Apparently this is a well known series abroad as I occasionally see references to Don Lawrence's The Trigan Empire, but no actual information on it, as if the person making the reference assumes the reader knows all there is to know about it.

As far as I can tell the series ran from 1965 to 1968. My copy is a hardcover collection of 7 stories printed in 1978 by Chartwell Books.
The reprints are:
Victory For The Trigans
Elekton In Danger
The Legend Of Hellas
Truce With Hericon
Revolution In Zabriz
Battle For Trigan City
The Invasion Of Bolus

Victory For The Trigans
For some reason the story starts off with a ship of the now dead Trigan Empire sailing through space and crashing on Earth. Why? Who knows. Maybe they figured if Earth wasn't somehow involved readers wouldn't care or maybe it was their way of providing an anti-nit.
Reader: Hey there are all these continuity errors!
Writer: Oh, well, that's a mistake either by the historian writing the story or Prof. Haddon's translation was off.

It says that the ship was out of control for 8 billion miles, later the star that Elekton orbits is said to be "more than a billion miles away." Uh, yeah, quite a bit more I'd say. IIRC Alpha Centauri is more than 25 trillion miles away. (While I believe that a British billion is what Americans would call 10 billion it's still quite a bit shy of the distance to the nearest star to our system.)

The cause of death of the crew was said to be caused by a heating unit failure allowing the cold of space to infiltrate, but it also says the men died instantly. Elekton physiology must be different from Earth physiology as freezing to death for humans seems to take some time.

A meteor diverts the course of the ship. A meteor is what a space rock is called as it burns up in an atmosphere. In space it is called a meteoroid or asteroid.

The ship crashes in a Florida swamp near a boat. Given the size of the ship I'm not sure the boat, & the father & son on it, should have survived. Wouldn't the shockwave have blasted the water before the ship hit? Wouldn't the ship have buried itself deeply into the ground?

Presumably the ship must not have been meant to land as the design does not allow for it to set down and at the World's Fair braces are needed to keep it upright.

"Medical men studied the sketches made from the bodies." Sketches? Scientists wouldn't have taken photographs?

A chart indicates that the Elektons stood 12 feet tall, however their books are human-sized.

It takes Prof. Haddon 70 years to translate the books. Assuming that the ship crashed in 1965 (when the series started) the translation would have come in 2035. However the Professor's 21st century computer looks suspiciously like a 1960s era computer. Must be a retro thing.

The star of Elekton is called Yarna, however in a later story someone says, "By the two suns of Elekton."

The main continent of Elekton is broken up into 5 countries. Loka takes up the northwest, Daveli taking up the southwest, Theva in the northeast, Vorg (where the Trigan Empire begins) east & Cato in the southeast. After Loka conquers Theva the king decides whether to attack Vorg or Cato next. No mention is made of Daveli and it's not until the second story that we find out that Daveli is a jungle region feared by the other people. Personally I think the mapmaker should have put Daveli where Cato is & vice versa, since the Lokans have to go over, or through, Vorg to get to Cato. Even though the people of Vorg are believed to be uneducated barbarians it would just make sense to conquer the neighboring territories first.
It isn't much of a problem in the first attack when Loka attacks by airships, but in the second attack they use hovertanks which must have crossed Vorg territory, then they make a naval attack which would mean sailing around the whole continent.

Oddly enough the Catons all seem to live in one city instead of being spread out in cities across the country. The Thevan people also seemed to have been based in one city and the Trigans build & live in the city of Trigan, although there are apparently other cities & cultures around the continent.

In order to decide which of the 3 brothers (Trigo, Brag & Klud) will lead the Vorg people, it is decided to use colored stones thrown into a valley, white for Trigo, red for Brag, black for Klud. (Gee white for Trigo the hero & black for Klud who would later turn on his brother? Nice to see the writer going for subtlety.)
Anyway the problem with this is that only the stones on top will be visible. If Trigo's people waited till everyone else has voted then tossed their white stones on top of a pile of black stones it would appear that the people wanted Trigo even if there were more black stones underneath.

Also it's said that the people voted into the night picking up the proper colored stone by moonlight. Have you ever tried to see color by moonlight? Not very easy. (Also moonlight seems to be singular while at this point Elekton has at least three moons, Seres, Gallas, & Bolus.)

Later Klud goes to Loka & convinces the king that he can conquer Vorg. Later the king comments that there is no sign of the man who bragged that he could defeat Vorg with 100 men & six ships. However a panel of the air attack of Vorg showed more than six ships. (Not necessarily a nit. Klud might have said this, but the king might have decided to have more ships attack.)

In this story the Lokan skin color is similar to the Vorg skin color, but with more yellow-green added. In the next story the Lokan skin color becomes green.

Elekton In Danger
NNAN: Early in the first story Brag's son is killed in a Loka attack. No mention is made of any other son (or a wife for that matter) in this story, which is presumably set a few years afterward, Brag has a teenage son.

The Daveli people first appear in this story, providing a new regular character, Keren. Their skin is green. In later stories it becomes blue.

The Daveli chieftain is said to speak the universal tongue of Elekton. Amazing that these people isolated from the rest of the continent by jungle can speak the same language.

In this story the moons of Seres & Gallas collide sending Gallas into a collision with Elekton. Oddly enough part of the story is later said to be on the desert of Seres. NNAN since there is a place in Idaho called Craters Of The Moon, but it just seemed odd that the name would be reused like that in the same story.

It's said that Gallas will crash on Loka in 28 days. An unknown amount of time later the Lokan people flee into Vorg. Trigo decides to allow them into his city, that night they attack & capture the city. We see another day & night pass, then it is mentioned that 40 days have passed, Trigo recaptures his city & sends the Lokan people back to Loka to meet their fate when Gallas crashes. Huh? Shouldn't it have crashed already? Nope. The next morning it is said that a stratospheric storm altered Gallas' course & it will crash into the sea.

So why wasn't Trigo suspicious that all the Lokans seemed to come to Vorg? Shouldn't some of them have fled to Theva? For that matter no mention was ever made about whether or not any of the Thevan refugees from the first story ever returned to their homeland.

The most poisonous serpent on Elekton is the Nobra. *Ugh* I don't think the writer was even trying when he came up with that name.

When Gallas crashes into the sea it is said that its crash is seen across the breadth of Elekton. Really, even on the other side of the planet?

Just did an internet search and came up with Trigan.com.

The first page they have the map & I misremembered the northeast country's name it's Tharv not Theva.

It seems the stories I have are numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 11 & 12.

The Legend Of Hellas is also called The Land Of No Return.
Truce With Hericon is also called War With Hericon.
The Invasion Of Bolus is also called Voyage To The Moon Bolus.

Apparently the series ran until 1982.

I recently mentioned this on another board - "The Legend Of Hellas" is a shameless rip-off of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "The Gods Of Mars". I do like the comic a lot, though.

A rough estimate of the craft puts it at 132 feet high, 120 feet wide.

In the stories appears a creature called a Zargot, despite the fact that it has wings it seems to prefer walking and running.

The Legend Of Hellas
The story spells the name as both Hallas & Hellas.

Peric thinks he is old and soon to die so he makes the journey to Hellas which Elektons believe is a place of peace & contentment from which none ever return. It turns out however that those who go there are enslaved by the Zerds. The interesting thing is Peric spends a year & many months there doing hard labor as a slave, but he thought he was soon to die. An Elekton year has at least 700 days in it.

Trigo, Brag & Keren are trying to find Janno who's plane has crashed. The caption says that they, "would never see Keren among them again." Whoops! That should say Janno.

Trying to figure out a way to escape, Peric comments that the Zerd gravity cars are powered by atomic energy & could be used to create a big explosion. I guess Elektons aren't bothered by radiation.

Truce With Hericon
A thief claims justice under an old, Vorg law of vengeance.
1. Trigo accepts that the thief is telling the truth when claiming he was unjustly marked as a thief in Hericon.
2. Trigo, a Vorg, seems unaware of the law, while Peric, who originally came from Tharv, is familiar with it. Why? Also since Peric believes the law is unfair, why didn't he mention eliminating the law prior to this?
3. Accepting the thief's claim of innocence Trigo orders some guards to get a Hericon merchant, who has committed no crime, to punish as vengeance.

Janno is on patrol when his squadron is attacked & he is the only survivor. Surprisingly Keren is not in this squad. (Usually he & Janno are joined at the hip.)

Queen Ursa is captured & rolled up in a blanket on the back of the kreed, except that shots of the rolled up blanket appear too small to contain the queen.

