A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: ROBBY HOOD AND HIS ONE MAN BAND, PART TWO

The third story ran from 13th February until 27th March, 1971 (issue Nos. 37 – 43). Robby and Muchflour accidentally find themselves on board a strange empty barge sailing along the canal. They discover that the whole boat is booby trapped. Three dangerous looking men stop the barge and leap on board. Robby and Muchflour hide in a secret compartment in the hull and find themselves in the company of Captain Horatio Spike, a retired Royal Navy officer. Captain Spike owns the barge and has booby-trapped it against the attackers. The background story is that three weeks ago he won a contract to haul coal for one of the local mines but a Ned Tarrant wanted the business so he and his men set to get captain Spike. The thugs fall victim to the different booby-traps but manage to scupper the boat just before jumping ashore. The barge goes underwater. Robby and Muchflour decide to go after the mob. They find Tarrant and his cronies preparing to cast off with their own horse-driven barge. Muchflour launches an unsuccessful attack on horseback and ends up on board the boat, unconscious. Robby follows the barge until it arrives at the coal depot and is about to start loading. He boards the boat and reunites with Muchflour. After a few action-packed episodes Tarrant and his mob throw Robby into the canal. The spectre saves him but since Muchflour is invisible to the thugs, they think that Robby walks on water. The invisible pal helps Robby persuade the thugs that he is a magician and the boy forces Tarrant to sign his barge over to Horatio Spike.

An eposide from the third story from COR!! issue dated 13th March, 1971 (No. 41)

The final story started in the issue of 3rd April and ended in the issue of 24th April, 1971 (issue Nos. 44 – 47).  Muchflour teaches Robby to fire arrows. A stray arrow startles a lady who was painting a picture behind the threes. They carry her up to the house and dial the ambulance but a strange bearded man secretly cuts telephone wires. While Robby and Muchflour are busy trying to revive the lady, the evil man uses a fishing rod to fetch one of the paintings lined along the walls of the room. The lady comes to her senses and recognises the strange man who is Ivan Popoff. The boy and his ghost pal rush forward to get him but Popoff grabs the painting and escapes with his car. The stolen picture is “The Stately Stag”. The lady’s name is Amelia Dawson, she is an artist and art collector. The background story is that she bought the painting 6 months ago. Soon after Ivan Popoff appeared and began to pester her into selling it to him. She refused because she liked the painting, so now he finally stole it. The two friends suspect there is something strange about that worthless work of art. Popoff suffers a car accident and Robby recovers the painting. He discovers there’s another one underneath and it’s a Rembrandt. Popoff confesses that he stole the painting from a famous museum last month, disguised it and hid it in a friend’s junk shop but then the old lady bought it in mistake and he had to try to get it back. Popoff goes to prison. Miss Dawson invites Robby to live with her in her house and Robby accepts with his pal’s approval. Muchflour is getting weary of the modern times and returns to sleep in a hollow oak from where he emerged in the beginning of the series.

An episode from the fourth story from COR!! dated 24th April, 1971 (No. 47).
This was the last episode of the series.

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: ROBBY HOOD AND HIS ONE MAN BAND, PART ONE

Robby Hood and His One Man Band was yet another adventure serial in COR!! that occupied two pages of the paper and lasted from 7th November, 1970 until 24th April, 1971 (issue Nos. 23 – 47). The black and white feature was illustrated by Ron Turner. The script was by Scott Goodall who is said to have written all adventure tales in COR!!

Robby Hood lived with his step-father and step-brothers who were always making fun of his name and place of birth (Nottingham) until he finally decided to run away from home and vanish into the Sherwood Forest. There he met a weirdly-dressed bloke named Muchflour Amber, one–time miller from the parish of Mansfield who spoke in a peculiar way and was seeking a fellow by the name of Robin Hood. Robby realised that the bloke was a spectre from the Middle Ages on a quest to find the long-dead heroic outlaw and join his band of merry men. Saddened by the news that Robin Hood was no longer around, Muchflour offered to become Robby’s faithful servant. One peculiar thing about the ghost was that Robby was the only person who was able to see him (well, apart from the readers of COR!!) while all the other characters of the feature were completely unaware of his presence so Muchflour never failed to catch them off-guard. It was a great advantage because the characters who Robby Hood and his “one man band” had to deal with were usually dangerous criminals. 

The series consisted of the opening episode in the issue cover dated 7th November, 1970 (No. 23) and four serialised adventures.

The first story ran from 14th November until 12th December, 1970 (issue Nos. 24 – 28).  The pair accidentally encounter two armed thugs who have kidnapped Miss Rushton, a millionaire’s daughter, and are holding her for a ransom of 20,000 pounds. Robby tries to free the girl but the bandits capture him as well and take both of their prisoners to their hiding place. Muchflour brings their treachery to an end with the aid of his ancient acorn of wisdom and a young stag whom he summons with a blow-horn. In the process of liberating Robby and the girl, Muchflour sets the crooks’ hideout on fire and grounds their helicopter. The girl reunites with her father and the kidnappers are arrested. Robby and Muchflour stay in the Sherwood Forest.

An episode from the first story from COR!! issue dated 5th December, 1970 (No. 27)

The second adventure span over the period from 19th December, 1970 until 6th February, 1971 (issue Nos. 29 – 36). Muchflour and Robby meet old Dan Spooner who has a smallholding on the edge of the forest. A construction company has bought Spooner’s land and wants him to leave. The evil foreman Herbie Bennett and his construction men try different dirty plots to drive the old man off his land and make him abandon his hut. Muchflour and Robby try to help the old-timer as much as they can but the construction men finally bulldoze the house. Spooner, Muchflour and Robby discover a maze of tunnels underneath the hut and meet a strange dwarf Bimbo who turns out to be the wicked foreman’s accomplice and lures Robby into a trap. Construction men capture Robby and carry him to their quarters where he finds out that the real reason why Bennett and his gang were so desperate to evict old Dan Spooner and demolish his house was the soil. It contains a high percentage of iron ore and the tunnels under the house were made by Bennett and his thugs prospecting. Evicting Spooner was a deliberate fraud because mining rights for the area would guarantee a fortune. The thugs dump Robby and Spooner in a hole and are going to bury them under tons of quick-setting cement but Muchflour pulls them out. They follow the crooks and make them confess by using the “noise torture” administered with Muchflour’s ancient super-loud blow-horn.  Herbie Bennett and his cronies are taken away by the police. Mr. Spooner offers Robby to stay with him, but the boy prefers the company of his invisible friend.

An episode from the second story from COR!! dated 30th January, 1971 (No. 35)

The remaining two stories will be covered in the second post on Robby Hood and His One Man Band.

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: JACK POTT

Jack Pott was a long-running strip in IPC comics that originated in COR!! It was about a lad who couldn’t keep out of amusement arcades and funfairs and always hit the jackpot. He entered for all sorts of competitions to win cash prizes, played cards, dice, bingo – everything went. Jack’s Dad didn’t mind betting himself but couldn’t win, just as his son couldn’t lose. Occasionally Dad tried to put Jack’s mind off gambling by giving him different chores but Jack inevitably found ingenious ways of turning them into betting or gambling games.  Jack’s teacher Specky was another recurring character who often caught the boy red-handed and told him to go back to school.

First episode in COR!! dated 7th November, 1970  (No. 23)

From time to time amusement arcade managers remembered that their establishments weren’t meant for children and kicked Jack out. Denied access to his regular playground, Jack would invent ways to entertain himself by turning routine every-day activities or simple objects into gambling games

From COR!! issue dated 13th February, 1971 (No. 37)

Although the strip continued to the very end of COR!!, Jack Pott was one of the very few COR!! stars who didn’t make a single front cover appearance. Perhaps it was considered that gambling wasn’t quite an appropriate theme in a children’s paper and was better kept between the covers. Whatever the reason, it didn’t prevent Jack Pott from having a whole new comic JACKPOT named after (well, nearly after) him in the late 70s/early 80s where the lucky funster was given a second life in a new series that continued in BUSTER for many years after JACPOT folded.

The series in COR!! was illustrated by Joe McCaffrey. The first episode appeared in the issue dated 7th November, 1970  (No. 23) and lasted until 15th June, 1974 (No. 211 (the last issue)).

