COR!! Comic
Annual 1984, £1.95, 112 pages
Contents: Jack Pott (2 episodes illustrated and signed by Jim Crocker), Smartie Artie (2 episodes), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (3 episodes signed
by Crocker), Night Mare (2 reprints
from old COR!!
weeklies), Tomboy (2 reprints), Terry’s Tube Travels (3 episodes illustrated
by Cliff Brown, one signed), Gus Gags (2 instalments), Football
Madd (2 episodes), Jelly Baby (2
episodes), Young MacDonald and His Farm (2
episodes by Ron Turner), Benny Bendo, Teacher’s Pet (3
episodes), Percy Grower and his Fantastic Fertiliser, Tease Break (4 instalments),
Chalky (2 episodes), Wilfred the World’s
Worst Wizard (2 episodes), Whacky (2
episodes), Jasper the Grasper (new by
Les Barton), Cheery Chuckles, Spotter,
Donovan’s Dad (2 old Les Barton episodes), The
Gasworks Gang (new set signed by Frank McDiarmid), Hire A Horror, Val’s Vanishing Cream, Fiends and Neighbours (new
story illustrated by Les Barton).
As always, the annual was a combination of reprints and new
material. In the introduction to the COR!! Specials and Annuals chapter of this blog I mentioned that in
reprints the panels were usually cut up and rearranged so that original
one-pagers from the weeklies became two-pagers in holiday specials and annuals.
This meant that some panels had to be tampered with and extended. Sometimes
this involved a small effort on behalf of IPC's staff artists: for example, only the last panel
had to be ‘augmented’ in this Tomboy set that originally appeared in COR!!
issue dated 12th January, 1974 and was reprinted in the 1984 Annual:
On other occasions more work was required, often resulting in
awkward panelling and general layout, as can be seen by comparing the original
set of Donovan’s Dad from COR!! dated
23rd December, 1972 and the reprint in the 1984 Annual:
The Annual had quite a large proportion of new material, as
indicated by the number of strips marked in red in the contents summary
above (I will repeat myself by saying that red means that the strips were
either one-offs or their appearances were limited to COR!! Specials and Annuals
and they will receive their own blogposts later on).
There was only one one-off strip in this annual and it was Terry’s
Tube Travels. 3 episodes of it were illustrated by Cliff Brown who also drew Timothy
Tester in Whizzer and Chips for quite a long time. The tale was about Terry and
the telescope that he received as a gift from his Grandad who owned it as a
lad. Whenever Terry looked through the telescope, he got transported to the
place that he looked at (be it Mars, ant-heap or Easter Island):
In an earlier post I labelled Percy Grower and his Fantastic
Fertiliser as an one-off. Well I was wrong because it made its second
appearance in this Annual. The artist’s style is so distinctive that when I
first looked I automatically assumed it was yet another episode of Benny Bendo.
So, it is now official that Percy Grower and his Fantastic Fertiliser was not
an one-off and appeared in two COR!! annuals.
The Annual contains new sets of two of my favourite strips in
COR!! specials and annuals – The Gasworks Gang by Frank McDiarmid and Jasper the
Grasper by Les Barton, both shown below in full. I particularly like the latter.
The episode of Fiends and
Neighbours came with an original masthead. Here is the opening page:
