COR!! COMIC ANNUAL 1985

COR!! Comic Annual 1985, £2.25, 112 pages.

Contents: Jack Pott (2 episodes signed by Crocker), Chalky, The Gasworks Gang (4 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Teacher’s Pet (3 episodes), Hire A Horror (5 episodes, all reprints), Football Madd (3 episodes by a new artist), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (4 episodes), Learn to Draw with Chalky, Wilfred the World’s Worst Wizard (2 episodes), Nightmare (2 episodes by Crocker), Spring Puzzles, Val’s Vanishing Cream (2 Mike Lacey reprints), Revenge of the Gnomes (2 episodes), Play the Game with Football Madd, Tomboy (2 episodes), Fiends and Neighbours (new episode by Les Barton), Benny Bendo, Fun Corner (2 instalments, possibly by Tom Paterson), Join Jack Pottholing, Summer Puzzles, Young MacDonald and His Farm (possibly by Les Barton), Gus, Ha Ha Tee Hee gags (by Jack Clayton), Jelly Baby (2 episodes), Time for a Rhyme (possibly by Mike Brown), It Pays to Advertise gags, Autumn Puzzles, Gus Gorilla, Blackboard Brain-Busters puzzle, Winter Puzzles, Donovan’s Dad (by Terry Bave), Jasper the Grasper (new episode by Les Barton), Monster Munch ad on rear cover.

What made the Annual different from all the earlier ones is that it had way more games, puzzles, gags and jokes than all the others. There were two pages of puzzles for every season of the year, Jack Pottholing maze and Blackboard Brain Busters (finish the famous sayings puzzle); Teacher’s Pet offered some test-time tips plus there was a page of Learn to Draw with Chalky and a page of Play the Game with Football Madd. That’s a total of 13 non-comic pages – surely a record for COR!! Here are some examples:

Then there were Ha Ha Tee Hee gags by Jack Clayton, It Pays to Advertise gags, possibly by the artist who illustrated Mum’s the Word in WHOOPEE! in the mid-70s, and Fun Corner, possibly by Tom Paterson: 

Once again, Jim Crocker and Les Barton contributed quite a large number of new pages. Here are some bits and bobs from Les Barton:

Three new episodes of Football Madd were illustrated by a new artist:

There were two one-offs. The first one - Time for a Rhyme - wasn’t exactly a comic strip but rather an illustrated rhyme with speech balloons. The illustrator was probably Mike Brown: 

Revenge of the Gnomes was a tale about garden Gnomes who were brought to life by a witch to look after her creepy cottage while she was off to see the world. Two episodes were included in the annual both by an artist whose name I don’t know but I find his style very appealing and would love to see more of his work, if only I knew where to look:

It was also the only annual that didn’t have identical front and back covers: the back cover was given to the Monster Munch advertisement: