It's Halloween Buster! (1994)

Yep, it's that time of year again - Halloween, which means that we dip back into a Halloween comic of the past, this time the 1994 Buster Halloween issue. One wouldn't really guess it from a quick glance at the front cover above, but this is really is Halloween issue! Sadly, Buster's strip isn't themed so for the sake of sticking to the subject I'll skip it and move on.

The first Halloween strip is X-Ray Specs, illustrated by none other than Mike Lacey. As always it's a well-drawn strip, but the colouring seems very cheap and lazy, it really doesn't look that good at all!

The colouring gets better over the page on Tom Thug's strip. As illustrated by Lew Stringer, Tom attempts to find or make a Halloween mask, but he isn't having much luck!

Speaking of masks, here is the free one that was included in the centre pages, illustrated by Jacula! (Geddit - Jack, and Dracula! Chuckle!)

Next up is Dozy Derek, who, like Smiffy from The Beano, really doesn't know what's happening! Art by Mark Bennington. 

Tom Paterson's Watford Gapp was in an entirely different art style, almost impossible to connect to his more common style such as the work on Sweeny Toddler. Fortunately, he leaves a smelly sock in one of the panels to ensure us it's still him.

And finally, although I haven't covered every spooky strip in this issue, I'll leave you with this two-page Lucy Lastic story, illustrated by Mark Bennington.

Blub Meets Faceache

My apologies for being a bit quiet lately, I've been doing a lot of writing and drawing this week (amongst other things), but more about that soon. Today though, I bring you a treat, as here we have a crossover between Faceache and Blub The Sub, as illustrated by the one and only Ken Reid. Both of these characters appeared in Buster with Faceache drawn by Reid (and occasionally Frank McDiarmid) and Blub by Mark Bennington. As always, click on the image to enlarge, and then again to view in full size!

Blub was always upset because he was never first in anything. He was the fifth substitute in the school's football team and would often try to get the other four subs in hospital or out of the way, just so he could play a game. It wasn't just football he wasn't first in though, as this strip proves.

This Faceache strip can be found in Buster dated 13th December 1986, and here's the cover, sporting an illustration by Tom Paterson (what a line-up of artists Buster had, eh!).

Captain Crucial Surfs To The Front Page!

There is only one more cover star to show, and this one took over on issue dated 7th October 1994. This time it's the crazy character Captain Crucial, illustrated by Mark Bennington! You might not know, but the crazy characters such as Captain Crucial and Lucy Lastic were originally illustrated by Tom Paterson, in his much wilder style such as the one he used for Watford Gapp in WHizzer and Chips, but Mark is the more known artist for them.

Since Tom Thug had appeared on the cover just six months earlier the cover price had risen five pennies from 60p to 65p, and by February of 1995, just four months later, the price would have risen to 80p! It was a truly challenging time for Buster, and many artists were made redundant.

Other posts in this series:

Tom Thug

Cliff Hanger

Chalky

X-Ray Specs

Bernie in The Beano!

Inside the above issue of Whizzer and Chips, a character called Bernie Banks, star of the strip Memory Banks, made one of my all time favourite crossovers! Illustrated by Mark Bennington, Bernie not only crossed over into two other Fleetway comics, but also managed to slip into a D.C Thomson title! This wasn't the only time Whizzer and Chips, or Fleetway in general, mocked D.C Thomson, with the most famous on the back cover of the final Buster!

There were a lot of fun crossovers in the history of British comics, but so far this one is my firm favourite!

Buster Holiday Special 1997

Now, I've noticed that my previous few posts have been focused mainly on the 70's, and I know that you like this blog because I cover lots of different era's. So this time it's about the 1997 Buster Holiday Special, which we have seen very briefly before on this site here. Since this was published towards the end of Buster's life, the entire comic was reprints from previous issues - even the cover! But first of all I thought I'd give you a bit of a history lesson about the Buster Holiday Specials - The first one came out in 1969, six years after D.C Thomson released their first Beano and Dandy Summer Special. The final one came out in 1998, and the first (and only) Winter Special was published at the end of that year. All Buster Special's that came out for summer were called Holiday Special's, not Summer Special's.

As if to prove that this is a full reprint comic, here's a Faceache strip by the ledgendary Ken Reid, who had died just over ten years earlier than this publication was released!

Despite this been a Holiday Special, very few strips had anything to do with the summer holiday's. However, this Blub the Sub strip  showed that our pathetic pal really didn't get along with animals, especially this donkey at the seaside! Illustrated by Meryvn Johnson.

Of course, the main character would have to have a seasonal strip, and that's exactly what Buster gets on this two page centre spread!

A nice little summer feature was this Summer Smiles jokes page by Paddywack artist Jack Clayton.

The final summer strip appears on the back cover in full colour, probably to make readers think theres lots of stories inside based at the beach. Well, that is what summer is all about isn't it?! The character in question is Chalky, by his final artist Gordon Hill.

Sadly there weren't "52 Pages Full Of Summer Fun" as promised on the cover, but a great comic none-the-less!

Mark Bennington in The Dandy

I just recieved my Dandy #3521 yesterday (from 12th Feb - must have got stuck in the post), and was surprised to see Mark Bennington had done a page for it!This isn't Marks best work, looks to me as though he rushed it a bit, I think that he currently works on the Lucky bag comics, maybe that takes up most of his time. Anyway, good to see his work there and I hope he'll do some more in the future.

Dany #3521 - NOT on sale now, £1.50.