1977 COR!! COMIC ANNUAL

1977 COR!! Comic Annual cost £1 and had 144 pages.

Strips and features: Willy Worry (4 episodes, one in full colour), Give A Dog A Bone (6 episodes, one in full colour), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (3 episodes, two in full colour), Gus Gorilla (3 episodes), The Return of Spooky-Spokes (6 pages), Soldier Spoon (4 episodes), Footbal Madd (2 episodes by Les Barton + 1 reprint from an old COR!! weekly), Whacky (2 episodes, one in full colour), Hire A Horror (4 Reg Parlett reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Teacher’s Pet, Tricky Dicky, Jelly Baby (2 episodes), Donovan’s Dad (two episodes, one in full colour), Party ‘Spot The Changes’ puzzle, The Gasworks Gang (two new episodes by Frank McDiarmid), The Slimms (three episodes, one signed by Terry Bave), Tomboy (2 episodes), Night Mare (2 episodes by Les Barton), Gus Gags (6 pages), Jasper the Grasper (by Alf Saporito), Hugh Reka (2 episodes), Jack Pott (2 episodes), Andy’s Ants (2 episodes), “Young” MacDonald and his Farm, Snow ‘Spot the Changes’ puzzle, Tease Break puzzles, Teacher’s Pet, Val’s Vanishing Cream (signed by Terry Bave), Tricky Dicky, Fiends and Neighbours (4 pages signed by Tom Paterson).

There were two one-offs in the Annual:

The Return of Spooky-Spokes was a detective comedy strip starring an invisible poltergeist, formerly known as the fiendish Ponsonby Prenderghast, and a spook detective, formerly the world-famous detective Deadlock “Spooky” Spokes. They team up with Arnold Twinge, the friendly Neighbourhood Detective, and round up a gang of jewellery shop robbers. Here are the opening two pages:

Hugh Reka was a tale about a boy who had a knack for inventions. In the two episodes included in the Annual he experimented with his ‘grow little’ and ‘grow big’ powders. Here are both episodes from the Annual side by side:

IPC in-house artists had become quite good at cutting up old COR!! artwork, resizing panels and constructing two-pagers out of original one-pagers. Give a Dog a Bone and Hire A Horror stories have been definitely tampered with and there are a few more that may have been re-shuffled as well (The Slimms, Willy Worry, Tricky Dicky). The rest are all original pages, as far as I can tell. Here are two examples of new sets by Les Barton:

I am a bit confused as to who illustrated Jasper the Grasper and Gus Gorilla in this Annual. Was it still Alf Saporito?  The style looks somewhat different from the previous years. Here is the last page of Jasper the Grasper and one episode of Gus Gorilla side by side (I believe both were by the same artist):

Finally, here is a 4-page treat of Fiends and Neighbours drawn and signed by Tom Paterson:

1976 COR!! HOLIDAY SPECIAL

1976 COR!! Holiday Special still had the cover price of 25 p but the page count came down to 64.  It was the first one to feature Ivor Lott and Tony Broke on the front cover (signed by Robert Nixon). The characters remained cover stars of all COR!! specials and annuals from this edition onwards.

Here is the lineup of strips and features: Gus Gorilla (3 new episodes by Alf Saporito), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (2 Reg Parlett reprints from old COR!! weeklies and one new episode by Robert Nixon in full colour on the centrespread), Andy’s Ants (new episode by Terry Bave), Tomboy (new episode), Mike’s Magic Mould (4 reprints from old COR!! weeklies, two in full colour), Hire A Horror (4 Reg Parlett reprints from old COR!! weeklies, two in full colour), Donovan’s Dad (new episode by Terry Bave), Dial “T” for Twit (2 pages by Tom Paterson, signed), Soldier Spoon (4 episodes), Football Madd (4 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Whacky (new episode), The Gasworks Gang (one reprint from an old COR!! weekly and one new episode by Frank McDiarmid), Look… Look… Look..! puzzle (by Les Barton), The Slimms (new episode), Jack Pott (new episode), Tease Break feature  (3 pages), Travel Ticklers gags (2 pages), Teacher’s Pet (new episode), Jollidays jokes (2 pages), Night Mare (new episode by Les Barton), Tricky Dicky (new episode), Jelly Baby (new episode), Willy Worry (signed by Terry Bave), Chalky (by Les Barton).

