welcome and enjoy!

Hi and welcome to my blog about comics from other people’s childhood! It is dedicated primarily to British humour comics of the 60s and 70s. The reason they are not from my childhood is simply because I didn’t live in the UK back then (nor do I live there now). I knew next to nothing about them until fairly recently but since then I’ve developed a strong liking for the medium and amassed a large collection, including a number of complete or near complete sets. My intention is to use this blog as a channel for sharing my humble knowledge about different titles, favourite characters and creators as I slowly research my collection.

QUICK TIP: this blog is a sequence of posts covering one particular comic at a time. The sequence follows a certain logic, so for maximum results it is recommended that the blog is read from the oldest post up.

Copyright of all images and quotations used here is with their respective owners. Any such copyrighted material is used exclusively for educational purposes and will be removed at first notice. All other text copyright Irmantas P.



Wednesday, September 26, 2012

COR!! COMIC ANNUAL 1982



COR!! Comic Annual 1982 £1.95, 128 pages.

Contents: Teacher’s Pet (3 episodes, one new by Mike Lacey), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (4 episodes – one new by Robert Nixon), The Gasworks Gang (3 reprints from old COR!! weeklies and  1 new episode signed by Frank McDiarmid), The Slimms (2 episodes by Terry Bave, one signed), Chalky, Football Madd (3 episodes), Gus Gorilla (4 episodes), Teasers, Jelly Baby (2 episodes), Hire A Horror (5 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Val’s Vanishing Cream (by Mike Lacey), Donovan’s Dad (signed by Terry Bave), Wilfred the World’s Worst Wizard, Helpful Hettie (by Tom Williams), Cowboy Quiz, Young MacDonald and his Farm, Snakes Alive jokes, Smartie Artie (2 episodes), Tomboy (2 episodes), Jack Pott (2 episodes), Andy’s Ants, Cats and Dogs jokes, Jasper the Grasper (two brand new episodes – one by Frank McDiarmid and one by Trevor Metcalfe), Puzzle Fun Time, You Can’t Make Monkeys Out of Us! Jokes, Fiends and Neighbours (two episodes – one by Les Barton and one by another artist who also drew a couple of episodes in old COR!! weeklies), Whacky (4 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Spotter (by Tom Williams), Benny Bendo, Caw!! Jokes, A Quick and Easy Puzzle Page!, General Knowledge Quiz, Try Again Len, Riddles, Swopper Stan, Nightmare (a new episode by Les Barton).

It is good to see original artists drawing new sets of their old characters in a COR!! publication again: Robert Nixon contributed a nice 4-pager of Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, Mike Lacey illustrated a new episode of Val’s Vanishing Cream and Frank McDiarmid drew a new set of The Gasworks Gang after quite some time. Here is Ivor Lott and Tony Broke by Bob Nixon:


Two features were drawn by illustrators other than their usual ones: there is an episode of Teacher’s Pet by Mike Lacey (the only one so far, as far as I can tell) and a 3-pager of Jasper the Grasper by Frank McDiarmid (also the only one that I’ve come across).


A panel from the set of Jasper the Grasper by Frank McDiarmid

Les Barton’s Fiends and Neighbours didn’t have a new masthead this time but there were one or two large dramatic panels showing Jonses’ sufferings, here is a nice one:


Try Again Len was the only one-off in the Annual. It looks rather uninspired to me... 

3 comments:

  1. Much as I like Bob Nixon, his style REALLY doesn't suit Ivor & Tony. They both look too cuddly, whereas Ivor's supposed to have a face you'd want to smash the teeth out of.

    I'm going to dig out my Cor!! annuals tonight and read through all the Fiends & Neighbors strips, that pterodactyl panel's swayed me completely!

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  2. You may be interested in know that Terry Bave, who was at the heart of English cartooning and had a long, successful career as an artist working on children's comics, such as Whizzer and Chips, Cor!!, Buster, Whoopee, Dandy and Beano, has just published a book!

    From the heyday of the sixties and seventies, Terry saw the rise, and eventual decline, of creative cartooning for children's comics. His story is not just a tale of one artist, working in creative partnership with his wife Shiela, but the story of comics themselves

    The book can be purchased from http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-bave/cartoons-and-comic-strips/paperback/product-20625272.html

    His blog can be seen at http://terrybave.blogspot.co.uk/

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the heads-up. That's excellent news!

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