The Pages - Page 1

Starts today, Pals!

In this series of posts, I'll be looking at the contents of a particular page throughout Cheeky Weekly's history.  I thought it logical to start with page 1 (aka the cover).

The feature to appear most regularly on the cover was What a Cheek, which appeared 41 times between the first issue and the issue dated 23 September 1978.  What a Cheek was a 3-panel gag feature located at the bottom of the page (apart from the 04 March 1978 cover which had it appearing vertically down the right of the page), and it left a large area beneath the comic title.  This area was used to promote features appearing inside the comic, sometimes a strip or character, sometimes a competition, cut-out booklet or poster.  The first issue to be without a What a Cheek strip was the Christmas issue dated 31 December 1977, which featured a special festive cover.

The following issue dated 07 January 1978 also had no What a Cheek, this time the whole cover was given over to promoting the first part of the Cheeky Spotter Book Of Fun.

What a Cheek was missing again from the 28 January 1978 issue. The main part of that week's cover promoted the '4 Comics Competition' inside, and What a Cheek's traditional place at the bottom of the page was taken by a banner directing readers to the 'super news' on page 30 of a special skateboard issue to appear the following week.  That subsequent issue, dated 04 February 1978, also did away with What a Cheek, replacing it this time with a 3-panel strip entitled Sunday.  In that strip, Cheeky introduced the skateboard theme, so despite being a 3-panel strip, it didn't conform to the What a Cheek gag format.

On 17 June 1978 skateboards again bumped What a Cheek, as the cover promoted a '6 Skateboard Sets to be Won' competition, and also the Father's Day messages inside.

There was no What a Cheek again on 19 August 1978, as the cover contained a teaser for that week's forty-years-into-the future issue, and WaC was missing yet again on 09 September 1978 as the cover was promoting the 'win money' features, Joke-Box Jury and Paddywack.

A Marx Toys competition promo meant that What a Cheek was absent from the cover of the 16 September 1978 comic.

The following week's issue, dated 23 September 1978, was the last to feature What a Cheek, as the cover (and indeed the contents of the comic) underwent a revamp on 30 September 1978.  That issue introduced a new title for the cover strip, although the format was essentially the same, at least initially.  The new title for the strip was Cheeky's Week….Sunday (aka Cheeky's Week in my data) and this feature appeared on the cover of 36 issues, up to and including 30 June 1979.


Unlike What a Cheek, which remained a 3-panel strip throughout its life, Cheeky's Week eventually increased the number of panels to fill the whole of the cover beneath the title.  The first issue to feature a whole-cover Cheeky's Week was dated 10 March 1979, although it still featured 3 panels, albeit bigger than those used previously.  The two subsequent issues also featured whole-cover CWs (both 4-panel), but the 07 April 1979 issue reverted to a 3-panel bottom-of-the-page strip, as the majority of the cover promoted the pull-out poster which started that week.  From the following week until its final appearance on 30 June 1979, Cheeky's Week reverted to whole page, multi-panel strips.

Cheeky's Week missed only one issue; the cover of the 31 March 1979 comic dispensed with Cheeky's Week and devoted the front page to publicising the knitting pattern for Cheeky's jersey which featured inside.

Another reboot of the comic occurred on 07 July 1979.  This latest restyling did away with cover strips, instead presenting an untitled single panel joke, although quite often the joke shared the front page with promotions of various descriptions.  Manhole Man was the most frequently featured stooge to appear in the new-style jokes, gracing 8 covers.  Gunga Jim featured on 5 covers, and Doctor Braincell on 3.  Evidently by the penultimate issue dated 26 January 1980, the writer had exhausted his ideas for jokes with the Cheeky's Week characters, as the cover sees Cheeky in a jungle setting, sharing a gag with Tarzan.

The run of single-panel cover gags was interrupted only by 18 August 1979's cover which promoted the first part of the giant Cheeky poster.

The cover of the final issue featured Cheeky asking 'What's going on?'.  What WAS going on was of course the imminent merge with Whoopee!