Preview: Don Lawrence’s Legendary ‘Rise And Fall Of The Trigan Empire’ Concludes

by Richard Bruton

One of the legendary books of sci-fi, The Triagn Empire, reaches its end in the fifth book of the series, publishing November 2023.

The Trigan Empire is one of those series that you’ll hear artists and fans speak about in similar reverential tones. Yet, before this, there was no definitive collection of something so important and influential in British comics. Well, with the fifth and final volume coming out in November, there’s going to be plenty of bookcases being weighed down by this series.

The long running strip was a superb, influential, and visionary sci-fi series created by Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence, running through the pages of both Ranger and then Look & Learn in the 1970s. It really was (and still is) one of the true gems of British comics, full of sumptuous painted artwork from the legendary Don Lawrence.

Now, here’s the Treasury of British Comics PR…

“The best-selling books collecting the legendary science-fiction classic, The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, continues with a fifth volume collecting comics legend Don Lawrence’s final work on the iconic series.

The 1960s science fiction series from the pages of Ranger and Look & Learn, The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire is one of the great treasures of the British comics and one of the first full-colour ‘widescreen’ comics, thanks to Lawrence’s incredible painted artwork.

The series’ fascinating and thrilling combination of the Roman Empire and ancient Greece alongside fantasy and sci-fi storylines make it one of the landmarks of British comics, and provided childhood inspiration for pop culture luminaries such as writer Neil Gaiman and director Duncan Jones.

This fifth volume in the hit series reprints all the stories originally published in Look & Learn from 1975 through to 1977, and contains Lawrence’s final, flawlessly-painted pages on the series he co-created with Mike Butterworth.

Trigo, his nephew Janno, and the trusted scientist Peric all band together to protect the citizens of the Trigan Empire, from threats both alien and clandestine in these fast-paced yet beautifully painted comic stories which enthralled readers on original publication.”