Mini Comics - Cheeky mini comic in Mickey Mouse

It's time for another look at a mini comic from IPC's summer 1978 promotion, and I'd like to look at the Cheeky mini comic which appeared in Mickey Mouse dated 01 July 1978.  I'd like to look at it, but I can't as I've never seen it.

My weekly IPC comic purchases in summer 1978 were Cheeky Weekly, Whizzer and Chips and 2000AD.  When IPC announced this mini comic scheme, I assumed the contents of each compressed comic would be reprints, so I didn't bother seeking out the Cheeky mini comics which appeared in other titles.  It was only when a Cheeky mini comic appeared in Whizzer and Chips during the final week of the promotion that I realised new material had been specially prepared for the mini Cheekys.  So in addition to the sample version of Cheeky Weekly in Mickey Mouse, I also missed those appearing in Whoopee! and Buster.  However, thanks to the generosity of Zeg and klakadak-ploobadoof, I now have scans of the Whoopee! and Buster mini Cheekys, which will be appearing here soon.

So I'll leave this post as a placeholder for the Cheeky mini comic from Mickey Mouse dated 01 July 1978.  If anyone has a copy, you can imagine how delighted I'd be to hear from you.

UPDATE 16 November 2011 - Well, all good things come to those who wait, and I'm extremely grateful to Jes who provided me with the scans of the Cheeky mini comic from IPC's Mickey Mouse comic dated 01 July 1978, the first week of IPC's summer 1978 mini comics promotion...

The combined front and back cover features a Bam, Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster, along with a tiny What A Cheek strip that's probably by Frank McDiarmid, but is so small it's hard to be sure.

The two other Cheeky mini comics (in Whoopee! and Buster and Monster Fun - click here to see all the mini comics posts) featured previously-published art from Cheeky Weekly's Pin-Up Pal posters on their covers.  The mini comic cover pic of Burpo and Cheeky above, which looks to me to be the work of Barrie Appleby, isn't from a poster.

There follows a coupling of Mustapha Million by Joe McAffrey, and Mike Lacey's Skateboard Squad.  Both strips are in colour, making this the only Cheeky mini comic to feature colour on internal pages as well as the front/back covers.  I suppose this makes up for the Cheeky mini comic that appeared in Buster, which had no colour pages at all.

Next up is the second page of the Cheeky strip drawn by Dick Millington, together with the first page of 6 Million Dollar Gran by Nigel Edwards.  As with the Cheeky mini comic in Buster and Monster Fun, the story erroneously refers to Gran as being bionic. In the debut issue of Cheeky Weekly it is clear she is a robot.

Now Gran and Cheeky swap places in order to complete their respective stories.  In honour of the host comic, Cheeky is making Disney jokes.

All 3 Cheeky mini comics featured the same strip and artist combinations, but with different content.  As I mentioned elsewhere in the mini comics posts, Bam, Splat and Blooie was an odd choice to include in the Cheeky mini comics, as not only was it a reprint, but it had finished its run in Cheeky Weekly by the time the mini comic promotion started.