I haven't covered 1970s humour comics that frequently on my blog, mainly because I don't have many! I threw out most of them when I left school and have no regrets. However, I did buy an issue of Cheeky Weekly recently so I thought I'd post a few bits here as I know that, for some of you, it has fond memories.
This is the issue that was in the shops exactly 40 years ago this week. Issue dated 25th November 1978, but as all comics then were dated in advance this would have been in shops on November 18th.
The 32 pager kicked off with a large cover image by Mike Lacey, promoting Disaster Des, one of the characters inside. Beneath the image is the start of the Cheeky's Week strip, drawn by Frank McDiarmid. The strip continued on various pages inside, featuring Cheeky on each day of the week.
One of the popular interior strips was Six Million Dollar Gran, a spoof of TV's Six Million Dollar Man, but featuring a cyborg granny. Art by the brilliant Ian Knox.
Cheeky's Week featured regular supporting characters, and one of those was a shapely School Crossing Lady. A memorable character for many young readers!
With Christmas only being a few weeks away, the comic carried a John Menzies advert for some games that were around at the time. Prices have increased tenfold since then, but that's not too bad in 40 years. If only comics had increased so little. They'd only be 90p today!
Cheeky featured an 8 page section called The Mystery Comic, with stories that had an element of mystery... except for the cover strip, Tub, it seems!?! Decorative border and logo by Ed McHenry, Tub strip by Nigel Edwards.
Only two adventure strips featured in Cheeky at this time. One of them being Mystery Boy, distinctively drawn by John Richardson, who also illustrated many covers to Tammy.
The centre pages of the comic were in full colour, featuring Elephant on the Run, which I hear proved popular. Artwork by Robert Nixon, one of the greats of British comics.
The other adventure strip was The Terrible Trail to Taggart's Treasure, by the master of kids' horror comic strips, Eric Bradbury.
There was also an advert for that year's Krazy Annual. A time when IPC were producing numerous annuals for the Christmas market.
These days, Rebellion own the rights to this material. Is there a potential audience for any collected strips from Cheeky, I wonder? An Elephant on the Run volume might appeal to younger children perhaps? I've no idea if the company plans to reprint any of this material or not, but time will tell!
In the same week that Captain Britain No.1 hit the newsstands (see previous posting) the final edition of Valiant also appeared. The ominous "Important News for all readers" was in a cover flash, which never boded well for a comic.
Valiant had been published since 1962, and was one of Fleetway's bold new comics of the sixties. However, by the mid-1970s under IPC it was looking tired and dated, and was given a facelift by new editor John Wagner. Perhaps the changes came too late to re-ignite interest, so it was decided it would merge into the younger title Battle Picture Weekly. One might think that a merger with Action might have been more appropriate than with a war comic, but by that time Action was having serious problems of its own. This week in 1976 was also when the controversial comic was suspended so it was in no position to accommodate Valiant, even if that idea had been considered. (Interestingly, although the media spotlight was on Action, its companion comics Valiant and Battle had also upped the violent content somewhat to reflect the attitudes of the times. Examples being the cover above, with a bloodied corpse being robbed, and the strip below showing a finger being shot off!)
One of the newer strips that John Wagner had brought into Valiant was tough cop series One-Eyed Jack. This story would carry over into the merged comic, after changes set in place in this episode. Art by John Cooper...
The announcement of the merger made it sound exciting, despite the fact that the readers were losing a comic. That huge logo wouldn't take up half a cover every week by the way. The 'Valiant' title would soon shrink to a smaller size, before later disappearing completely, as was the norm with merged comics.
Another relatively recent story, Stryker, ended that week. Not a very memorable character but an opportunity to show art by Ian Kennedy can't be missed...
Billy Bunter had been one of the longest running humour strips in British comics (and previously as a prose series in The Magnet of course). The strip version started in Knockout No.1 in 1939 (see here) and joined Valiant when those comics merged in 1963. I'm not sure if this final 1976 episode is reprint or new, but it's good to see that all ends well for the fat owl. Art by Reg Parlett.
