MONSTER FUN COMIC SUMMER SPECIAL 1975

It’s time I got back to the mission of completing my comprehensive review of MONSTER FUN COMIC, so let’s look at the first MONSTER FUN COMIC Summer Special which came out in the summer of 1975 - the time when the early issues of the weekly went on sale, which suggests that the first issues of the weeklies and the Summer Special were put together at more or less the same time. The 80-pages magazine cost 25 p and came with an eye-catching Kid Kong cover by Bob Nixon.

Here is a summary of the contents: Tom Thumbscrew (a two-pager by Andy Christine), Cinders (a two-pager in full colour by Norman Mansbridge), The Robot Maker (5 pages of reprints from COR!! weeklies, artwork by Frank McDiarmid), Sam’s Spook (4 pages of reprints from SMASH!, artwork by Leo Baxendale), Lots O’ Laughs (2 pages of gags illustrated by Mike Lacey), Stoneage Brit Ancient Nit (4 pages of reprints from COR!!, including one episode in colour on back cover, artwork probably by Tony Goffe), Martha’s Monster Make-Up (a two-pager by Frank McDiarmid), X-Ray Specs (two episodes: a three-pager probably by Jim Watson imitating Mike Lacey, and a two-pager that appears to have been penciled by Terry Bave but inked by someone else),  Make A Date: Tarzan and the Little Bo Peep – An Imaginary Meeting of these Famous Characters (a two-pager by Trevor Metcalfe), Kid Kong (an 8-page story by Robert Nixon), Creature Teacher (a four-pager by Tom Williams), Art’s Gallery (a three pager, probably by Jim Watson), The Land That Time Forgot feature (3 pages), Cave Cackles (1 page of gags by Sid Burgon), Monster Maze on the centerspread in full colour, probably by Artie Jackson, Fred’s Fault (a two-pager by Jim Watson), Major Jump Horror Hunter (2 two-pagers by Ian Knox), Dough Nut and Rusty (a 4-pager by Trevor Metcalfe), Mummy’s Boy (a two-pager by Terry Bave, Brainy and His Monster Maker (a two-pager by I don’t know who), Frankie’s Freaky Week (2 pages of gags by Sid Burgon), Monster Mirth (one page gags feature by I don’t know who), Grizzly Bearhug… Giant (a four-pager by Andy Christine), Monster Fun-Time (2 pages of puzzles), The Earthies (a four-pager by an unknown artist), Monster Regis (one-page feature by Sid Burgon), Draculass Daughter of Dracula (a two-pager by Terry Bave in colour).

Andy Christine got 6 pages –2 of Tom Thumbscrew and 4 of Giant Grizzly… Bearhug. That's precisely 6 pages too many, IMHO.

Mike Lacey wasn’t available to draw X-Ray Specs, so Jim Watson illustrated one episode, check out these sample panels:

… and Terry Bave was asked to do the other one but it looks he only had time to submit his penciled work which was then inked by someone else, or maybe he did the set in a rush. Check out this sample page and tell me what you think:

Terry Bave drew two more features in this Summer Special – Draculass was his regular strip in MFC weeklies, while Mummy’s Boy - the second that he did for this magazine, was usually drawn by Norman Mansbridge in the weeklies.

Assuming my observation regarding Jim Watson being the artist responsible for the first set of X-Ray Specs shown above is correct, then Mr. Watson should also be credited with the artwork of Art’s Gallery:

In the case of X-Ray Specs and Art’s Gallery Jim Watson (provided it was indeed him) was under pressure to imitate Mike Lacey, but Fred’s Fault was a completely new strip, so he was free to draw it in his own style:

I like the idea of the Make a Date tale illustrated by Trevor Metcalfe which brought together two very different characters – Tarzan and Little Bo Peep, into one story. I don’t remember seeing this feature elsewhere so it was probably a one-off experiment. It’s a shame IPC editors chose not to continue with the idea because in my opinion it had good potential.