From COR!! issue dated 1st July, 1972 (No. 109)
Can you recognise all the other COR!! characters in the last panel?

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: TELL-TALE TESS

Tell-Tale Tess. The sneaky little girl Tess always told on others. Her annoying habit sure didn’t make her the most popular girl in Cortown and she often suffered at the hands of townsfolk whom she told on (or threatened to tell on) for or without a reason. Her main motive was to boss others around but occasionally she got rewarded for her information, for example when it helped catch a crook. The illustrator was Joe McCaffrey. Tell-Tale Tess ran from 7th November, 1970 until 22nd July, 1972 (Nos. 23 – 112) and missed two dates in 1971: 24th April and 22nd May (Nos. 47 and 51).

From COR!! issue dated 13th February, 1971 (No. 37)

From COR!! issue dated 11th March, 1972 (No. 93)

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: NOBBY'S HOBBIES

Nobby's Hobbies. Nobby was a boy who tried all kinds of hobbies but always messed things up and upset his Dad.  Here is the complete list of the hobbies that he had a go at: woodworking, conjuring (“Wizard” hobby), collecting stamps, photography, plumbing, pottery, voice throwing, knitting, calendar making, football (actually getting his football off the rooftop), puppets on a string, archaeology, dressing-up (disguising), winter sport of tobogganing, toy yacht building, making scrapbooks, making plastic models, making toy dogs, fishing, animal tracking, bird watching, keeping fit, making Easter eggs, making money by tape-recording bird sounds, camping, kite-flying, brass rubbing, jigsaws, mechanics, roller-skating, collecting wild flowers, acting, watching tadpoles turn into frogs, catapulting, playing badminton, paper tearing. Phew… 

The strip was drawn by the excellent Frank McDiarmid and ran from 7th November, 1970 until 17th July, 1971 (issue Nos. 23 – 59). It missed just one date during the period (1st May, 1971 (No. 48)). The episode in COR!! issue of 24th April, 1971 (No. 47) was illustrated by Les Barton.

From COR!! issue dated 12th December, 1970  (No. 28)

From COR!! issue dated 29th May, 1971 (No. 52)

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: SWOPPER STAN

Swopper Stan was a strip about a kid who swopped everything for anything with all kinds of humorous consequences. It ran from 12th September, 1970 until 14th April, 1973 (Issues 15 – 150) and didn’t miss a single week during the period. The regular illustrator was Mike Lacey.

From COR!! issue dated 14th Novemner, 1970 (No. 24)

From COR!! issue dated 30th December, 1972 (No. 135 - Christmas edition).
Stan does some swopping with other COR!! characters - Micky Madd, Tricky Dicky,
Chalky and Jasper the Grasper

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: TEACHER'S PET

Teacher’s Pet was a long-running series in COR!! about an annoying school-girl named Patsy and her never-ending attempts to get into her teacher’s (Miss’) good books. Patsy’s efforts usually backfired and infuriated the teacher, besides she often suffered at the hands of her classmates for being a sneak. Miss’ real name was Miss Fortune and according to the piece of information shared in the Postbag section by the Editor, she’d been trying to change it ever since Patsy joined her class. The strip enjoyed full-colour treatment and often occupied the prime slot on the back of the paper, especially in the early months. It didn’t miss a single week and made 3 front cover appearances in COR!! issues dated 15th December 1973, 9th February 1974 and 11th May, 1974 (Nos. 185, 193 and 206). The artist was Norman Mansbridge but there was also another illustrator who stepped in quite frequently. I don’t know the name but he also drew Boney in Knockout and Whizzer and Chips.

Episode drawn by Norman Mansbridge from COR!! issue dated 12th December, 1970 (No. 28)

Episode by another artist from COR!! issue dated 23rd February, 1974 (No. 195)

This post covers the last feature that appeared in the first issue of COR!! The total number of different strips over the relatively short lifetime of COR!! came to sixty, not counting reader participation features, “guest star” appearances, “cor-medy choice” features and a few series that only appeared in COR!! annuals and specials that I hope to cover in due course. Teacher’s Pet was No. 27 so less than half of the strips have been covered so far.