A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: JACK POTT

Jack Pott was a long-running strip in IPC comics that originated in COR!! It was about a lad who couldn’t keep out of amusement arcades and funfairs and always hit the jackpot. He entered for all sorts of competitions to win cash prizes, played cards, dice, bingo – everything went. Jack’s Dad didn’t mind betting himself but couldn’t win, just as his son couldn’t lose. Occasionally Dad tried to put Jack’s mind off gambling by giving him different chores but Jack inevitably found ingenious ways of turning them into betting or gambling games.  Jack’s teacher Specky was another recurring character who often caught the boy red-handed and told him to go back to school.

First episode in COR!! dated 7th November, 1970  (No. 23)

From time to time amusement arcade managers remembered that their establishments weren’t meant for children and kicked Jack out. Denied access to his regular playground, Jack would invent ways to entertain himself by turning routine every-day activities or simple objects into gambling games

From COR!! issue dated 13th February, 1971 (No. 37)

Although the strip continued to the very end of COR!!, Jack Pott was one of the very few COR!! stars who didn’t make a single front cover appearance. Perhaps it was considered that gambling wasn’t quite an appropriate theme in a children’s paper and was better kept between the covers. Whatever the reason, it didn’t prevent Jack Pott from having a whole new comic JACKPOT named after (well, nearly after) him in the late 70s/early 80s where the lucky funster was given a second life in a new series that continued in BUSTER for many years after JACPOT folded.

The series in COR!! was illustrated by Joe McCaffrey. The first episode appeared in the issue dated 7th November, 1970  (No. 23) and lasted until 15th June, 1974 (No. 211 (the last issue)).

From COR!! issue dated 1st July, 1972 (No. 109)
Can you recognise all the other COR!! characters in the last panel?