The idea of The Land That Time Forgot feature was rather clever too – it was a three-page collage of action-packed scenes from a new feature film with short bits of text, included to generate interest in the film:

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of this Summer Special. Kid Kong is the longest story and the front cover feature. In it Granny Smith decides to take Kid Kong to the seaside. The story takes off with Kid causing havoc on the highway as he tries to find Granny’s lost pennies so she can buy their bus fares to Brightsea. They finally make it to the resort and are enjoying themselves at the fair where Kid runs into the fairground owner who used to keep him behind bars and is very keen to recapture the giant gorilla for his freak show. With Granny Smith around, this is easier said than done but the short-sighted old lady wanders off as she goes to get some ice creams. The wicked fairground owner takes the opportunity to seize Kid Kong but Kid spots Granny afloat in the sea on an inflatable mattress and breaks free to rescue her. Mayor awards him with a life saver’s badge and a cash prize for the effort.

In Creature Teacher the Massacre Street School are on their annual outing to the seaside and Creature Teacher is put in charge of the unruly class 3X who forced the locals to move away last year. Creature Teacher quickly brings the trouble-makers to heel. 3X decide to get rid of Creature Teacher first by dumping him out to sea and later by placing him under the blade in the chamber of horrors but Creature Teachers outsmarts his pupils and class 3X return from the outing “well-tanned”:

In the first episode of Major Jump Horror Hunter the brave Major and his assistant Cosmo are after the mysterious Monster Snoozlehorn. They get very disappointed when after going through a lot of trouble they find out that Monster Snoozlehorn is a musical instrument. Had they taken just a few more steps, they would have realised that their effort wasn’t in vain:

In the second episode Major Jump captures a giant worm. Major thinks it is not a very exciting monster, but still better than nothing. He probably finds the second creature whom he encounters in this episode more exciting:

In Martha’s Monster Make-Up Martha uses her magic cream on a mean participant of the Beach Beauty Queen Contest. She becomes so terrifying that another participant’s hair stands on end permanently in a “way-out new hairstyle”, making her the darling of the media, even though the scary one shocks the judges into awarding her the first prize:

My personal favourite in this first Monster Fun Comic Summer Special is this 4-pager by an artist whose name I don’t know. Any suggestions?

All Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.

KEN REID AS IPC SCRIPTWRITER

Ken Reid is widely recognised as one of the great UK comics illustrators but he is sometimes overlooked as a brilliant scriptwriter. In this post I will focus on Mr. Reid’s IPC work.

He only wrote two strips for the publisher – the first one was SUB in SCORCHER (the first of Mr. Reid’s eight soccer strips that he drew in 1970 - 1974). Ken wrote scripts for all but the first two of the 31 episodes of this hilarious feature. Here is an example:

The second was of course Faceache – the long-running strip that began in JET and transferred to BUSTER when it absorbed JET. The first two episodes were written by Ian Mennell (I think they were episodes one and three in the JET run of the strip) before Ken took over as the writer and continued for more than a decade until BUSTER became BUSTER AND JACKPOT. The last episode of Faceache that Ken drew to his own script appeared in BUSTER cover-dated January 30th, 1982. Here’s an example of an early one from JET:

I contacted Dez Skinn who was the BUSTER sub-editor in the seventies and asked him how he remembered Ken as scriptwriter.  Here is what he had to say: “… as the Buster sub-editor I dealt with Ken on a weekly basis, sometimes chasing him for his finished artwork, which would arrive with the pencilled lettering that he wanted. Sadly he was deemed to have overwritten his work (invariably his narrative panels) making it too detailed for little 'uns so we usually had to cut it back by at least 25%. Like Alf Saporito on Cor!!'s Gus Gorilla, Terry Bave, Leo Baxendale, Reg Parlett and many other writer/artists, his scripts were drawn up full twice-up size on thin paper for the editor’s approval... Given that IPC considered his work dark, they'd never give him - of all people - carte blanche!“

