School Fun Holiday Special 1984

The heat and the actually sunny weather (for once) here in Auckland today has put me in the mood for a summer comic so I'll take a look at the first School Fun holiday special. This comic came out for the summer of '84, meaning that it was sold right at the end of the weekly comic's short run. When I first came across this in a pile of musty comics I was taken aback by the quality of the wrap-around cover - it's absolutely spectacular with artwork supplied by David Mostyn. School Fun had a lot of wrap-around covers for its weekly issues and they were usually, if not always, illustrated by David. 

Most of the content seems to be reprints from various other comics including early issues of Whoopee so we'll begin with the School Fun originated content, and where better to start than Dave Mostyn's E.T.T (Extra-Terrestrial Teacher). I've also chosen this strip because it has a seaside theme - a must in any holiday special!

Next up is Young Arfur. This episode doesn't have a seaside theme or even a holiday theme as Arfur is on a school trip, but the hand coloured artwork is a joy to behold so I thought it worth it to show here. The artist is Pete Dredge, who also drew the comic in the weekly and in Buster when the two comics merged.

And finally, here's an interesting piece by Nigel Edwards - Making A Success Of Your School Play. Nigel did a lot of interesting and somewhat quirky pieces for various Fleetway comics of the 1980's, which is just another reason for buying them!

Wow! It's Christmas (1982)

It's about time to kick-start the festive fun this year so let's do so with none other than the one and only Wow Christmas issue. The front cover was illustrated by Mike Lacey and linked with the two-page Shipwreck School story inside, also illustrated by Mike. Mike is one of my favourite artists so seeing a front cover like this one by him is always a joy to behold.

I've already shown a few Creepy Comix pages and this issue also has one, but with a festive twist. Colin Whittock was the artist for this page.

The Bill and Coo page is absolutely amazing to look at; artist Trevor Metcalfe has done a superb job on it! Trevor is a brilliant artist who is still working today, though sadly not on comic strips but more on basic cartoons for colour in books etc. You can see more of his work at his website: http://www.trevortoons.com.

Nigel Edwards is another fantastic artist and for this special issue produced a lovely festive "When He Was Young" strip. And who better to put in the spotlight this week than Santa Claus himself!

As much as I would love to show you the entire comic here I won't so instead I'll wrap up the post with this full colour Barney's Badges strip illustrated by Terry Bave.

Cheeky Annual 1980

Cheeky, one of Britains best comics, ran for just 3 years, from 22nd October 1977 to 2nd Febuary 1980. Cheeky was a brilliant comic and just another one that will (probably) never see the light of day again. So, looking at the cover of the 1980 annual I thought to myself, why not do a post? And so here I am, reading some hilarious comic strips by truly great artists such as Terry Bave, Nigel Edwards, Mike Lacey, Frank McDiarmid and many more! (Disaster Des actually made me laugh out loud!)

So the cover features Cheeky cutting through one of Auntie Daisy's (The school dinner lady) 'cement' cakes (or some other completely solid substance), yet more brilliant artwork from the pen of Frank McDiarmid!Then I opened up thecover,and noticed that on page three which has January with Cheeky,has no price in the clipcorner! It is simply an empty triangle! Just to make sure that this wasn't a one off mistake I double checked with my tattier Cheeky annual of the same year. It was exactly the same!

Here's my copy of a christmas Buster comic, dated 23rd December 1972.

And now compare it with the image from www.bustercomic.co.uk. See the difference? Their issue has a price on it under 'Every Monday' of three and a half pence, whereas mine doesn't!?

And it's the same story with my other Buster comic from around that time! This issue from 1974 should have a price of 4p written in the centre under the Buster logo, but instead there is just a blank space? And in both these issues it clearly states: "BUSTER and JET must not be sold at more than the recommended selling price shown on the cover." Explanations, anybody?

Anyway, were getting a bit side-tracked, so lets return to Cheeky!

So now I move onto colouring. Of course, unlike today's comics, this annual isn't printed in full colour. Printing anything in full-colour back then would have cost a lot of money. (If you want a black and white 80's feel annual try this years Viz.)Looking through the thirty odd pages that are in colour (its a 128 page annual if you include the covers), I thought that the colouring was excellent. The only thing I don't like (that was even used by the Beano up until recently) is the fact that on some boxes they use grey outlines instead of black.

Of course, it's not as bad as some of the colouring that IPC attempted at, here's part of a Mighty Mouth strip from Buster 16th December 1989, drawn by Terry Bave to give you an example.

For much more information on Cheeky comic, check out this brilliant website:

http://cheekyweekly.blogspot.com/