Now it’s time to take a look at all the strips in COR!! – nearly 70 of them all in all. I plan to cover them in the order in which they appeared in the weeklies so I’ll start with Eddie and Whacky that occupied pages two and three of the first issue.
EDDIE
Eddie – Yawn! I’m bored! (later Eddie – He’s Always Bored). The subtitle explains it all – Eddie was a kid who was always looking for ways to keep himself from being bored. Usually his attempts resulted in trouble for him or his unfortunate parent. Illustrated beautifully by Graham Allen who contributed a lot of strips in COR!!, Eddie enjoyed a healthy run of 137 episodes from the first issue to issue dated 13th January, 1973 (Nos. 1 – 137).
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| The page on the right was the last episode of Eddie in COR!! weeklies |
WHACKY
Whacky – He’s Always Getting Whacked! Little to add here – the subtitle says it all once again. But for poor Whacky punishment wasn’t limited to just the old slipper or cane from his sadistic teacher Mr. Thwackery. The boy also suffered from a whole arsenal of mechanical gadgets: he got it from a spinning turnstile at the stadium entrance and from tennis balls fired from a tennis-ball cannon; he was whacked with windshield wipers while being stuck between car grill and bumper. There were more exotic ways of whacking too – like getting it from an elephant while being stuck in a kangaroo’s sack with only his arse sticking out... Teacher Thwackery also got a fair share of whacking from the headmaster, the odd bloke or even Whacky himself.
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| The episode on the left is the first full-page set from issue dated 12th September, 1970 (No. 15) |
Whacky’s sufferings continued from the first issue until 29th September, 1973 (Nos. 1 – 174). At first the strip occupied 2/3 of a page. Starting from the issue of 12th September, 1970 (No. 15) it was promoted to a full-page feature. Several episodes were in full colour and there was one front-page appearance in the issue dated 30th June, 1973. The series was given a proper ending of sorts: Mr. Thwackery announced his retirement. The class presented him with an inscribed cane and Whacky thought his misery was over but he immediately got into trouble with his new neighbour who proved to be no one other than old Mr. Thwackery… Illustrated by Mike Lacey.
