Following on from the Ken Reid post the other day, here's an interesting piece of comic history that Fleetway editor Dez Skinn shared to Facebook recently. It's a letter from Ken to Buster editor Len Wenn, in which he complains that somebody has been changing Faceache's sound effect from 'scrunch' to 'scrunge' when he changes his face.
Here's what Dez wrote about it online:
"Here's something for anybody who read British comics in the 1970s... specifically Faceache in Buster. I've just unearthed a letter from writer/artist Ken Reid to editor Len Wenn complaining that somebody in the office changed his sound effect "scrunch" to "scrunge" every week. Now I can confess, 'twas I, as Len's number two - being responsible for everything beyond the scripts, which he was in charge of.
"And I must admit, while I still think scrunge sounds better, scrunch was the more appropriate term. Sorry, Ken."
Interestingly though, 'scrunch' wasn't even the original term! When Faceache first appeared in Jet comic in May 1971, the first strip had him 'twang' and 'boyn-ng'.
Incidentally, 'scrunch' did appear later on, from issue #21, but for much of Jet's run it was actually the word 'squoylp' that appeared to be the sound effect of choice.
| The very first 'scrunch', from Jet #21. |
| From the one and only Jet annual, 1973. |
I don't have my 70's Buster's to hand, but based on this and Ken's letter, 'scrunge' must have taken over after Jet merged into Buster in October 1971, after just 31 issues. This would of course be when Dez got his hands on the strip, and although Ken is of course a comic genius I think that just for once he may be wrong here - in my opinion 'scrunge' is the funnier word!
For those interested, I actually shared all of Faceache's appearances in Jet on this blog a few years ago, spread over three posts. Part one can be found here.