One of the best reasons for buying The Sun in recent years (and no, I'm not talking about Page 3) has been its daily soccer cartoon Striker from Pete Nash. Three weeks ago Nash took the bold decision of taking the strip away from the paper to publish his own weekly comic.

The split has not been without its acrimony however, and Nash is set to sue his former employers, claiming that his strip's successor (the as yet much inferior The Premier) wrongly indicated that the characters from Striker were dead, and that the paper negotiated a fee for advertising his new comic but never ran the ads in question.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, you've got to wish him luck in his plucky battle to establish the new title on the newsstands, and things have got off to a good start with 38,000 copies snapped up in the first week. What sets Striker apart from the competition is the startlingly effective 3D graphics, the astonishing attention to detail (even more evident in the bigger format), the genuinely witty dialogue and the impressively convoluted, sexy and suspenseful storylines.

This week's issue (#3) reveals Warbury's latest signing - Gazza(!) as well as featuring a cheeky centrefold of heart-throb goalie Rufus Lebonque for the female readership, and there's a massive bust-up between skipper Kurt Panzer and Argie defender Mendo-

Look, stop laughing, willya? 39 is not too old to read a comic graphic magazine, damn it!