SERIALISED FACEACHE STORIES – PART EIGHT: EXPERIMENT

It has been a while since I last did a post about serialised FACEACHE stories by Ken Reid, so here’s my synopsis of the next one. It continued over three weeks and can be found in BUSTER AND MONSTER FUN issues cover-dated March 17, 24 and 31, 1979. Be warned - there’s quite a lot of scrunging going on in this one! :)

Simpkins Minor is trying to create a new form of life by mixing substances in the school lab. He squirts Faceache with some of his chemicals and Faceache pretends he has started to mutate into a new form of life:

Simpkins runs away from the nauseating beast. At the same time, the experiment appears to have produced a result, and a weird creature begins to emerge from the glass beaker… 

Terrified, Faceache rushes to inform the Headmaster that Simpkins’ chemical mixture has turned into something diabolical. He forgets to unscrunge and the Headmaster bashes him unconscious...

The Headmaster suddenly has an idea that he’d become famous if he can prove to the scientific world that a monstrosity like that could be produced by chemical reaction. The Headmaster goes to the lab to make a note of the formula and is attacked by the real monster…

Faceache regains his consciousness and rushes to the lab where he sees Mr. Thrashbottom being slowly swallowed by the monster. 

Faceache volunteers to save the Headmaster but asks for his permission to scrunge. Panic-stricken, Mr. Thrashbottom grants Faceache carte blanche to scrunge all he wants for as long as he wants any time...

The monster evaporates at the sight of Faceache’s next awful scrunge:

Faceache proceeds to have fun doing wild scrunges, while Mr. Thrashbottom wishes he’d been swallowed instead of granting his permission.

One can’t help noticing that the story echoes with the brilliant two-pager of Faceache by Ken Reid in BUSTER BOOK 1976. Here’s a taste:

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing 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.

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.