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.



Showing posts with label Jasper the Grasper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jasper the Grasper. Show all posts

Monday, October 8, 2012

COR!! COMIC ANNUAL 1984



COR!! Comic Annual 1984, £1.95, 112 pages

Contents: Jack Pott (2 episodes illustrated and signed by Jim Crocker), Smartie Artie (2 episodes), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (3 episodes signed by Crocker), Night Mare (2 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Tomboy (2 reprints), Terry’s Tube Travels (3 episodes illustrated by Cliff Brown, one signed), Gus Gags (2 instalments), Football Madd (2 episodes), Jelly Baby (2 episodes), Young MacDonald and His Farm (2 episodes by Ron Turner), Benny Bendo, Teacher’s Pet (3 episodes), Percy Grower and his Fantastic Fertiliser, Tease Break (4 instalments), Chalky (2 episodes), Wilfred the World’s Worst Wizard (2 episodes), Whacky (2 episodes), Jasper the Grasper (new by Les Barton), Cheery Chuckles,  Spotter, Donovan’s Dad (2 old Les Barton episodes),  The Gasworks Gang (new set signed by Frank McDiarmid), Hire A Horror, Val’s Vanishing Cream, Fiends and Neighbours (new story illustrated by Les Barton).

As always, the annual was a combination of reprints and new material. In the introduction to the COR!! Specials and Annuals chapter of this blog I mentioned that in reprints the panels were usually cut up and rearranged so that original one-pagers from the weeklies became two-pagers in holiday specials and annuals. This meant that some panels had to be tampered with and extended. Sometimes this involved a small effort on behalf of IPC's staff artists: for example, only the last panel had to be ‘augmented’ in this Tomboy set that originally appeared in COR!! issue dated 12th January, 1974 and was reprinted in the 1984 Annual:


On other occasions more work was required, often resulting in awkward panelling and general layout, as can be seen by comparing the original set of Donovan’s Dad from COR!! dated 23rd December, 1972 and the reprint in the 1984 Annual:



The Annual had quite a large proportion of new material, as indicated by the number of strips marked in red in the contents summary above (I will repeat myself by saying that red means that the strips were either one-offs or their appearances were limited to COR!! Specials and Annuals and they will receive their own blogposts later on).

There was only one one-off strip in this annual and it was Terry’s Tube Travels. 3 episodes of it were illustrated by Cliff Brown who also drew Timothy Tester in Whizzer and Chips for quite a long time. The tale was about Terry and the telescope that he received as a gift from his Grandad who owned it as a lad. Whenever Terry looked through the telescope, he got transported to the place that he looked at (be it Mars, ant-heap or Easter Island):


In an earlier post I labelled Percy Grower and his Fantastic Fertiliser as an one-off. Well I was wrong because it made its second appearance in this Annual. The artist’s style is so distinctive that when I first looked I automatically assumed it was yet another episode of Benny Bendo. So, it is now official that Percy Grower and his Fantastic Fertiliser was not an one-off and appeared in two COR!! annuals.

The Annual contains new sets of two of my favourite strips in COR!! specials and annuals – The Gasworks Gang by Frank McDiarmid and Jasper the Grasper by Les Barton, both shown below in full. I particularly like the latter.



The episode of Fiends and Neighbours came with an original masthead. Here is the opening page:


Thursday, October 4, 2012

COR!! HOLIDAY SPECIAL 1983



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.



Friday, September 28, 2012

1982 COR!! HOLIDAY SPECIAL



1982 COR!! Holiday Special, 50 p., 64 pages

Contents: Chalky (2 new episodes and 1 reprint), Hire A Horror (3 reprints from old COR!! weeklies, including 1 in full colour), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, Tomboy (4 reprints, including 2 in full colour), Whacky (2 reprints), Young MacDonald and His Farm (2 episodes by  Ron Turner), Andy’s Ants (2 reprints), Donovan’s Dad (3 reprints including one in full colour), Nightmare (2 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Benny Bendo (3 episodes), Jack Pott (one reprint from an old COR!! weekly), Tricky Dicky (2 reprints), Football Madd (a new episode by Les Barton  + 2 more episodes by other artists), Jasper the Grasper (1 reprint from an old COR!! weekly and a new 3-page episode by Trevor Metcalfe), The Gasworks Gang (new episode by McDiarmid), Gus Gags (2 episodes), If You Go Down to the Woods Today (join the dots colour centrespread by Ron Turner), Tease Break, Fiends and Neighbours (3-pager by Nigel Edwards).

The Special was unusual in that it featured two stories on the front cover: a dramatic panel offering a taste of the Young MacDonald and His Farm adventure strip appeared alongside with the regular cover stars Ivor Lott and Tony Broke. There were two 4-pagers of Young MacDonald inside, both illustrated by the ever-excellent Ron Turner. As I said before, the feature was a recurrent one in COR!! annuals and holiday specials and will receive its own dedicated post later on, so I won’t discuss the instalments here but they stood out prominently in this COR!! Special. Ron Turner also contributed the centrespread with a join-the-dots puzzle. The young owner did the puzzle in my copy many years ago, but that’s what it was there for, so I hope you won’t mind :)


There was only one episode of Ivor Lott and Tony Broke. It was illustrated by an artist whose name I don’t know but I am sure he drew a lot for IPC comics in the 80s. I hope someone will identify him for me. Here are two panels:


Frank McDiarmid drew a nice three-pager of The Gasworks Gang with a holiday theme. Here is a taste (the first panel and the last):


Trevor Metcalfe was back on Jasper the Grasper once again. It is interesting to note that a reprint of an episode from an old COR!! weekly was also included. Metcalfe’s style had changed almost beyond recognition over the decade, Jasper the Grasper became a cuddly character, nothing like the version in the early COR!! episodes. Here is a fragment of the reprint, followed by half a page of Metcalfe’s new version: 



Les Barton took a break this time and his contribution was limitd to just one new episode of Football Madd. It was good to see another artist illustrate Fiends and Neighbours for a change and the artist was Nigel Edwards whose beautiful three-pager is another highlight in this 1982 edition of COR!! Holiday Special. Here it is in its entirety:


In combination with some nice reprints from old COR!! weeklies this edition made quite an appealing package and I would probably rate it as my favourite COR!! Holiday Special.