*KAZOOP !!

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.

Monday, March 4, 2019

WEEKLY OUTPUT - ROBERT NIXON, THE CHAMPION!

In the Spring of 1974 Rober Nixon was normally drawing 7 pages for COR!!, Shiver & Shake and Whoopee!, but the week when the comics with the cover date of March 30 1974 came out was special, firstly because he stepped in for Ken Reid contributing the Creepy Creation, and secondly because the issue of Shiver and Shake included an 8-page pull-out booklet of Frankie Stein, bringing Robert Nixon’s page count to 16 pages and making him that week’s champion.

I won’t speculate if he drew all the pages in the space of a week – I don’t even know if a mere mortal would be capable of producing this quantity of quality art in such a short time, but all the pages were printed in the comics of the same week, and that’s a fact :)

Images are © Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd

Click on the POWER PACK banner in the right-hand column and get your copy of the POWER PACK OF KEN REID - the deluxe two-volume set of Ken’s strips in WHAM!, SMASH! and POW! comics of the ‘60s.

Thursday, February 28, 2019

WEEKLY OUTPUT – MIKE LACEY

A look at the comics cover-dated 30th March, 1974 tells us IPC kept Mike Lacey very busy at the time. He drew at least 10 pages in COR!!, Shiver & Shake, Whizzer and Chips and Whoopee! Scared-Stiff Sam in Whoopee! is hands-down my favourite :) I believe Mike later used the drawing of Sam wearing his protective clothing in the last panel of that week's page 1 for a pull-out poster that came with one of the later issues of Whoopee!

There are 4 more pages in Shiver & Shake, Whizzer and Chips and Whoopee! that I believe are also by Mike, although the style is somewhat different. If they are indeed by him, Mike Lacey’s stats for that week were a whopping 14 pages, but even if they aren’t, 10 pages is still a very impressive number!

The next and final post in this series will cover the work of that week’s champion Robert Nixon!

Images are © Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd

Monday, February 25, 2019

WEEKLY OUTPUT – REG PARLETT

Reg Parlett’s page count in IPC comics cover-dated 30^th March 1974 was 7 pages. The artist had such a natural and flowing style, that it seems almost effortless but still very appealing to the eye. The quality of the art shows no signs that he struggled drawing his pages or had to rush them in order to meet his deadlines.

Two two-pagers in Whoopee! and Whizzer and Chips were centered around the much-overused but apparently very popular theme of poor kids vs the rich:

…while one page in Whoopee! represented the new favourite line of horror comedy:

And of course there were two pages of Billy Bunter in Valiant:

Had Buster not missed that week, the artist’s stats would have been not 7 but 10 pages. This is how Reg Parlett’s regular features in Buster looked like in the issue of the week before. Happy Family was a reprint, so under normal circumstances Reg Parlett’s weekly output amounted to the impressive quantity of 9 pages at that time!