FACEACHE was Ken Reid’s
longest-running creation that premiered in the first issue of JET in 1971 and
found itself in BUSTER after the titles merged later that year. Since then it
appeared regularly (more or less) in BUSTER until Mr. Reid’s death in the beginning
of 1987.
In the first episode Faceache
was introduced as Ricky Rubberneck – ‘lad born with a bendable bonce’. Later
his real name was forgotten and he became known as Faceache - ‘the boy with a
thousand faces’. Ken Reid took it easy at first and Faceache’s talent was
limited to pulling scary faces, but quite soon the character developed the
ability to change his whole body into any form and size. This was called ‘scrunging’
– the term was first used more than a year after Faceache started.
Let’s take a look at
Faceache Christmases and see how the character developed over the 17 years of
its run.
JET comic didn’t last
until Christmas of 1971 so the first Faceache Christmas episode was in the pages of
BUSTER. One might get an impression that Faceache’s Dad was the second main
character of the strip in the early years but in fact he was not. He first
appeared almost three months after strip was launched and showed up from time
to time during 1971, 1972 and most of 1973 before becoming a regular. We don’t
meet him in this first Christmas episode:
And here’s how
Faceache celebrated Christmas in 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975:
An unthinkable development took place in 1976: when Monster Fun
was merged into Buster, Faceache was dropped and replaced by Ken
Reid’s Martha’s Monster Make-Up. The
strip was similar to Faceache but had
a girl as the main character. Faceache didn’t appear for nearly 4 months but
returned in February 1977 by popular demand. This explains why there is no
Christmas episode in 1976.
Let's see Martha celebrate her 1976 Christmas. Theres is something wrong with Ken Reid's artwork in this one:
The Christmas of 1977 was the last that Faceache spent at home in the company of his bad-tempered Dad (who sometimes looked a bit more cheery and emotional in those Christmas episodes):
Let's see Martha celebrate her 1976 Christmas. Theres is something wrong with Ken Reid's artwork in this one:
The Christmas of 1977 was the last that Faceache spent at home in the company of his bad-tempered Dad (who sometimes looked a bit more cheery and emotional in those Christmas episodes):
