Richard Carpenter had a long history with Look-in from back towards the beginning with 'Catweazle' (1972), 'Dick Turpin' (1979), and would return again later with 'Robin of Sherwood' (1984).

'Smuggler' was the third strip from a series penned by Carpenter to appear in Look-in.  Set in 1802 during the early stages of the Napoleonic War, it focussed on the adventures of Jack Vincent, played by Oliver Tobias.  Vincent was a former Naval Officer, who like many in these times were against the violence and didn't want to fight at all.  Like many of these people Jack took to hiding instead of fighting, and not being able to earn a living because of his notoriety, he starts smuggling to earn a crust.

He befriends a young petty thief going by the name Honesty Evans (Hywel Williams Ellis), who saves Jack's  life.  Honesty aids Jack in times of trouble, and shares in his ill gotten gains.

Jack also has a love interest of course, in Sarah
Morton played by Lesley Dunlop.

Smuggler had  a muted reception in the UK, compared to Carpenter's earlier efforts and never made it past the one series.

Despite this, it wasn't the end of Jack though as, like a lot of series at that time, the format was bought by a New Zealand TV company and repackaged.  The series name was changed to 'The Adventurer'.  Honesty and Sarah were missing from this incarnation however.

As big Carpenter fan, this series didn't enthral me as much as previous efforts, but sterling artwork as usual from Burns, kept this strip afloat.  Very atmospheric again as with the 'West' strip, Burns black and white sketching, made the landscape of the early 1800's seem a very bleak and hard time to live in, so full marks for that.

Thank goodness Carpenter got back on
track later on though, with the superb 'Robin of Sherwood'.

 

6.5