Julius Chancer is a 1920s adventurer created by Garen Ewing in 1996, inspired by the tales of H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle, and by the Franco-Belgian clear-line tradition of comics (Tintin, Blake and Mortimer, etc.). He first appeared in book form in The Rainbow Orchid, published by Egmont in 2009.
If you like your comics full of mystery and adventure, stories of lost worlds and high adventure, and creators such as Edgar P. Jacobs, Hergé and Tardi, then you'll want to read The Rainbow Orchid. Set in the 1920s, it is a tale of the search for a mythical flower last mentioned by the ancient Greek philosopher and botanist Theophrastus.
But why does the orchid also feature on a stone slab that may tell of a forgotten Vedic legend? Who was the mysterious stranger who brought one to a remote village in the Hindu Kush, populated by those who are said to be descended from Alexander the Great? And why does Urkaz Grope want the legendary Trembling Sword of Tybalt Stone at all costs?
The Rainbow Orchid is classic adventure at its best. Strong and accessible storytelling with an involving plot and attractive, cinematic artwork, it enjoys a varied international readership of all ages.
Garen started The Rainbow Orchid in 1997, but its first publication was in the small-press comic magazine BAM! in 2002. After becoming a webcomic a couple of years later, it garnered interest from a number of publishers before being published by the UK's biggest children's book publisher, Egmont (also the UK publisher of Tintin), in 2009. It was initially released as three separate volumes, with the full collected edition released in 2012 and a British Comic Award win the following year. English-language publication was followed by editions in Dutch, French, Spanish, German and Danish from a variety of European publishers.
In 2013, a shorter Julius Chancer adventure, The Secret of the Samurai, was serialised in The Phoenix Comic, and was eventually published as a book by Belgian publisher BD Must in 2020, with editions in five languages. A new adventure, The Brambletye Box, is currently in production.
