WHOOPEE! POSTERS AND PULL-OUTS IN 1977

In 1977 IPC were again generous with their WHOOPEE! pull-outs – as many as 15 issues had something special in them.

The first two numbers (1st and 8th January) had a pull out calendar. 

This is how the calendar was advertised in the last issue of 1976: 

Ken Reid made it up to the readers for being unavailable to draw the previous year’s calendar, and contributed this impressive 2-part poster, with an evil-looking Sun and a spooky planet for each month. 

Assembly instructions were included with the second part of the calendar:

WHOOPEE! issue cover dated 12th February, 1977 had the Mini-Sampler of Whoopee!'s Companion Comic Whizzer and Chips. The 8-page mini booklet was all black and white and featured Shiner, Odd-Ball, Fuss Pot, Joker, Sid’s Snake, Hover Boots, Sweet Tooth and Tiny Tycoon. Here’s the front cover of the issue, followed by two sample pages of the booklet:

The issue of 11th June 1977 featured the Silver Jubilee Parade poster. 

The poster was advertised in the previous week’s edition:

… and showed a cheery crowd of WHOOPEE!’s stars marching along the street, waving their Union Jacks, etc. to the joy of the kids feasting at the tables on the sidewalk.  See how many strip characters you can spot :) A beautiful piece by Robert Nixon and one of my favourite WHOOPEE! posters (click to enlarge):

In the four issues from 25th June till 16th July, 1977 readers were offered an opportunity to give Bumpkin Billionaires a run for their money by playing the Bumpkin Billionaires' LOOSE YER LOT game.

Each of the first three issues had one part of the game printed in colour on the centre pages, and a page of white and blue cards:

The rest of the cards were printed on the centre pages of the fourth issue that also included instructions how to assemble and play the board game:

 

The next issue (23rd July, 1977) had this advert:

Thus, having taken a short break of just one week after the 'Loose Yer Lot' game, WHOOPEE! came up with a series of 4 pull-outs included in the issues cover-dated from 30th July till 20th August, 1977. They were quiz booklets on the four different subjects of TV, Pop, Sports and Animals. The front, back and centre pages of the 8-page booklets were in colour, while the rest were in b/w. 

Answers to all 4 quiz books were printed in the issue of 20th August, 1977 which had the last booklet. 

In the autumn of 1977 WHOOPEE! offered cut-out masks in the three consecutive issues of 8th, 15th and 22nd October. Here’s the advert of the first one:

All the three masks, drawn and signed by Brian Walker, were printed on the centre pages of the comic and appeared on front covers next to WHOOPEE! logo. 

By the way, WHOOPEE! issue cover-dated 22nd October 1977 was the last one with Bumpkin Billionaires as the cover stars – they were ousted by Sweeny starting from next week. 

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd 

And while you’re here, I would like to remind you that my promotion for the POWER PACK OF KEN REID is still on. Get your copies of the books and BONUS FREE PRINTS on eBay or from my online shop HERE!

WHOOPEE! GIFTS AND PULL OUTS OFFERED IN 1974

WHOOPEE! is my favourite IPC comic, and covering it in the same manner as I did COR!!, SHIVER AND SHAKE and MONSTER FUN is still on my to-do list, but given the long run of the paper (567 weekly issues), I will have to postpone it until I have more time. 

Last year I made a few inroads into WHOOPEE! territory by covering Scared-Stiff Sam, and doing a short series on cut-out Xmas labels and cards. In one of the posts I mentioned I might do a year-by-year overview of the various pull-outs and freebies that came with the paper, so let’s start with 1974 – the first year of WHOOPEE!

No. 1 came out for the week of 1st March, 1974 (there was no date on the cover, as you can see above). It came with the free gift of Super Squirt Ring that looked like this:

I suspect a similar gift also came with JACKPOT No. 2 in 1979:

WHOOPEE! No. 2 came with 4 gifts - when you bought the paper, you could get a Joke Spider, a Joke Soap, a Joke Nail or a Joke Biscuit.   

Here’s what the Joke Bar of Soap looked like:

The copy in my collection comes with the Joke Chocolate Biscuit, still sealed in its original packaging:

Finally, WHOOPEE! No. 3 had a Super Set of 36 SPOOKY Snap Cards.

The cards are still uncut in my copy of the issue, so probably worth a zillion today :) :

No. 10 came with a free Lone Ranger Mask. Lone Ranger was a cowboy strip printed in full colour on the centrespread, and looked somewhat out of place in the paper. 

Here’s how the free gift looked:

Nos. 11, 12, 13 and 14 had the WHOOPEE! QUIZ BOOK – the first of the many pull out booklets to follow:

The idea was to pull out the centre pages from the staples, cut them along dotted line and fold them in half to make an eight-page booklet. Once collected from all 4 issues, the booklet was 32-pages thick! Readers were encouraged to have fun answering the various questions, but as it wasn’t a competition, they were not asked to send their answers to the magazine to enter for a prize. All answers were provided in part 4. Here’s a random selection of pages – some were in coulour, some were not:

Starting from No. 24 (17th August, 1974) WHOOPEE! changed its format to a larger size, keeping its 40 pages for the time being. No pull-outs or freebies were offered to mark the occasion.

The next pull-out booklet (the last one for 1974) – or rather the first part of the booklet – was in No. 32 to celebrate the merger of SHIVER AND SHAKE into WHOOPEE!, and it was appropriately named after the big SHIVER AND SHAKE star who was Frankie Stein. 

The 4-part Frankie Stein’s Mini Monster Comic was printed in WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER & SHAKE issue Nos. 32 to 35 (12th October – 2nd November 1974), and – once composed together – formed another 32-page booklet. 

It featured Evil Eye, The Ghost’s Revenge, The Hand, Hire-A-Horror, etc. but most importantly it had a new 5-page story of Frankie Stein by Robert Nixon - here’s a taste: 

…and two Mini-Monsters by Ken Reid – the last ones he drew for the Creepy Creations feature in SHIVER AND SHAKE, but as the paper was cancelled, the editors decided to use them in this minibooklet. Here’s one:

WHOOPEE! editors came up with an idea to see 1974 off with a giant three-part super poster of Frankie Stein:

Part 1 of the poster came with the issue of 14th December, 1974 (No. 41), and part 2 – with the next issue cover dated 21st Dec., 1974 (No. 42). Then things went wrong because IPC printers went on strike and WHOOPEE! missed what would have been its first Xmas number. The paper didn’t come out until 18th January of next year and, as a result, part 3 of the 'Super Poster' wasn’t published as planned. Readers must have been disappointed because all they got was this:

IPC made it up to the fans next year, but let’s leave this for another post in which I will cover WHOOPEE! pull-outs of 1975.

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

And while you’re here, I would like to remind you that although 2019 is over, my promotion for the POWER PACK OF KEN REID is not. Get your copies of the books and BONUS FREE PRINTS on eBay or from my online shop HERE!