to continue.

In November 2004, the factual content of Ranger was purchased from IPC Media by Look and Learn Magazines Ltd. IPC retained the fictional contents until they were sold to Rebellion Developments in 2018 as part of their purchase of the pre-1970 Amalgamated Press/Fleetway/IPC comic library.

Stories

The Adventures of Macbeth

:Published: 18 September to 27 November 1965

Britons Never, Never, Never Shall Be Slaves!

:Published: 18 September 1965 to 18 June 1966 After the merger with Look and Learn, the story was refashioned into "In the Days of Good Queen Cleo", modified from Asterix and Cleopatra.

Champion of the Spanish Main

:Published: 27 November 1965 to 22 January 1966

Major Rip Solar of Space-Patrol lands on a planet taken over by criminal Butch Bomba.

  • A modified version of the Captain Condor serial "Captain Condor and the Planet of Destruction" from Lion.