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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.



Sunday, May 13, 2012

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: BARNEY'S BRAINBOX


Barney’s Brain Box was a series about an absent-minded boy Barney Biggs who was able to concentrate on only one thing at a time. The problem with Barney was that he frequently fell into a state of dopiness. As a result, Barney’s fantasies and daydreams pushed reality to the back of his mind making him forget all about his errands and commitments. COR!! readers could see what went on inside Barney’s head. Barney’s “brainwaves” were portrayed as little creatures (brain-bods) inside his brain box. The conflicting nature of the brainwaves inevitably resulted in battles and humorous clashes between reality “brain-bods” and fantasy “brain bods” as the former struggled to win Barney’s attention back from the latter. To make things even more complicated, the setting kept alternating between reality and Barney’s brain box as goings-on in the real World altered the course of events in Barney’s head. Luckily for Barney, reality “brain-bods” usually prevailed, and just in time for him to avoid trouble


From COR!! dated June 20th, 1970 (No. 3)

The feature only lasted for 31 weeks from the first issue until the first issue of 1971 in which Barney made a New Year resolution to think of only one thing a time and thus put an end to his problems.

The concept of Barney’s Brain Box was similar to that of a number of older UK strips such as The Nervs, Georgie’s Germs, Numskulls, maybe even Buster’s Daydreams, but it was a scrumptious feature nonetheless. The short-lived series occupied two pages (except in the issues dated 11th July 1970, 15th August 1970 and 3rd October 1970 (Nos. 5, 11 and 18) where it was 1 and ½ pages long). It was illustrated by several artists such as Mike Lacey and Tony Goffe, but the majority of the episodes were by the unconfirmed illustrator who drew Football Madd and some other strips in COR!!, Peter Davidson perhaps?


From COR!! dated 8th August, 1970 (No. 10)

7 comments:

  1. It could be Colin Whittock who drew that last strip. He also drew Champ in a 'Baxendale' style (see the section about Champ) - http://whizzerandchipscomic.blogspot.co.nz/p/history.html

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  2. Thanks, George, this looks like a very real possibility. I have emailed Mr. Whittock and will see what he says (assuming he cares to respond :) )

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  3. I received a reply from Colin and he said he contributed no strips to Cor!!

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  4. Its a shame it was short lived it is a very creative strip..

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  5. Could be Mike Brown - the style looks similar to hid Brenda's Brownies strip in Sandie.

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  6. This strip pops up in the Whoopee! Holiday Special. 1975.

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  7. There's a 4 page Barney's Brain Box strip in Whoopee! Annual 1977

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