MONSTER FUN ANNUAL 1985

The 9th and the last MONSTER FUN Annual had 96 pages and cost £2.75.

Contents: The Little Monsters (in colour on front endpapers by Martin Baxendale + 3 pages of reprints by Sid Burgon), Draculass (two 2-pagers by Terry Bave, including one in colour), X-Ray Specs (two 3-pagers by Paul Ailey, including one in colour), Frankie’s Diary (two one-page sets by Jim Crocker), Tom Thumbscrew (two 2-pagers by Norman Mansbridge, reprints), Teddy Scare (two 2-pagers by Barrie Appleby), Dough Nut and Rusty (two 2-pagers by Trevor Metcalfe, reprints), Terror TV (two 3-pagers by Barrie Appleby, including one in colour), Horror Alphabet feature (3 pages by Jim Crocker), Eric Intrepid Dinosaur Hunter (4-pager by Mike Green), Creature Teacher (two 2-pagers by Tom Williams, reprints), Freaky Fotos feature (3 pages of b/w photos), Frankie Stein (a 6-pager by Ken Reid), Martha’s Monster Make-Up (two 2-pagers, probably by Keith Robson), Art’s Gallery (a 3-pager by Mike Lacey, reprint),  Gums (a 6-pager by Ian Knox), Brainy and His Monster Maker (two 2-pagers), Major Jump Horror Hunter (a 2-pager (reprint) and a 4-pager (new) by Ian Knox), Holiday Heroes (a 4-pager, probably by Chas Sinclair), Kid Kong (a 6-pager by Ian Knox), Puzzles (2 pages by Cliff Brown), Doctor Ericstein Monster Maker (a 4-pager by Mike Green, in colour).

The book begins with another cheerful panoramic set of the Little Monsters by Martin Baxendale, his only one in this book:

There are a couple of previously unseen fun features, such as Freaky Fotos:

… and Horror Alphabet – a three-page set by Jim Crocker. Here’s a sample page:

Paul Ailey provided two sets of X-Ray Specs. In one, Ray stops a raid on the bank, and in the other one he helps land a plane at New York airport in thick fog:

Mike Green contributed two stories of Eric – the lad who creates things from the junk found in Dad’s scrap-yard. In Eric Intrepid Dinosaur Hunter Eric gets an idea to make some money by selling a fake dinosaur to the city museum:

… and in Doctor Ericstein Monster Maker he tries to become rich and famous by creating his version of the Frankenstein monster:

Ken Reid illustrated a new story of Frankie Stein. Ken’s style had become rather uninspired and monotonous by then but the 6-page set, drawn with meticulous precision, is quite remarkable because it was Ken’s first Frankie Stein in nearly two decades since he stopped drawing it in WHAM! comic in 1967. In this episode Prof. Cube takes Frankie to audition for the leading role in the re-make of Frankenstein film:

The Annual has two helpings of Martha’s Monster Make-Up – the feature that Ken Reid used to draw in Monster Fun Comic weeklies. Both sets were illustrated by someone else who had studied Ken’s style and tried to imitate it to the best of his ability. I will take a guess that the artist was a one-time BUSTER sub Keith Robson who occasionally stepped in for Ken Reid on Faceache and other strips in the seventies. Here is a sample page from the Annual:

Barrie Appleby drew both Terror TV episodes. One is a western story of Alias Smith and Bones, while the second one features TV at Midnight – the show that makes the late night horror movie look like cartoon-time:

It was the second year in a row that Major Jump Horror Hunter was presented in the form of puzzles; here are the first two pages:

I am unsure who illustrated it but I think it may have been Ian Knox who also provided two surprise sets of strips that were usually given to other artists to draw. In Gums, the cunning Captain Mayhem swindles Gums out of his false teeth and sends them off to space tied to a US rocket. Cap’n Mayhem’s fiendish plan is to starve Gums into becoming his pet performer for food.  The US space shot finally shakes off Gum’s false teeth and they zonk straight back into the shark’s mouth. Gums wastes no time switching places with his tormentor:

The other surprise set by Ian Knox is this 6-pager of Kid Kong in which the gorilla is sent on a mission to save the world from the evil Doctor Bananas. Here it is in full:

This post marks the end of my Monster Fun Comic series in which I covered the developments in the life of the comic, provided an account of each strip that appeared during its relatively short run, and reviewed all MFC Holiday Specials and Annuals. MONSTER FUN COMIC is the third comic after COR!! and SHIVER AND SHAKE covered in this fashion on this blog. I have no plans to undertake another project like this in the immediate future but will add the odd blogpost until I have more time and enthusiasm to resume regular blogging.

All Images 2015 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.