1977 COR!! COMIC ANNUAL

1977 COR!! Comic Annual cost £1 and had 144 pages.

Strips and features: Willy Worry (4 episodes, one in full colour), Give A Dog A Bone (6 episodes, one in full colour), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (3 episodes, two in full colour), Gus Gorilla (3 episodes), The Return of Spooky-Spokes (6 pages), Soldier Spoon (4 episodes), Footbal Madd (2 episodes by Les Barton + 1 reprint from an old COR!! weekly), Whacky (2 episodes, one in full colour), Hire A Horror (4 Reg Parlett reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Teacher’s Pet, Tricky Dicky, Jelly Baby (2 episodes), Donovan’s Dad (two episodes, one in full colour), Party ‘Spot The Changes’ puzzle, The Gasworks Gang (two new episodes by Frank McDiarmid), The Slimms (three episodes, one signed by Terry Bave), Tomboy (2 episodes), Night Mare (2 episodes by Les Barton), Gus Gags (6 pages), Jasper the Grasper (by Alf Saporito), Hugh Reka (2 episodes), Jack Pott (2 episodes), Andy’s Ants (2 episodes), “Young” MacDonald and his Farm, Snow ‘Spot the Changes’ puzzle, Tease Break puzzles, Teacher’s Pet, Val’s Vanishing Cream (signed by Terry Bave), Tricky Dicky, Fiends and Neighbours (4 pages signed by Tom Paterson).

There were two one-offs in the Annual:

The Return of Spooky-Spokes was a detective comedy strip starring an invisible poltergeist, formerly known as the fiendish Ponsonby Prenderghast, and a spook detective, formerly the world-famous detective Deadlock “Spooky” Spokes. They team up with Arnold Twinge, the friendly Neighbourhood Detective, and round up a gang of jewellery shop robbers. Here are the opening two pages:

Hugh Reka was a tale about a boy who had a knack for inventions. In the two episodes included in the Annual he experimented with his ‘grow little’ and ‘grow big’ powders. Here are both episodes from the Annual side by side:

IPC in-house artists had become quite good at cutting up old COR!! artwork, resizing panels and constructing two-pagers out of original one-pagers. Give a Dog a Bone and Hire A Horror stories have been definitely tampered with and there are a few more that may have been re-shuffled as well (The Slimms, Willy Worry, Tricky Dicky). The rest are all original pages, as far as I can tell. Here are two examples of new sets by Les Barton:

I am a bit confused as to who illustrated Jasper the Grasper and Gus Gorilla in this Annual. Was it still Alf Saporito?  The style looks somewhat different from the previous years. Here is the last page of Jasper the Grasper and one episode of Gus Gorilla side by side (I believe both were by the same artist):

Finally, here is a 4-page treat of Fiends and Neighbours drawn and signed by Tom Paterson: