SERIALISED FACEACHE STORIES – PART 17: THE SNOW BEAST

The first Faceache story arc of 1980 was three weeks long and was printed in BUSTER issues cover-dated 1st, 8th and 15th March, 1980.

Mr. Snipe’s class are off to the moors to photograph animals’ footprints. Faceache has an idea to scrunge into all sorts of whacky creatures and fool Mr. Snipe by taking snapshots of his own footprints. 

All goes well until Faceache comes across something strange:

…He follows the tracks to try to get a photograph of the creature. Suddenly a fiendish monstrosity comes charging a Faceache...

It turns out that the monster is an electronic robot operated by a kid: 

Faceache tries to comfort the sobbing lad by volunteering to stand-in for his robot till the filming is over. He demonstrates his scrunging talent to the boy who runs away screaming: 

Faceache has always fancied himself as an actor, so he decides he’ll find the film set and act as the Snow Beast. He walks on to the set without even realising it. He spots some kid and asks him about the whereabouts of the film unit: 

It turns out that it is not a kid but a dummy stuffed with TNT. According to the script, it is to send the fiendish creature to its doom. Film director detonates the bomb and Faceache goes flying into the air with a boom:

…A week later he sees himself on screen and finds it very surprising because he didn’t realise he was being filmed...

 

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

I am celebrating Ken's 100th birthday by offering free prints of his original artwork with every purchase of THE POWER PACK books! Press here and claim your copies now!

SERIALISED FACEACHE STORIES – PART SIXTEEN: MARATHON (GUINNES BOOK OF RECORDS)

Faceache took a recuperation break of one week after Mr. Thrashbottom used his spring-loaded, lead-filled, double handed automatic thrasher on the poor lad in the last episode of the previous story arc, and came back even crazier than before in BUSTER cover-dated 24 Nov., 1979 where the next three-part story began. 

Before you scroll down to read the synopsis, I’d like to remind you that I am celebrating Ken's 100th birthday by offering free prints of his original artwork with every purchase of THE POWER PACK books! Press here and claim your copies now!

Faceache overhears the headmaster and Mr. Snipe discuss Belmonte’s financial problems that could only be solved by attracting more paying pupils through advertising that they can’t afford. Faceache silently gets an idea he might arrange for some free publicity by scrunging himself into the Guinnes Book of Records as a boy who could scrunge 5,000 times non-stop. He sneaks into the lantern lecture room that has an automatic self-operating camera and starts taking pictures... 

As Mr. Snipe and Albert Thrashbottom carry on with their brainstorming, Mr. Snipe suggests that perhaps parents don’t send their boys there because they’ve heard of Faceache’s scrunging antics. Mr. Threashbottom agrees and promises to thrash every scrunging muscle out of the freakish boy if he catches the unnatural brat scrunging again… 

Faceache’s well-intentioned 5,000 scrunge marathon continues... 

In the meantime, Mr. Thrashbottom gets an idea that smartening the school up might be a good way to attract new pupils. He plans to shine a powerful spotlight on the school’s noble name so it’ll stand out for miles around, but at that point Faceache gets completely carried away and crashes through the school roof in a huge monster scrunge… 

Mr. Thrashbottom is in hysterics…

A newspaper photographer who happens to be nearby takes a picture of the head of a diabolical monster sticking through the school's roof... 

...and the story takes an unexpected turn…

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

WARM-UP POST TO THE NEXT SERIALISED FACEACHE STORY

If you follow my series of Faceache story arcs by Ken Reid, you may have noticed that 1979 was the year of serialised ‘Faceache’ tales: ten were published all in all, with as many as three spanning four weeks and two that were three weeks in length. 

The last one for that year was three weeks long and started in BUSTER cover-dated 24 November 1979. In it, Faceache set out on a 5,000 scrunge marathon!.. Expect to see some of the best of Faceache’s face-pulling exercises in my next post in a few days' time. In the meantime, here’s Brian Walker’s 'Boxatricks' cover of the BUSTER issue with the first episode of the Marathon tale.

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

Don't forget that I am celebrating Ken's 100th birthday by offering free prints of his original artwork with every purchase of THE POWER PACK books! Press here and claim your copies now!