Fireworks Fun with Whizzer and Chips (1969)

Fireworks in comics are always a great excuse to use bright colours for the artists who had the privilege to use colour in their strips. This Whizzer and Chips issue from 1969 has a very lively cover by Mike Lacey, with bright fireworks going off in the background of almost every panel!

Inside Terry Bave does a cracking (pun intended) job on Me and  My Shadow. Terry was fairly new to comics at the time, so his style is still developing but he was still great, and was excellent at catching the expressions of his characters!

Terry was hugely influential to Whizzer and Chips, not only did he draw a majority of the comic, but he also came up with one of the titles longest running features - the raids! The raid was where one character from Whizzer would venture into Chips comic or vice versa, hoping not to be seen! It was the readers job to spot this raid, and if they supported the character cheer them on, or if not, black them out! This feature lasted right up until just a few weeks before the comics run finally ended, in 1990.

As I said above, Terry Bave drew a vast majority of the comic. Some of his work in Chips included Ginger's Tum...

And usually Parker the Parky. This strip, however, is by a different artist - who also worked on strips later on in the comics life.

On Slowcoach's page Slowcoach is messing about with fireworks in a way that would never be accepted today. But despite all the havoc and destruction he still manages to get to school in the end - a little late as usual! Illustrated by Mike Lacey, who is another of Whizzer and Chips' key early contributors. 

The 5th panel of this Slowcoach strip is a similar panel to one which appeared in last years Dandy fireworks special!

That concludes this look at a look at a very early issue of Whizzer and Chips, but, judging from last years Dandy, it's good to see that some political incorrectness still survives in comics!