The following is an edited version of an article written by Jeremy Briggs in 2012 and published on the Bear Alley website.  Thank you Jeremy.

Way back in the pre-history of the Forbidden Planet International chain of stores, and in the early history of British comic shops in general, there was a little shop with a rather high ceiling in an Edinburgh backstreet called descriptively, if rather unimaginatively, Science Fiction Bookshop.

The shop definitely punched above its weight with national advertising, using artwork by Graham Manley, and organised signing sessions that included international guests such as novelist Jerry Pournelle and comics writer Chris Claremont.

Back in the 1970s Science Fiction Bookshop was run by Rob King who, for a while at least, was also an editor and publisher. The comic magazine that he published under the Galaxy Press imprint was called Near Myths and, while it only ran for five issues, it has achieved near mythical status itself as the first home of Bryan Talbot's Adventures of Luther Arkwright as well as Grant Morrison's earliest published work. While four of the five issues had the tag “For Adults” on the front cover, the magazine described itself inside as “primarily for adults although it is suitable for older children.”

Near Myths was an A4 size comic magazine printed on newsprint paper with a full colour cover, similar to Dez Skinn's later Warrior, with a mixture of science fiction, fantasy and humour strips. In addition to Bryan Talbot’s science-fiction/alternate universes The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, the first issue dated September 1978 had Kraimer, a fantasy quest tale written by Mike Wilson with art by Graham Manley, Graham Manley’s own space opera Tales From The Edge, the science fiction/underground comix style humour of Radio Comix by Bonk (Alecks Waszynko), John Eunson’s space opera The Star Run Saga, and two Chris Haddon humour tales, Softly Caught Above Clouds Of Brittle Cream and Good Grief Stories.

Planned as a monthly title, the second issue was dated October 1978 and retained Luther Arkwight, Tales From the Edge, Kraimer, The Star Run Saga and Radio Comix. It also added Magor the Mage, a fantasy humour strip written by John Taylor with art by Chris Haddon, and the one-off science fantasy Time Is A Four Letter Word written and drawn by Grant T Morrison.

Issue 3 slipped slightly to December 1978 and in addition to Luther Arkwight, Tales From the Edge, The Star Run Saga, Radio Comix and Magor, Graham Manley illustrated novelist Brian Lumley’s poem City Out Of Time while Grant T Morrison began his Jerry Cornelius-like Gideon Stargrave. Rob King’s editorial stated that Graham Manley had to drop Kraimer to concentrate on Tales From The Edge but that they intended for another artist to take over drawing Mike Wilson’s scripts, while The Star Run Saga in this issue was the last as John Eunson “wishes to pursue his theatrical career”.

Issue 4 had a major slip to September 1979 with Luther Arkwight, Tales From the Edge, Magor, and Gideon Stargrave returning in the company of Tony O’Donnell’s dragon fantasy Thiirania, Rob Norman’s space opera The Elder Gods and Les Scott’s fantasy Haan. Two chapters of Morrison’s Gideon Stargrave appeared in this issue concluding The Vatican Conspiracy storyline.

There wasn’t quite such a long wait for Issue 5 which was dated April 1980 and had Bryan Talbot as the editor and art director. Luther Arkwight, Tales From the Edge, Thiirania and The Elder Gods returned along with the beginning of a Grant T Morrison science fiction/thriller The Checkmate Man, Alan Hunter’s supernatural Private Eye, Trina Robbins’ fantasy Song Of The Sleepers and Hunt Emerson’s underground humour Large Cow Mix. It was to be the last issue.

Bryan Talbot and Grant Morrison (having dropped the ‘T’) may now be the best known of Near Myths’ regular contributors, but its other alumni also moved on to better known titles with Graham Manley working on an eclectic mixture of Beano, Dandy, Diceman and the Judge Dredd Megazine as well as Darkhorse UK and DC Comics titles, while Tony O'Donnell worked on the DC Thomson digests Starblazer, Star Romance and Football Picture Story Monthly.

In 1987 Steve Holland interviewed Grant Morrison about Near Myths in an interview that was published in After-Image 6 in January 1988 during which Morrison says, “Near Myths was being produced in Edinburgh and I met up with the editor, Rob King, at a comic convention in Glasgow. I'd done these sketches which I showed him, and ended up doing some work for him. It was £10 a page, script and art. I thought that was it - my career was made and I'd be a millionaire before I was twenty! Stargrave was originally based on the lead character in J. G. Ballard's 'The Day Of Forever'; everyone thought he was ripped off from Jerry Cornelius, but it was Ballard. The Stargrave stories were completely off the wall... we were given the freedom to do anything we wanted and everyone had ambitions to raise comics up out of the gutter and into the realms of High Art. In the end, though, the lack of discipline resulted in self-indulgent and impenetrable stories that made no attempt to communicate to the average reader. Having said that, there is a lot of real personal stuff in there and it's probably closer to 'Art', with a capital 'A', than anything I've done since. Looking back, I can see that there was a lot of value there. I think if we'd managed another couple of issues... everyone was finding their feet by issue five, when Bryan took over editing and I think another couple of issues would have really established us."

In 2009 Pádraig Ó Méalóid interviewed Bryan Talbot  and when asked how the Luther Arkwright strip fared in Near Myths Talbot replied, "Very well, in that it was the most popular strip in there. Near Myths was very sporadic though. We produced five issues in about a year and a half. I’ve no idea how many copies were sold but we had national distribution and it was available in newsagents all over the UK. I edited issue 5 and 6, the one that was never published. In many ways it was the forerunner of Warrior and featured the first published work of Graham Manley, Tony O’Donnell and Grant Morrison (who drew his strips as well as scripting them). When the publisher did a moonlight flit to avoid debt, he left all the back issues in his flat. After six months the landlord dumped the lot in a skip so they’re a bit rare!"

It would be another two years before Dez Skinn’s Warrior appeared on newsagents’ shelves.