Time to head back to the 1980's, a period when the Fleetway comics (at least, the ones that were around or starting) were at their greatest! Today we'll be looking at the issue of Whoopee and Wow that went on sale this week in 1984 - almost 30 years ago! The cover character is Sweeny Toddler and this particular episode (illustrated by Tom Paterson) will have you laughing out loud! It did with me anyway... (look at the wanted poster on the fifth panel on the second page).
Moving inside and let's take a look at Creepy Comix. This strip was illustrated by Reg Parlett and I've always enjoyed the thought of the creepy characters coming to life from Davie's comics so the strip always had a lot of appeal to me. One thing I can't help but noticing though, is that the ghost looks an awful lot like Harry from Harry's Haunted House. Maybe the landlord finally kicked him out and he found refuge in a Creepy Comic?
Next up is The Bumpkin Billionaires, illustrated by Mike Lacey. As always, they think they are losing money so they can go back and live the simple country life, but in natural comic style it doesn't all go to plan.
A particularly strange strip is Animalad. Illustrated by Roy Mitchell, this strip follows the adventures of Andy who can turn into any animal he wants at will! Definitely amongst the crazier strips in British comics!
Always enjoyable, but crazy just like Animalad, is Calculator Kid, illustrated by Terry Bave and the comic strip that is home to the finest moustache in comics! Or is it a caterpillar? Find it, and decide for yourself!
And finally, here's the Quick Strips from inside the back cover, featuring Bleep!, Cheeky, Here is the News and the try-it-yourself Calculator Corner. Go on - try it yourself!
One good thing about many of Fleetway's comics was the fact that they came out on a Monday. Monday is the worst day of the week as it's the day everybody has to go back to work or, more suitably for a comic, school, so the arrival of a new comic on a Monday was very welcome, the perfect way to beat those "Monday Blues"! Cheeky was another of the comics that came out on a Monday, a cheery and cheeky way to start the week!
I'll start with none other than Cheeky himself. If you've ever read an issue of Cheeky you'll know that Cheeky's strip is split up into seven parts and each part appears separately throughout the comic. There is one part for every day, starting on Sunday and finishing on Saturday, but for sakes of space I'll only show the 'Sunday' page here. Frank McDiarmid had a heavy workload as he drew all of Cheeky's pages week in week out!
Next up is Charlie, who you will know as Calculator Kid! Charlie is very lucky in that he has a talking calculator for a friend (and yes, he had real friends as well) that could predict the future - a very useful tool in Charlie's life that almost always led him to collecting a nice cash reward! Terry Bave was the illustrator here, and the strip would continue for a very long run continuing for several years after Cheeky in Whoopee.
My favourite strip in this issue has to go to The Gang. Although it doesn't have the most creative name in the world, this is a very well written strip, and it's well illustrated as well although I'm afraid I can't say who the artist is. The Cheeky Weekly blog tells me that The Gang is in fact a (poorly retitled) reprint of the Double Deckers from Whizzer and Chips.
Next up is Elephant On The Run, a strip about a man in a plastic mac who, for some unknown reason, is trying to capture our friendly elephant, who has lost his memory and has no idea why he's wanted! Bob Nixon is the artist.
The
fantastic Mustapha Million, a great and extremely popular strip illustrated by
Joe McCaffrey, took up the centre spread. Obviously the title of this strip is supposed to sound like "must have a million", but really the young lad must be a multi billionaire at least!
And finally, here's a queer advertisement for 'Mr. Bellamy's', showing all the (ahem) fun you can have with liquorice!
Not too long ago I chanced upon no other than issue #500 of Whoopee, a landmark issue for a comic that sadly by this point was slowly drifting towards its untimely demise. Number 500, which doubled up as the fireworks issue, came out dated 5th November 1983 and, as you can see on the image above, cleverly used the number '500' in its logo. The strapline 'Whoopee Celebrates' may have been slightly exaggerated though, as you will soon see.
Moving on inside, and the first mention that this is even a special issue doesn't appear until page nine, where Frankie Stein announces it as part of a competition to win, you guessed it, 500 prizes!
The achievement was mentioned just once more, on the letters page where the solution to the 500-clue crossword that had appeared over the previous four issues took up the bottom half of the page.
But fear not, for I shall not be ending this post without a couple of comic strips, even if they weren't celebrating or even mentioning this landmark issue or, as a matter of fact, fireworks (the only fireworks related things were the mask on the centre spread and the fireworks safety code on the letters page). First up, is Calculator Kid, which I am showing simply because the Charlie's Dad has got to be the owner of the finest moustache in comics! As always Terry Bave illustrates it, and it is followed by Calculator Corner by Jack Edward Oliver.
And finally, I leave you with this - a nice two-page Bumpkin Billionaires strip neatly illustrated by Mike Lacey.