Revolution In Zabriz
In this story it's mentioned that only a few years have passed since Trigan City was built. So it would seem that Janno was born prior to the first story.

Trigo complains of all the paperwork that goes into running an empire. Given that just a few years ago the Vorgs were wandering barbarians where does all the need for paperwork come from?

In this story the line of succession is stated to be Trigo as emperor, Brag as next in line & Janno third. Okay, so maybe Trigo & Ursa haven't produced a child yet, but since Ursa is Queen of the Trigans & a Princess of Hericon, shouldn't she have a place in the succession? Possibly women aren't allowed to rule, but in a later story a woman does take over Trigan as empress.

Trigo & Janno were incredibly naive to think that sending just Janno & Keren to Zabriz would give them authority to remove a guy from power without having a squad of soldiers to back Janno up.

Battle For Trigan City
Trigo, Brag & Janno are captured & it's commented that this is the entire royal family. Ummm, what happened to Trigo's wife, Queen Ursa? Also what about Brag's wife? the unnamed & unseen woman who presumably bore him two sons?

In this story the reader is introduced to Trigo & Brag's niece, Thara. I assume she's Klud's daughter. Odd that no mention of her had ever come up before. Even Klud didn't seem to worry about the fate of his wife & daughter when he was leading a group of Lokans to attack Trigan City in the first story.

Peric tells Keren that Yarna is the name of the galaxy. Interesting because Yarna is also the name of their sun(s).

For supposedly being a scientific woman Salvia used a rather magical solution to cure the queen of the Tammaz. Lightning? Was the queen created by Elekton's answer to Frankenstein?

Oddly enough, while Salvia can magically cure the Queen she can't seem to cure Keren's blindness, although at the end of the story we're told that Peric (Salvia's father) did cure him.

At one point a Tammaz woman refers to their goddess as Herin although before & after it's spelled Herim.

The queen of the Tammaz has a very 1960s flip hairdo. (Think Mrs. Peel in The Avengers or Marlo Thomas in That Girl.)

A song about Trigan City mentions the white walls of the city. Most pictures of the city show the walls as looking brick colored.

When leading a force to retake the city, Trigo attacks the walls, except that earlier we saw that under the royal apartments are some hidden passages that the royal family could use to escape. Wouldn't it have made more sense to enter the city through here? Or at least lead a small attack force here while another force attacks the walls?

In the first story the Vorgs are depicted as a rough, tough group of hunting barbarians, then Trigo has them build a city. In the first story Klud leads an attack on the city to capture it. In the second story, Lokans capture the city and later it's recaptured by Trigo. In this story Thara & her men take over the city, then the Groths attack & take over the city, before Trigo once again retakes the city. How many times does this stup¡d city get captured? And why are the Vorgs so bad at fighting off the attackers? Didn't they use to pride themselves on being strong, tough warriors?

The Invasion Of Bolus
A group of Trigans are captured by a mad scientist who wants them to help him plunder the moon Bolus. I can understand them agreeing to help originally because if they refuse they will be killed. However once they get to the moon and the Trigans are given loaded weapons, why do they still go along with it? They should outnumber the scientist & his men by now.

The moon Bolus has an atmosphere, gravity & people like Elekton. One would think that as a moon Bolus should be smaller & have less gravity & atmosphere.

While the Bolusians speak a different language from Elekton, they do have a Universal Translator. Why would the Bolusians need a translator? If the people of Elekton have a universal language shouldn't the, presumably, smaller moon of Bolus have only one language?

The Bolusians are worried that Elekton would one day invade. Okay, they were right, but how did they know Elekton had people? Are Bolusians actually a group of Elektons that had migrated to Bolus in the long forgotten past?

Janno is refered to as Brag's only son. Ummm, what about that dead son in the first story?

The destruction beam is fired at Elekton 3 times, but the story says it was only fired twice.

There is an uncovered pit that supposedly leads to the center of Bolus. When Janno & Keren fell in there was a high tide so they landed in water from a lake, but at the end of the story they are assured that when the tide is low it does lead to the center. I just find it hard to believe that a lake has enough water to fill up a hole to the center of a moon.

Douglas Nicol posted this on the Space: 1999 board.

Don Lawrence one of the main artists in the Trigan Empire series sadly died on the 29th of December aged 75.