The special had only one one-off and it was a set of Dial “T” for Twit drawn and signed by Tom Paterson. It was one of those special agent comedy strips that were so common in British comics in the 60s and the 70s. Clumsy Sam Twitt and his assistant Cyril deal with enemy agents Ivan and Otto (an unlikely duo of a Russian and a German, unless he was from East Germany…) who attempt to steal a secret shrinking device invented by Prof. Klott:

Terry Bave and Les Barton drew quite a few pages for this edition. Here are three puzzle pages by Les Barton. Note Les Barton’s versions of many COR!! star characters in the Tease Break feature (pages 2 and 3 below):

1976 COR!! COMIC ANNUAL

1976 COR!! Comic Annual cost 95 p. and was 160 pages thick. It was the last COR!! annual with Gus Gorilla on the front cover. One more thing that it had in common with early COR!! annuals was that newly drawn strips still made up quite a large portion of the contents. Speaking of early COR!! annuals, those of you who have been reading the blog since the very start may remember that I didn’t cover the annuals of 1973 and 1974 when writing the respective yearly reviews  because I didn’t have copies then. Well, now I have filled the gaps and included details about the two books. You can read about 1973 COR!! annual here. Click here for the post with details of 1974 COR!! annual.

  

Here is a summary of the contents of 1976 COR!! Comic Annual: Willy Worry (4 episodes, one in full colour), Whacky (in full colour), Tricky Dicky (2 episodes, one in full colour), Gus Gorilla (4 episodes, two in full colour), Stowaway Steve (5 episodes, one in full colour), The Slimms (3 episodes, one in full colour), Aqua Lad (4 episodes), Jack Pott (3 episodes), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (3 episodes), Jelly Baby (3 episodes), Val’s Vanishing Cream (3 episodes), Give A Dog A Bone (4 episodes), Andy’s Ants (3 episodes), Hire A Horror (3 episodes, one in full colour), Fiends and Neighbours (by ghost artist), Teacher’s Pet (2 episodes, one in full colour),  Tease Break feature (3 instalments), Jasper the Grasper (2 episodes, one by Trevor Metcalfe and one by Alf Saporito), Night Mare (4 episodes, one by Tom Paterson), The Gasworks Gang (2 new episodes and one reprint), Big Bad Butch, Soldier Spoon (3 episodes), Tomboy (3 episodes), Super Spook (8 pages), Peril in Pantoland (8 pages), What do You Know feature (by Alf Saporito), Jest For A Laugh feature (by Alf Saporito).

One offs: Big Bad Butch – a cowboy comedy feature set in the Wild West. I am not quite sure but it looks like the work of Alf Saporito to me:

Peril in Pantoland. The story was about young Dick Whittington and his sister Jill who went looking for their cat and found themselves in the weird world of mechanical fairy-tale monsters manufactured by the crazy scientist Demon-King. The kids encountered Caliph of Baghdad and his rubber servants, Long John Silver and a shark, Aladdin’s wicked uncle, Mummy and a giant before the police came to their rescue. I wonder who the illustrator was?

Robert Nixon did an excellent job on all of his sets in the annual (Hire a Horror and Ivor Lott and Tony Broke). Hire a Horror instalments were paricularly scrumptious:

Frank McDiarmid contributed two new episodes of The Gasworks Gang. Here is one in its 4-page entirety:

Alf Saporito drew quite a few pages for the annual: Gus Gorilla (all new sets as far as I can tell), a 4-pager of Jasper the Grasper and two features – What Do You Know and Jest For A Laugh. I believe he was also responsible for the Big Bad Butch set. Here is a panel from Jasper the Grasper: