In
comparison with the previous Annual, the page count shrunk even further from
128 to 112 and the price came up to £1.95.
CONTENTS:
Martha’s Monster Make-Up (two 2-pagers by Ken Reid,
including one in colour), Kid Kong (a 4-pager in full colour
by Frank McDiarmid), Monster Mirths (2 pages of gag
cartoons by Artie Jackson, one in colour), The Ghost Train (8 pages of reprints
from WHOOPEE!, artwork by Brian Walker),
Hot Rod (6 pages of reprints from WHIZZER AND CHIPS, artwork by
Alf Saporito), Gums (two 2-pagers by John Geering), Tom Thumbscrew (two
2-pagers by Barrie Appleby), Freaky Farm (a 3-pager by Russel
Brooke and a 4-pager by Ian Knox), Fiery Fun (1 page of gags by Artie
Jackson), Creature Teacher (two 3-pagers by Tom Williams), Major
Jump Horror Hunter (2 reprints from MFC comic, artwork by Barrie
Appleby), Draculass (two 2-pagers by Terry Bave, including one in colour),
Mummy’s
Boy (a 2-pager and one reprint from MFC, both by Norman Mansbridge), Frankie
Stein (three 2-pagers reprinted from WHOOPEE!, artwork by Robert
Nixon), Ghostly Giggles (1 page of gags by Artie Jackson), King
Arthur and His Frights of the Round Table (three 3-pagers reprinted
from WHOOPEE!, artwork by Robert Nixon), X-Ray Specs (two 2-pagers by Mike
Lacey and a 3-pager by Paul Ailey), Doug Nut and Rusty (a 3-pager and a
2-pager in colour on back endpapers, both by Jim Crocker), Brainy and His Monster Maker
(two 2-pagers by Tom Williams), George ‘n his Magic Dragon (a
4-pager by Alan Rogers), Frankie’s Monster Mountain Game
(reprint from MFC), Art’s Gallery (a 3-pager), Little Monsters (two 2-page sets by
Martin Baxendale), Monster Mind (2 pages of puzzles), Terror TV (a 4-pager by
Barrie Appleby), Teddy Scare (a 2-pager by Barrie Appleby).
As
had become a custom in MF Annuals, a large proportion of the book was filled
with reprints - I can confirm 36 pages but there are probably more. The
majority is first-class material from the hands of Alf Saporito (on Hot
Rod), Brian Walker (on Ghost Train):
…
and Bob Nixon on Frankie Stein and King Arthur and His Frights of the Round
Table). They even did a good job processing one episode into a full-colour affair; check out both versions
side-by-side. The b/w one is from WHOOPEE! No. 5 (click to enlarge):
Barrie
Appleby was once again the champion in terms of page-count, but I am unsure how
many were new and how many were reprints. I know for sure that both sets of Major
Jump were reprinted from MONSTER FUN COMIC weeklies (Nos. 33 and 37)
but Tom
Thumbscrew, Teddy Scare and Terror TV may very well be new
material. Here is the opening page of Terror TV:
Barrie
Appleby mastered a prefect imitation of Reg Parlett’s monsters, don’t you think?:
Ken
Reid provided two double-page episodes of Martha’s Monster Make-Up. This is a
third year in a row (!!) that one of the stories involves bullies whom Martha teaches
a lesson with the help of a monsterized snowman and some snowballs:
In
the second story Martha uses her cream on a tramp for a change and helps him
prove he’s not useless because he can now take a job as a scarecrow…
Tom
Williams, another regular contributor in MF Annuals, provided two sets of Brainy
and his Monster Maker and two sets of Creature Teacher. In one
Teach takes class 3X to visit the local fire-station:
…
while the other one comes with this dramatic logo:
…
and shows class 3X get medieval on the poor woodwork teacher:
…
and build a coffin for Teach:
John
Geering’s input is four pages of Gums. In the first episode Bluey tricks
Gums out of his false teeth by making him get rid of the old set and replace it
with one made of steel, and then using a super-strong magnet to pull it out of the
shark’s jaws. Bluey smashes the old false teeth to bits but two fossil
collectors reconstruct the set. Gums ambushes them and is back in business
again. Here are the opening pages of both episodes. I like the way Mr. Geering
experimented with his layouts in this Annul:
There
is quite a lot of X-Ray Specs this time: although Mike Lacey was the regular illustrator
of the feature in MFC and later BUSTER weeklies, he rarely did X-Ray
Specs for MF Annuals. Here is one of the two sets by Mr. Lacey:
There
is also one by another artist who I believe is Paul Ailey:
In
George
‘n his Magic Dragon by Alan Rogers George and Cedric the dragon deal
with Bully Bloggs:
And
before I finish this first part of the overview, here are two out of the 4
pages of gags drawn in this annual by Artie Jackson:
In
Part Two I will look at some of the pleasant surprises contained in this Annual,
such as Frank McDiarmid’s take on Kid Kong, two episodes of Freaky
Farm by illustrators who’d never worked on the feature before and some
super-nice artwork by an artist who’d learned from the best....
All Images 2015 © Egmont UK
Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with
permission.
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