Challenge Charlie was basically Ken Reid's Dare-A-Day Davy from Pow! under a new name, drawn by Frank McDiarmid.
Captain Hurricane had been Valiant's lead strip since issue one, and this final episode ends with him announcing a return home. World War Two had lasted for 14 years for the mighty marine!
The popular Adam Eterno strip, that had begun in Thunder in 1970, then moved to Lion and Thunder, before arriving in Valiant and Lion, also reached its end in this final Valiant. Eterno's journey through time and space was never properly concluded, so perhaps one day he still might return. (Let's hope he's one of the many characters that Rebellion now own.) Art by the Solano Lopez studio.
On the back page of this final issue; The Nutts. Again, a long-running strip, and possibly this one is a reprint. Art by Angel Nadal.
So that was it for Valiant's impressive 14 year run. It gave way for the new breed of adventure comics but it's still very fondly remembered today.
Published on the very same day as the issue of Tiger I showed in the previous post, here's TV Comic No.993, being the Christmas issue for 1970. Tom and Jerry had taken over the cover position in the previous year and remained there for a long run. Artwork by Bill Titcombe, with the story continuing on page 2...
TV Comic featured several strips that were not TV shows and which were created specially for the comic. Mighty Moth was one such strip, enjoying a very long run drawn by Dick Millington...
Catweazle was a popular children's tv show at the time, starring Geoffrey Bayldon. The strip version in TV Comic was illustrated by Bill Lacey, father of humour artist Mike Lacey...
Texas Ted was another strip originated just for TV Comic, and was stylishly drawn by Frank McDiarmid...
Running across the top half of the centre pages at this time was Basil Brush, the popular TV puppet. The strip expanded the theme, setting Basil in his stately home and giving him a butler. Artwork by Chas Sinclair...
The comic often featured newly drawn strips of American cartoon characters. Here's The Bugs Bunny Show, again with art by Bill Titcombe I believe...
This doesn't have a festive theme to the story but I thought you might like to see that week's episode of Doctor Who, drawn by John Canning. Within a few weeks the strip would transfer over to Polystyle's new weekly, Countdown, who would give the Doctor a more sympathetic and sophisticated treatment...
On the back page, Popeye, drawn by Bill Mevin. It could have been easy for TV Comic to reprint the American Popeye strips (and they did, in the Popeye Holiday Specials) but to their credit they originated brand new pages for the weekly.
The final festive flashback is tomorrow! See you then.
The days of characters in British comics having fun with fireworks may seem irresponsible in retrospect but back then it was just plain fun. Here's a few strips from the 1960s, starting above with a Big Head and Thick Head back page story from The Dandy No.1198 (dated 7th November 1964, on sale 2nd November of that year). At first glance you may think this is by the strip's original artist, Ken Reid, but Ken had left by then and was busy at Odhams on Frankie Stein for Wham! This is actually by his successor, Frank McDiarmid, who did an excellent 'ghosting' of Ken's style. (Frank later went on to illustrate many strips, including Cheeky for IPC.)
I was 5 when I first read that strip and it amused me no end when Big Head would call Thick Head a 'nit'. It's an insult that seems to have gone out of fashion over the years, but was used a lot in TV comedy programmes and movies at the time too.
Next up, is a Footsie the Clown page by Graham Allen, as published in Wham! No.125 (dated 5th November 1966, on sale Oct.31st).
Next, a strip that is by Ken Reid; The Nervs from Smash! No.145 (dated 9th November 1968, on sale 2nd Nov that year). A mind boggling amount of detail in this double pager...
Finally, from that same issue of Smash! No.145 in 1968 is The Cloak by Mike Higgs, with a good old bonfire ending...
As always, click on the images to see them larger. Search my blog with the search window on the right to find more fireworks strips from UK comics.
If you've having fireworks this week, take care and have a safe November 5th.