Faceache was a big success, as evidenced by its spectacularly long run. After 8 years of writing and drawing Faceache, Mr. Reid was presented with two awards for the feature by the Society of Strip Illustration. One was Cartoonist of the Year and the other one – Humorous Script Writer of the Year. The ceremony took place at the Y-Hotel in London on Sept 23rd, 1978 where Ken’s prizes were handed to him by Michael Bentine. Untypically, IPC celebrated Ken’s achievement and recognition by including this short article in BUSTER cover-dated Nov. 18th, 1978:

When researching for this blogpost, I remembered Peter Gray’s old website where he showed Ken’s letter to his penfriend Chris. In the letter Ken tells Chris about the S.S.I. awards ceremony and his misadventures at the Y-Hotel. Here is the first-hand account by the man himself (click to enlarge): 

ADVERTISEMENTS IN MONSTER FUN COMIC

Before I close the chapter of MONSTER FUN COMIC weeklies and call this mission completed, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the adverts which appeared in the paper.

IPC in-house advertisements can be found in nearly every issue of the paper. They promoted free gifts and special features in sister publications such as Whoopee!, Whizzer and Chips, Jinty, Tammy, Battle, Tiger and Scorcher, Shoot!, BUSTER, LOOK AND LEARN and others. They also advertised Annuals and Holiday Specials of various IPC comics; here are some of the countless examples:

During its short lifetime MFC celebrated the arrival of quite a few new sister publications in a variety of genres:

From MONSTER FUN COMIC No. 15

From MONSTER FUN COMIC No. 19

From MFC No. 36; MFC Issue No. 35 had 4 pages of ACTION adverts

From MONSTER FUN COMIC No. 68

From MONSTER FUN COMIC No. 71

It is impossible to imagine an IPC comic without those small post stamp offers and ads aimed at stamp collectors. They can be found in nearly every issue of MFC:

Very often post stamp ads appeared in the same block with Whimsies from Wade or Whoppas from Wade:

Toys companies formed another group of commercial advertisers. One can’t help noticing that the vast majority of products were boys’ toys. There were quite a few ads of North Pacific line of flying craft models from Hales. The black and white adverts promoted Delta Dart Glider, Sky Flyer, Sleek Streek, Drifter, Skeeter, etc:

Atlantic UK Distributors Shard (Sports & Toys) Limited with their ATLANTIC big new range of scale models in full detail was another big advertiser of boys’ toys. Their adverts with red spot colour made several appearances on the back page of MFC towards the end of the run:

The full-colour full-page advertisements of Minic Ships range of scale models by Hornby also fell within battle and warfare category:

These adverts of Timpo adventure club from Timpo Toys, Kung Fuey Dragon Kite from Golden Wonder, Prehistoric monsters scale models and Kellogg’s Rice Crispies were also targeted at boys:

..not to mention these Norvic Man ads:

Here's an untypical Norvic advert promoting something specifically for girls:

These were not gender-specific:

 

Unhealthy foods and sweets formed another major category of the adverts. Cadbury’s was a regular advertiser. Their Curlywurly Bar ads came in a variety of designs and free gift promotions but always featured this poorly drawn bloke:

Cadbury’s also advertised their Freddo competition:

TreborLand and Trebor Blobs candies appear to have been big in the mid-70s; they were a frequent guest in MFC: 

...and sometimes even paid for two pages to promote their competitions:

Bessett’s Sweets were after kids’ pocket money as well:

Kellogg’s, Nestle, Nesquik and Weetabix were also there:

There were four adverts of cinema films: one for the musical Mister Quilp of the Old Curiosity Shop:

…  two for At the Earth’s Core:

… and one for Future World:

Adverts in comics were often presented in the form of comic strips, and there were several examples in MFC; all can be viewed in the gallery below.

 

This concludes the series of blogposts about MONSTER FUN COMIC weeklies and I will now proceed to Holiday Specials and Annuals.

All Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.