Welcome to the Cheeky Weekly blog!


Welcome to the Cheeky Weekly blog!
Cheeky Weekly ™ REBELLION PUBLISHING LTD, COPYRIGHT ©  REBELLION PUBLISHING LTD, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED was a British children's comic with cover dates spanning 22 October 1977 to 02 February 1980.

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Thursday 23 December 2010

Cheeky Weekly cover date 04 February 1978

The special skateboard issue rolls into newsagents this week, with the main part of the cover given over to a depiction of a boarder and samples from the cut-out Skateboard Snap game (art on this part of the cover by Jimmy Hansen).  The usual Cheeky's Week gag is bumped from the cover by a truncated Sunday feature, in which Cheeky introduces the skateboard theme.  Even Snail is on a board.

Having got Sunday out of the way, it falls to the mighty Skateboard Squad to kick off proceedings for this special issue. The terrific trio enjoy a 2-page adventure commencing on page 2, in which they give a display at the new sports centre and, it goes without saying, foil a crime in the process.  Jimmy Hansen ties this tale into Cheeky's Week by placing the Vicar, Cheeky and 6 Million Dollar Gran among the spectators, although the decision to include Gran is a debatable one, since in Cheeky's universe the synthetic senior citizen is a fictional character from a TV show.  Actually, this tale is not quite a full 2 pages, as there's a banner across the bottom of the second page directing readers to page 15 where they can find the instructions for constructing and playing the skateboard snap game.  Quite why they didn't just print the instructions at the bottom of page 3 rather than taking up valuable space with a pointless banner remains a mystery. Page 15's instructions are on the reverse of the game - thus if readers follow the instructions and paste page 16 onto card, they will no longer be able to read the instructions!



On Sunday evening, Cheeky sticks to his plan of only speaking to people on skateboards, meeting the Vicar, Manhole Man (who's actually underneath a skateboard, but evidently that's good enough for the toothy funster), and providing boards for his mum and dad, but ignoring Louise, who is not on wheels.

For the first page-and-a-half of this week's 6 Million Dollar Gran story, it seems the skateboard theme is not going to intrude, but Gran eventually performs some boarding tricks on a trolley as she rescues a racing car driver.

This week's instalment of the James Bold tale, The Ghost Highwayman, doesn't include any skateboard references - I presume the editor felt that a ghost on a skateboard wouldn't be appropriate.  There are no skateboards or related items featured on the What's New, Kids page, either, nor are any to be found on the Old Comic page.

There is no Tuesday feature in this issue.  This doesn't seem to be due to a shortage of space, as later in the issue there is a 2-page Joke-Box Jury and a page containing a photo of a simian skateboarder, so I would guess that the second J-B J page and the chimpy pic were inserted to ease the burden on Frank McDiarmid.

Page 14 is given over to an advertisement for the first issue of IPC's new comic, Misty, which is on sale this week.

On Wednesday, Cheeky arrives at Baby Burpo's house where Burpo's dad suggests Cheeky challenges Burpo to play his new card game.  This is fortunate, as the centre pages, which usually feature the Creepy Sleepy Tale, this week carry the cut-out Skateboard Snap game.  The aforementioned 2-page Joke-Box Jury follows, with no skateboard-related jokes.

After a skateboard-packed Thursday with Cheeky, Oscar gets participates in this week's theme with a Home Movie concerning a mock bullfight in which the fearsome beast is portrayed by 2 kids on skateboards with a blanket thrown over them, then Mustapha Million converts his mansion into a skateboard park for the local kids.

The Henery Hawk and Bam Splat and Blooie strips have no skateboard content (not surprising, as they're reprints), nor does this week's instalment of Space Family Robinson.

Page 31 contains a filler feature referred to earlier - the photo of a chimp on a skateboard, and the back page carries a further set of Skateboard Snap cards.

It's great that the Cheeky's Week art on this special issue is provided by Frank McDiarmid, who delivers 8 Cheeky's Week elements (the remaining one being a single panel which concludes Saturday and looks like a cut-and-paste job to me).  It's nice that the skateboard theme is carried into the other humour strips in the comic, too (except, of course, the reprints).  On the downside, as I've mentioned before, I never like cut-out features, and the inclusion of the snap game seems rather uninspired, and were I not confident that the Cheeky Weekly editor believes that such cut-out features increased sales, I'd be tempted to describe the snap game as another filler .


There are no Cheeky's Week character debuts or departures this week, but we do say goodbye to Henery Hawk who will mercifully trouble us no more in future issues.  Now if they would just get rid of these Warner Brothers strips altogether…

Cheeky Weekly Cover Date: 04-Feb-1978, Issue 16 of 117
PageDetails
1Cover Feature 'Skateboard Issue' - Art Jimmy Hansen\Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
2Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
3Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
4Sunday evening - Art Frank McDiarmid
56 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
66 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
76 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
8Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid
9James Bold 'The Ghost Highwayman' 5 of 9 - Art Mike White
10James Bold 'The Ghost Highwayman' 5 of 9 - Art Mike White
11Suddenly - Art Frank McDiarmid\Ad: IPC 'Shoot' 6 of 13
12What's New, Kids
13Old Comic reprint from Chips 'Dickie Duffer' 2 of 2 reprint from Chips 'Rudolf the Red-Nosed Ranger'
14Ad: IPC 'Misty No 1' 2 of 2
15Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
16Skateboard Snap (single appearance) - Art Jimmy Hansen (single art on feature)
17Skateboard Snap (single appearance) - Art Jimmy Hansen (single art on feature)
18Joke-Box Jury
19Joke-Box Jury
20Thursday - Art Frank McDiarmid
21Home Movie 'El Bullfighter' - Art Jack Clayton
22Friday - Art Frank McDiarmid
23Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
24Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
25Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid
26Henery Hawk (final appearance) 'The Flower Pot'
27Henery Hawk (final appearance) 'The Flower Pot'
28Interval - Art Frank McDiarmid\Bam Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster
29Space Family Robinson 'The Search' - Art John Richardson
30Space Family Robinson 'The Search' - Art John Richardson
31Chimp on a skateboard photo (single appearance)\Saturday - Art Cut and Paste (final art on feature)
32Skateboard Snap (single appearance) - Art Jimmy Hansen (single art on feature)

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 04-Feb-1978
                                                                 
ArtistElements
Frank McDiarmid8
Cut and Paste1

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