WHOOPEE! 1985 - A FEW OF THE LAST FRONT COVERS

In my previous post I said it was going to be the last in WHOOPEE! series for now, but I thought I might do another quick one… 

Only 13 issues were published in 1985 – the comic’s last year before it was absorbed by WHIZZER AND CHIPS, and although the paper was about to fold, I think 1985 was the year when readers saw some of the best WHOOPEE! covers. Here are a few that I find the most unusual and striking:

This doesn’t apply to the front cover of the last issue that I think was rather bland:

It had this announcement on the centre pages:

And here is the cover of the first combined issue that arrived a week later and coincided with Easter:

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

WHOOPEE! PULL-OUTS AND FREEBIES IN 1984

Compared to the year before, 1984 was a lot more generous in terms of WHOOPEE! pull-outs and free gifts... 

The four issues of 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st March, 1984 contained Sweeny Toddler's Naughty Booklet and confirmed that Sweeny Toddler had re-established his unshakable status of WHOOPEE!’s number one star. 

The booklet was given both sides of one page in all of the four issues, so it was 16 pages thick when fully assembled. It had colour front and back covers and centre pages, the rest was in black and white. The illustrator was the one and only Tom Paterson:

The issue with the cover date of 5th May, 1984 had a free Heinz Invaders badge:

… and carried this advert on one of its pages:

The next four issues of 12th, 19th, 26th May and 2nd June, 1984 had the Creepy Comix pull-out booklet.

The 16-page booklet was drawn mostly by Nigel Edwards or maybe Ian Knox, with a few pages by other artists:

The first of the four issues with the Creepy Comix booklet (12 May, 1984) also had a little extra and arrived with a pack of Free Fryers Phantom sweets, not present with my copy.

The next cut-out booklet came after a short break of just one week. The four issues of 16th, 23rd, 30th June and 7th July, 1984 carried Whoopee TV pull-out booklet:

It was another 16-pager, drawn exclusively by J Edward Oliver:

The first issue with the Whoopee TV pull-out booklet (16 June, 1984) also had a Free Gift from Weetabix - Shrinkies - Make me into BADGE… KEY FOB… PENDANT. I don’t have the gift but here is an image that I found online:

In August 1984 IPC launched Shoot! Football Magazine, and ran four-page adverts of the new periodical on the centre pages of WHOOPEE! issues cover-dated 25th August:

...and 15th September:

Whoopee Comic Turns Quiz and Jokes Booklet was that year’s fourth cut-out booklet and was presented with the issues of 22th & 29th September and 6th & 13th October, 1984:

Besides the page of the booklet, the issue of 29th September carried an advert of Christmas Annuals on its four centre pages. The layout of the first page looks shockingly familiar, doesn’t it? 

The centre pages of the next issue (20th October, 1984) advertised the arrival of the first issue of Big K computer magazine:

…followed a week later by the indispensable Guy Fawkes mask by Brian Walker in the issue cover-dated 27th October, 1984:

Finally, the four November issues (3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th) came with the second Sweeny Toddler booklet that year. The issue of 13th November also had three Free Stinky Stickers that are not present with my copy.

All four cut-out booklets offered earlier in 1984 followed the same uniform design: they had 16 pages, with colour front and back covers + colour centrespreads. This one, however, was different:  it was named Sweeny’s Baby Comic and purported to be the World’s Smallest Comic. After detaching the cut-out page from the comic, one was supposed to cut it in half again before folding, and after four weeks the result was a 32-page booklet that was four times smaller than the page of the comic:

The mini-comic was the last pull out in 1984, and also the last one in WHOOPEE! The days of the comic were already numbered: after the issue of 30th March, 1985 it was merged into WHIZZER AND CHIPS, and ceased to exist as such…

This blogpost concludes the long series of 13 yearly overviews of the posters, free gifts, pull outs and other goodies that came with WHOOPEE! during its exciting lifetime, spanning the period from 1974 till 1985. You can revisit the series by clicking Whoopee pull-outs at the bottom of the ‘Labels’ column on the right.

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

WHOOPEE! PULL-OUTS AND FREE GIFTS IN 1983

Compared to other years, 1983 was lean in terms of WHOOPEE! pull-outs. 

The first one was the three-part Snack Man's Munch Maze Game, in the issues cover-dated 5th, 12th and 19th March, 1983:

Here is how it looked like on the centrespreads:

The issue cover-dated 25th June, 1983 had an announcement of WHOOPEE! and WOW! merger. It was on the centre pages, so it kind of qualifies as a pull-out, but it’s hard to imagine anyone actually removing it from the comic and putting it on his or her wall :)

Towards the end of 1983 the comic was gearing up for its 500th issue, and the issues of 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th October came with Whoopee! 500-Clue Crossword. 

The first three issues had the grid, and all the clues were in the last one – a strange concept, if you ask me (who is patient enough to do a crossword that takes three weeks to assemble, and then wait another week for the clues...), but I like all the Whoopee! character faces in the borders. Here’s the three-part grid:

… and here are the clues, if you feel like having a go at the crossword:

The first issue of October (the one preceding the first part of the massive crossword puzzle), had this advert:

So besides the first part of Whoopee! 500-Clue Crossword grid, the issue of 8th October, 1983 came with a free Smurfs stickers album, plus a pack of stickers:

 

The advert below promised more free Smurfs stickers with the next week’s issue, but they are gone from my copy, so I don’t have a picture to show…

The alleged 500th issue had the cover date of 5th November, 1983, and it carried another Guy Fawkes’ mask by Brian Walker on the centrespread:

I say ‘alleged’ because it was actually the 494th issue of the paper, so the real 500th came later. I don’t know if the publisher failed in keeping his numbers right, or simply thought it was a good idea to tie the anniversary with the gunpowder plot date. 

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd