COR!! Holiday
Special 1983, 50 p., 64 pages
Contents: Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (3 new episodes
illustrated and signed by Crocker), Val’s
Vanishing Cream (3 Mike Lacey reprints), Night Mare (3 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Tease Break (2 instalments), Football Madd (3 reprints from old COR!!
weeklies), Benny Bendo, Gus-On Holiday gags, Tomboy (2 reprints + one new in full colour), Yong MacDonald and
his Farm (illustrated
by Ron Turner), Donovan’s
Dad (two new episodes by Terry Bave in full colour + one more in b/w), Chalky (reprint of an old episode from a
COR!! weekly), Teacher’s Pet (2 reprints),
Jasper the Grasper (a new story by Les
Barton), Whacky (Mike Lacey reprint),
Jelly Baby (3 reprints), Percy Puffer (reprint), Gus-Back Home gags, Hire A Horror (in colour), The
Gasworks Gang (a new 4-pager by Frank McDiarmid + 1 reprint from an old
COR!! weekly), Jeannie’s Genie
(reprint), The Slimms (reprint), Jack Pott, Fiends and Neighbours (a new 3-pager),
Gus, Gus Gags, Tell-Tale Tess (reprint).
This was the last COR!! Holiday Special. It was quite remarkable that
the Specials lasted so long after the paper folded in 1974.
I may be imagining things, but I get an impression that whoever was responsible
for compiling this last edition, he thought it appropriate to include a large
number of old reprints of the various strips from the weeklies, some of which had
been out of print for more than a decade since their original appearance in COR!!:
the long forgotten original episodes of Tell-Tale
Tess, Jeannie’s Genie and Percy
Puffer from the old weeklies appeared alongside with strips that were
reprinted on a regular basis.
That said, the Special was another successful combination of
reprints and some high-quality new material: Terry Bave drew a couple of new
sets of Donovan’s Dad, Crocker
contributed three brand new sets of Ivor Lott
and Tony Broke, Ron Turner illustrated another nice episode of Young MacDonald and Frank MacDiarmid
drew and signed a new set of the Gasworks
Gang’s antics:
Les Barton contributed three pages of Jasper the Grasper’s miserly adventures:
The episode of Fiends and
Neighbours was by a new artist whose name is unknown to me:
And with this I’ll close the last chapter of COR!! Holiday
Specials. You can go through the whole
COR!! specials sequence by clicking here or by choosing the COR!! Holiday
Specials label in the column on the right.
No offence to Les Barton, but after Ken Reid drawing the strip, no one else comes close. I remember lettering a Gus Gorilla strip for a holiday special in 1985 or '86. It must've (not must of - argh!) been for Buster, Whoopee! or Wow!
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