COR!! COMIC ANNUAL 1985

COR!! Comic Annual 1985, £2.25, 112 pages.

Contents: Jack Pott (2 episodes signed by Crocker), Chalky, The Gasworks Gang (4 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Teacher’s Pet (3 episodes), Hire A Horror (5 episodes, all reprints), Football Madd (3 episodes by a new artist), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (4 episodes), Learn to Draw with Chalky, Wilfred the World’s Worst Wizard (2 episodes), Nightmare (2 episodes by Crocker), Spring Puzzles, Val’s Vanishing Cream (2 Mike Lacey reprints), Revenge of the Gnomes (2 episodes), Play the Game with Football Madd, Tomboy (2 episodes), Fiends and Neighbours (new episode by Les Barton), Benny Bendo, Fun Corner (2 instalments, possibly by Tom Paterson), Join Jack Pottholing, Summer Puzzles, Young MacDonald and His Farm (possibly by Les Barton), Gus, Ha Ha Tee Hee gags (by Jack Clayton), Jelly Baby (2 episodes), Time for a Rhyme (possibly by Mike Brown), It Pays to Advertise gags, Autumn Puzzles, Gus Gorilla, Blackboard Brain-Busters puzzle, Winter Puzzles, Donovan’s Dad (by Terry Bave), Jasper the Grasper (new episode by Les Barton), Monster Munch ad on rear cover.

What made the Annual different from all the earlier ones is that it had way more games, puzzles, gags and jokes than all the others. There were two pages of puzzles for every season of the year, Jack Pottholing maze and Blackboard Brain Busters (finish the famous sayings puzzle); Teacher’s Pet offered some test-time tips plus there was a page of Learn to Draw with Chalky and a page of Play the Game with Football Madd. That’s a total of 13 non-comic pages – surely a record for COR!! Here are some examples:

Then there were Ha Ha Tee Hee gags by Jack Clayton, It Pays to Advertise gags, possibly by the artist who illustrated Mum’s the Word in WHOOPEE! in the mid-70s, and Fun Corner, possibly by Tom Paterson: 

Once again, Jim Crocker and Les Barton contributed quite a large number of new pages. Here are some bits and bobs from Les Barton:

Three new episodes of Football Madd were illustrated by a new artist:

There were two one-offs. The first one - Time for a Rhyme - wasn’t exactly a comic strip but rather an illustrated rhyme with speech balloons. The illustrator was probably Mike Brown: 

Revenge of the Gnomes was a tale about garden Gnomes who were brought to life by a witch to look after her creepy cottage while she was off to see the world. Two episodes were included in the annual both by an artist whose name I don’t know but I find his style very appealing and would love to see more of his work, if only I knew where to look:

It was also the only annual that didn’t have identical front and back covers: the back cover was given to the Monster Munch advertisement:

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: