Troops Get Boost from King Kong & Friends!

THE COMIC Book Alliance (CBA) is joining with the 'Support Our Soldiers' charity to send thousands of comic books and graphic novels to troops stationed around the world and many miles from home.

The CBA spoke to troops before Christmas and were informed that one of the biggest problems facing service personnel was boredom when they are not deployed in the field. Comic books have always been a favourite with the troops because they are light, entertaining; easy to carry, share and read.

The CBA passed that information onto its members and were instantly inundated with offers from publishers and retailers wishing to help. There were so many offers that it was impossible to arrange for shipments before Christmas, in addition to which the CBA simply did not have the expertise to send out the parcels themselves. Thankfully the problem was solved when S.O.S; which has been sending goodwill parcels to members of the armed forces since 2003, agreed to take the donations to ensure they reached the people who needed them the most.

With the S.O.S. partnership in place there was a further complication: The donors were spread out across the UK. The comics needed to be collected and then delivered to a central point for distribution and with time running out; it looked like they were in danger of failing to meet their March deadline.

Luckily the Post Office was at hand and thanks to their logistical skills they were able to collect all the donations into a central depot in the South East before shipping them north to be delivered to S.O.S.

"We owe a great deal of thanks to the Post Office. When we explained the difficulties facing us the managers and staff understood the problems involved and found the right solution to help us. Without the Post Office we would have been in serious trouble," CBA co-founder GM Jordan explained.

Special thanks must also go to Markosia and Forbidden Planet who were amongst the first to pledge their support and been a great supporters of the CBA.

Forbidden Planet is one of the UK's biggest comic book retailers and provided a wide range of titles from several publishers. Markosia is one of the UK's premier independent comic producers and they have provided a great selection of their own award winning titles. Those titles include King Kong of Skull Island, Starship Troopers, Harker and the critically acclaimed Hope Falls.

"Thank you for doing a great job on our behalf and we wish you well," said Harry Markos, head of Markosia, with regards to the CBA, before adding, "If our small token goes any way towards cheering up the troops then we are all very happy."

The Comic Book Alliance was founded in 2009 to represent the comic book industry in the UK, working with retailers, publishers, creators, educators and fans to ensure a bright future for the industry.

For further information visit:

www.comicbookalliance.org.uk

www.supportoursoldiers.co.uk

www.markosia.com

www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk