Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed!

As discussed here, Cheeky Weekly failed to be published for 3 weeks in December 1978 due to an industrial dispute. The missing issues were those that would have been dated 16, 23 and 30 December 1978.

Material for Cheeky Weekly was clearly prepared some weeks in advance of the publication date, so it's a safe bet that the pages scheduled to appear in these lost issues had been delivered to the Cheeky Weekly editor before the industrial action brought publication to a temporary halt. Since two of the lost issues had a Christmas theme (there were two Christmas-themed Cheeky Weeklies in 1977; 24 December's pre-Christmas issue and 31 December's full-blown Christmas issue), these pages could not really be used (at least not without modification - of which more later) until the following festive season, and that is indeed what happened with the Cheeky's Week material.

From the 30 September 1978 issue to that dated 30 June 1979, the Cheeky's Week pages included an introductory title panel, and an area at the foot of some pages entitled 'What did YOU do today?' which gave readers the space to record a brief diary entry. Since a number of the Cheeky pages prepared for the Christmas 1978 issues included these elements, which would have to be removed in preparing the artwork for its eventual use at the end of 1979, it's possible to identify those pages which were salted away by a canny Cheeky Weekly editor for use in the following year's festive editions.

I'm embarking on a series of posts in which I will identify those pages that would have appeared in 1978's Christmas issues had Cheeky Weekly not become briefly embroiled in the volatile industrial relations of the late 70s.

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Sunday	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Sunday	Christmas card storyline begins. Different lettering style in Cheeky's speech balloon in the final panel suggests his original comments have been altered - in the original version he would have introduced 6 Million Dollar Gran, whose strip would commence on the following page. By the end of 1979, Gran had been moved to the rear of the comic. In the 22 December 1979 issue, Sunday was followed by Calculator Kid.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 2