YET MORE DETECTIVE WORK

Lew Stringer recently wrote a blogpost dedicated to WHAM! No. 67 that came out this week in 1965, you can read it here. A sharp-eyed commentator was quick to observe that the episode of The Tiddlers on the front cover was another of Leo Baxendale’s remakes of his own Bash Street Kids stories from The BEANO. The original set of The Bash Street Kids was in THE BEANO No. 960 with the cover date of 14th May, 1960. It was also included in Leo Baxendale’s book A Very Funny Business to illustrate how the pressures of the production line were distorting his drawing style.

So that’s another ‘remake’ accounted for. Thanks to Lew Stringer for the blogpost and the commentator NP for the heads-up!

COR!! 1980 SUMMER SPECIAL

COR!! 1980 Summer Special. 45p, 64 pages

Here's the summary of the contents: Andy’s Ants (3 episodes – 1 new and 2 reprints), The Gasworks Gang (3 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (4 episodes – 1 new and 3 reprints), Whacky (2 episodes in b/w and 2 episodes in full colour), Teacher’s Pet (2 episodes), Football Madd (new episode, initialled C.W.), Jelly Baby, Hire A Horror (5 reprints from old COR!! weeklies – 3 in full colour and 2 in b/w), Tomboy, Tease Break puzzles, Just Joking (3 instalments),  Nightmare (new episode by Les Barton), Donovan’s Dad, Benny Bendo, Val’s Vanishing Cream (in full colour), Tricky Dicky, The Slimms, Gus Gags, The Hand, Chalky, Webster.

There’s hardly anything interesting about the Special at all. There were two one-offs: The Hand and The Webster, both familiar to readers of Shiver and Shake.  The Webster set is drawn so poorly that it deserves a place in the gallery of the worst artwork ever to have appeared in a COR!! comic. Here is the beginning of the 4-pager:

The quality of new artwork contrasted sharply with reprints from old COR!! weeklies included in the Special. Here are some examples:

1980 COR!! COMIC ANNUAL

1980 COR!! Comic Annual was priced £1.25 and was 144 pages thick.

Here is a summary of the contents:  Val’s Vanishing Cream (2 episodes), Football Madd (5 episodes including 3 by Les Barton and 1 reprint from an old COR!! weekly), Teacher’s Pet (4 episodes), Night Mare (3 episodes by Les Barton), Fiends and Neighbours (2 episodes by Les Barton), Swopper Stan (2 episodes), Tomboy (2 episodes), Jasper the Grasper (2 episodes by John Geering), Hire A Horror (2 episodes), Helpful Hettie (2 episodes), Donovan’s Dad (3 episodes), Jelly Baby (3 episodes), Wilfred Wizard, Tricky Dicky (3 episodes), Croc, Chalky (2 episodes), “Young” MacDonald and his Farm, The Superwits, The Slimms, The Gasworks Gang (2 reprints from old COR!! weeklies), Animal Jokes, Tease Break, Gus Gorilla (5 episodes), Our Amazing Maze feature, Benny Bendo, Ivor Lott and Tony Broke (3 episodes, including 2 reprints), Injun Trouble jokes (by Jack Clayton), Joker, Jack Pott, Patch-Eye Hooker, Spotter, Fun of A Gun jokes (by Jack Clayton), Andy’s Ants.

There were three one-off strips in the Annual:

The Superwits was illustrated by Nigel Edwards and would have been appropriate in my series of Olympic posts this summer. Here are all three pages of the set:

Joker was a guest strip that originated in Knockout and appeared for many years in Whizzer and Chips:

Croc was probably also a reprint from another IPC comic but I am not sure which. Whizzer and Chips?

The Annual had two sets of Jasper the Grasper by John Geering. Here is one:

My personal highlights in the 1980 COR!! Comic Annual are two sets of Fiends and Neighbours by Les Barton. Here is one: