WHOOPEE! 1979 CUT-OUT X-MAS LABELS

One of the things that made IPC comics different from those of their competitors was the posters, mini-booklets and other fun pull-outs. In 1979 Whoopee! celebrated X-mas by offering cut-out labels featuring its big stars in the three issues cover-dated 8th, 15th and 22nd of December. Here are the first three pages. I will save the remaining two for the next post.

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

Readers must have loved the various extras because they are often missing in the comics offered on auction sites. When building my Whoopee! collection, I wanted all of my copies to be complete, and although the comic is not too difficult to find, it took me quite some time to get hold of everything with nothing missing (for some reason, a 1979 February issue with Supermum pull-out booklet was particularly hard to find). Whoopee! is my favourite IPC comic and I still plan to cover it in detail at some point, but until I get round to this ambitious quest, I might do a series of year-by-year accounts of the various Whoopee! pull-outs next year.

I am celebrating the 100th birthday of KEN REID by offering free prints of his original artwork with every purchase of THE POWER PACK books! Press here and claim your copies now!

SERIALISED FACEACHE STORIES – PART SIXTEEN: MARATHON (GUINNES BOOK OF RECORDS)

Faceache took a recuperation break of one week after Mr. Thrashbottom used his spring-loaded, lead-filled, double handed automatic thrasher on the poor lad in the last episode of the previous story arc, and came back even crazier than before in BUSTER cover-dated 24 Nov., 1979 where the next three-part story began. 

Before you scroll down to read the synopsis, I’d like to remind you that I am celebrating Ken's 100th birthday by offering free prints of his original artwork with every purchase of THE POWER PACK books! Press here and claim your copies now!

Faceache overhears the headmaster and Mr. Snipe discuss Belmonte’s financial problems that could only be solved by attracting more paying pupils through advertising that they can’t afford. Faceache silently gets an idea he might arrange for some free publicity by scrunging himself into the Guinnes Book of Records as a boy who could scrunge 5,000 times non-stop. He sneaks into the lantern lecture room that has an automatic self-operating camera and starts taking pictures... 

As Mr. Snipe and Albert Thrashbottom carry on with their brainstorming, Mr. Snipe suggests that perhaps parents don’t send their boys there because they’ve heard of Faceache’s scrunging antics. Mr. Threashbottom agrees and promises to thrash every scrunging muscle out of the freakish boy if he catches the unnatural brat scrunging again… 

Faceache’s well-intentioned 5,000 scrunge marathon continues... 

In the meantime, Mr. Thrashbottom gets an idea that smartening the school up might be a good way to attract new pupils. He plans to shine a powerful spotlight on the school’s noble name so it’ll stand out for miles around, but at that point Faceache gets completely carried away and crashes through the school roof in a huge monster scrunge… 

Mr. Thrashbottom is in hysterics…

A newspaper photographer who happens to be nearby takes a picture of the head of a diabolical monster sticking through the school's roof... 

...and the story takes an unexpected turn…

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

MOONSTERS ON SPARKY BACK COVERS – PART 2

Here are the next 11 Sparky back covers featuring The Moonsters by Bill Ritchie:

 Images are © D.C.Thomson & Co. Ltd.

I am celebrating the 100th birthday of KEN REID by offering free prints of his original artwork with every purchase of THE POWER PACK books! 

Press here and claim your copies now!

WARM-UP POST TO THE NEXT SERIALISED FACEACHE STORY

If you follow my series of Faceache story arcs by Ken Reid, you may have noticed that 1979 was the year of serialised ‘Faceache’ tales: ten were published all in all, with as many as three spanning four weeks and two that were three weeks in length. 

The last one for that year was three weeks long and started in BUSTER cover-dated 24 November 1979. In it, Faceache set out on a 5,000 scrunge marathon!.. Expect to see some of the best of Faceache’s face-pulling exercises in my next post in a few days' time. In the meantime, here’s Brian Walker’s 'Boxatricks' cover of the BUSTER issue with the first episode of the Marathon tale.

Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd

Don't forget that I am celebrating Ken's 100th birthday by offering free prints of his original artwork with every purchase of THE POWER PACK books! Press here and claim your copies now!