This Week In... 1971 - Knockout

It's time to head back to 1971 and take a look in to the issue of Knockout that went on sale this week 42 years ago. This is the second version of Knockout, the first was published by Amalgamated Press from 1939 through until 1963 but this second version was published by IPC from 1971 to 1973, a far less successful run compared to its predecessor. Knockout was bright, each of its 24 pages had colour, even if it was only simple spot yellow, red, green or blue. The front cover, as can be seen above, was filled by The Full House, a simple idea which took place in a house with something happening in each room, and each room affecting the other rooms!

Moving on inside and the strip that caught my eye is Pete's Pockets by Mike Lacey, a fantastic strip about a lad named Pete who has anything and everything hidden away inside his pockets - even an elephant, as you will soon see!

One strange strip had to be Moose, a story about a hunter trying to catch a moose, yet this particular moose always fights back. The odd thing about this strip is that Moose can use his antlers like human hands! I'm afraid I don't know the artist, but it looks like a style that comes from mainland Europe, possibly Spain but I can't be sure.

Another equally strange strip is Boney, which follows a similar idea to Moose. Boney is a skeleton who escaped from a ghost train and is ever on the run to evade capture from the owner of the ghost train, whose attempts end in failure week after week!

Knockout also had one adventure strip that went by the name of Barry and Boing, Boing being a robot under the control of Barry. Boing gets his name from the springs in his feet that allow him to bounce to incredible heights, which always seem to come in handy every week.

And finally, we finish with Fuss Pot, an easily dislikable character who somehow remained popular for many years, appearing week in week out in Knockout, Whizzer and Chips and Buster, right up until the last issue in 2000 (although to be fair, she did sometimes have some funny adventures)! Art by Norman Mansbridge.