The features - Creepy Sleepy Tale

Creepy Sleepy Tale never had a conventional title panel, but inherited its title from the book from which Cheeky selected Baby Burpo's bedtime story on Wednesday evenings (although in the edition dated 28 January 1978 Cheeky is seen reading from a tome entitled 'Orrible Creepy Tales).  In the first issue of Cheeky Weekly, during his babysitting session, Cheeky drew a book titled Creepy Sleepy Tales from his pocket and chuckled "Hur, Hur!  I'll tell [Burpo] such a scarey tale, he'll not sleep for a week.  And I'll never be allowed to babysit for him again!  Cackle!"

Art Mike Brown

Art Mike Brown

This plan always failed because Burpo was never scared and Cheeky often ended the evening running home in terror, having frightened himself while reading the story.

The Creepy Sleepy Tale was always a 2-element feature, but the second element in each issue was not a full page in order to allow room for a 3-panel strip concluding Wednesday and showing Cheeky departing in haste, much to Burpo's amusement.

Art: Keith Reynolds

Creepy Tale Art: Keith Reynolds

Creepy Sleepy Tale ran in 43 issues, from the first issue of Cheeky Weekly until Cheeky read the final Creepy Sleepy Tale in issue 45 dated 26 August 1978.  The feature was absent from two issues during its run - in the Christmas issue dated 31 December 1977, Cheeky took Burpo to see a Creepy Pantomime (which was to all intents and purposes a Creepy Sleepy Tale), and in the special skateboard issue of Cheeky Weekly, dated 04 February 1978, Creepy Sleepy Tale's place was taken by two pages of the cut-out Skateboard Snap game.

Cheeky Weekly regularly had 4 pages in full colour - the cover, 2 centre pages and the back cover.  There were often extra full colour pages in the form of advertisements, but 4 feature pages in full colour was the norm.  In the first 3 issues, The centre pages were given over to full colour posters of Cheeky (issue 1), 6 Million Dollar Gran (issue 2) and Mustapha Million (issue 3), forcing the Creepy Sleepy Tale onto black and white pages.  From the fourth issue, the centre pages became vacant and Creepy Sleepy Tale moved in, taking advantage of the full colour that was available at this prime position in the comic.  It's not clear why a blue and white Creepy Sleepy Tale was printed in the 11 February 1978 issue, as only the front and back covers were in full colour that week. Maybe the reduced colour on the strip was due to budgetary constraints at the time.

Art: Keith again

Creepy Tale Art: Keith

Full colour Tales resumed the following week and continued until the 01 July 1978 issue, in which the Creepy Sleepy Tale was again printed in blue and white.  This was because page 9 printed the front and back cover of that week's Whizzer and Chips mini comic in full colour, and Calculator Kid was lucky enough to get the remaining full colour page.

The following three issues (08, 15 and 22 July 1978) all had black and white Creepy Sleepy Tales because each issue featured one page devoted to another mini comic front and back cover in full colour, and as before the remaining colour page was given to Calculator Kid.  Quite why the 01 July 1978 Creepy Sleepy Tale was blue and white while in the subsequent three issues the CSTs were black and white remains a bit of a puzzle.  It has to be said that a page printed in light blue ink is not a very comfortable reading experience, and maybe the editor abandoned the idea after the second blue and white strip appeared.

Art Tom Paterson

Art Tom Paterson

Creepy Sleepy Tale returned to full colour until August, when the 12 and 19 August 1978 Creepy Sleepy Tales were in black and white because Mustapha Million moved into full colour in these issues.  The final appearance of the Creepy Sleepy Tale, on 26 August 1978 was in black and white because the Monday feature and Calculator Kid were in full colour.  After the demise of the Creepy Sleepy Tales, Elephant On The Run became the most regular occupant of the coveted centre page full colour spread.

In total there were 32 full colour Creepy Sleepy Tales, with 9 black and white and 2 blue and white.

Art Mike Lacey

Art Mike Lacey

The Creepy Sleepy Tale art in the first issue was signed by Mike Brown, who went on to sign the strips dated 05 November 1977, 12 November 1977, 19 November 1977, 26 November 1977 and 03 December 1977.  The art on 29 October 1977 was also by Mike, although unsigned. Keith Reynolds took up the artwork duties as of the 10 December 1977 issue, with the exception of  15 July 1978 (Tom Paterson) and  05 August 1978 (Mike Lacey - Mike also drew the Wednesday conclusion that week).

The Creepy Sleepy Tales are sometimes said to be derivative of the evidently highly popular Badtime Bedtime Book strip which ran in Monster Fun. IPC Group Editor Bob Paynter probably felt it was an ideal opportunity to use a similar, albeit cut-down-to-2-pages-and-not-designed-to-be-removed-from-the-comic, format with one of the BBB artists, Mike Brown, returning to provide the visuals for at least a few weeks.

Creepy Sleepy Tale in the Cheeky Weekly Index
 

Feature	First Appearance	Final Appearance	Total Issues	Total Issues Missed In Run	Page History
Creepy Sleepy Tale	22-Oct-77	26-Aug-78	43	2	13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20

Issues Missed In Run

31-Dec-77 (replaced by Creepy Pantomime)

04-Feb-78

Feature	Artist	Number of Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Creepy Sleepy Tale	Mike Brown	7	22-Oct-1977	03-Dec-1977
Creepy Sleepy Tale	Keith Reynolds	34	10-Dec-1977	26-Aug-1978
Creepy Sleepy Tale	Tom Paterson	1	15-Jul-1978	15-Jul-1978
Creepy Sleepy Tale	Mike Lacey	1	05-Aug-1978	05-Aug-1978