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
thanks Irmantas really enjoyed these Whoopee post and the early 80's brought back a lot of memories.....
ReplyDeleteIt’s off-topic, but I can’t help looking at the issues from late June to August through interlocked fingers, as this was the period of the IPC strike that killed off Scream, Tammy and, briefly, 2000AD. I know Whoopee’s run wasn’t interrupted but this doesn’t necessarily mean it was unaffected. The 30/6/84 cover seems a little ‘thrown together’; there’s no background colour between the logo and Tom’s artwork as often happened. I don’t recall anything in the issues themselves to indicate anything was amiss, other than the removal of Tammy’s logo from the KP Skips coupons sometime in July. Made any observations of own on this front? I’d be keen to know.
ReplyDeleteFunny I didn’t realise there was another strike in 1984, or at least I somehow didn’t link it to Whoopee!.. I haven’t noticed anything wrong with the comic in the summer of 1984, but I have to admit I didn’t look very carefully, as the paper’s good era had already ended for me – for me it did with the cancellation of Scream Inn, Scared-Stiff Sam, World-Wide Weirdies and the host of comical horror strips. I am not saying the rest of the strips weren’t good – what I’m saying is that I think a lot of things in the comic took a turn for the worse at about 1980/81; my impression is that many of the artists lost their inspiration and were merely churning out their weekly pages like factory workers... I don’t know if those who were of the comics-reading age and bought WHOOPEE! at the time will agree, but to me the comic was at its prime in the first few years of its run. Mind you, I might be an impartial ‘judge’ here, because I am immune to nostalgia factor because I didn’t read the paper when I was a kid…
DeleteWe should just be grateful that Whoopee survived this period, and as I've said, some didn’t, to continue for several more months. I started reading comics at what you've nearly called the cut-off point, and having read earlier issues since I realise I did miss the glory days of comics. DCT's Nutty was a notable exception, but the likes of Wow, Mask, and the (for me) nadir, Hoot, just didn't work and aren't worth rereading. Let's appreciate the high points – oh, you are!
ReplyDeleteI was looking for something else and came across this post, but the Ghostly Highwayman is by Davy Francis, and I’m not sure who did the cartoon above. The rest of that booklet is by fellow Northern Ireland man, the wonderful Ian Knox
ReplyDelete