A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: SUPER SPOOK

This is the first post in the series dedicated to features that only appeared in COR!! annuals and holiday specials.

Let me start with SUPER SPOOK - a superhero tale that appeared in three COR!! annuals, one story in each. It was about a mighty muscular miner Jeremiah Smith who was crushed to death in a mine beneath a mountain during Gold Rush while trying to save other people. His selfless courage and bravery were rewarded by the gift of eternal life and supernatural powers such as flying. He travelled the World wearing a silly skin-tight costume and doing good deeds as the invisible Super Spook. The illustrator was probably Ron Turner (I am sure about the last story, not so much about the first two).

The first story was a six-pager in COR!! annual 1975. It started with an intro that told readers about Jeremiah Smith who was one of the best and the biggest miners during Gold Rush in Canada in the year 1896. The blond-haired giant of a man was known and loved by everyone, especially children. Sadly, he perished in a crumbling cavern sacrificing himself in order to save villagers during a terrible storm that caused Yellowrock mountain to collapse. Jeremiah Smith finally broke free from under the mountain into the modern world. Miner of old, now an invisible ghost, Jeremiah Smith, aka Super Spook, saw much that he did not understand – National Junior Racing Car Championships, for example. In this first adventure after his return he helped Gary Johnson win the Championships and taught the rich foul-player Jack Schneider a lesson. Here is a taste:

The second story was 8 pages long and appeared in COR!! annual 1976. Once again, readers were given a quick reminder about the origins of Super Spook and his dedication to helping people (those in the right, that is). In this episode Super Spook helps a bunch of kids who call themselves Dirty Hands Gang catch Simple Simon Snell and solve the robbery of the local bank. Here are the last two pages of the episode:

The third and last story appeared two years later in COR!! Annual 1978 and was an eight-pager. Quite unusually for a British comic story, this episode came with a splash panel in the vein of American comics:

In this episode Super Spook, righter of wrongs, ghostly guardian of peace and justice, is on the side of Ginger Thomas and other proprietors of a little family fairground who are bullied by villainous Vic Finesilver and his black leather cronies. The thugs want the fairground to move in order to have all the business to themselves. Super Spook uses his special sleep suggestion and plants an idea of resistance in Ginger Thomas’ brain. The villains stand no chance and loose their business in the end. Here are two pages of the story:

ARTIST SELF-PORTRAITS (PART 6)

Quite a motley instalment today as I put all the remaining bits and bobs of artist self-portraits in a single blogpost. I’ll start off with another episode of Meet the Artists feature in Buster that I missed. Thanks to Peter Gray for the heads up:

Niblet who is another friend of KAZOOP!! alerted me about this self-portrait of David Mostyn in Whoopee! dated 29th January, 1983:

The other day I was checking my Shiver and Shake collection for something else and came across an episode of Frankie Stein in which Professor Cube had an idea he could get rid of his dreaded son by taking over the duties of the Shiver artist. This makes the tied-up bloke in the panel below Robert Nixon. The Shiver and Shake issue in question is dated 5th January, 1974:

In August 1984 Buster celebrated Reg Parlett’s eightieth birthday with a special story on front and back covers. Reg Parlett appears in the last panel surrounded by a crowd of his characters. I wonder who’s that Comics Historian in the second row of the second page?

I’ll close the series for now with a couple of Ken Reid self-portraits that were shown in the BBC Four series about the history of British comics. The images were used to illustrate the period when Mr. Reid suffered a nervous break-down though over-exhaustion and was unable to draw for many months:

ARTIST SELF-PORTRAITS (PART 5)

Here is the last batch of four artist self-portraits from MEET THE ARTISTS… series that ran in 1991 in Buster weeklies:

ARTIST SELF-PORTRAITS (PART 4)

Here are four more pages of MEET THE ARTISTS... series from 1991 Buster weeklies:

ARTIST SELF-PORTRAITS (PART 3)

In 1990 and 1991 Buster ran a Meet the ArtistS series where the then Buster artists drew themselves and provided some details about their lives and artistic careers. To the best of my knowledge, the series covered a total of twelve artists, here are the first four. Others will follow soon: