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 30 May 2013

Frank's Dodgy Years

Even the mighty Frank McDiarmid couldn't be expected to deliver a whole Cheeky's Week every issue so, as we have seen, a number of other artists stood in from time to time. While Frank was drawing Cheeky's escapades in Cheeky Weekly, he also drew 44 Cheeky pages in Krazy comic during the 26 weeks that Cheeky Weekly and Krazy shared space on the newsagents' shelves.

However, his work during this period wasn't limited to Cheeky Weekly and Krazy, in fact it wasn't even limited to publisher IPC - Frank was also illustrating Roger the Dodger for rival DC Thomson's iconic title, The Beano. Frank's gig on Roger lasted almost ten and a half years - an impressive run.

The McDiarmid style on Roger was restrained in comparison to his Cheeky work, no doubt to comply with Thomson's requirements, and Frank was clearly ghosting Ken Reid's style when drawing The Dodger's face. Again, this may have been at the request of Thomsons since Reid had been the original artist on the strip, or else it was Frank's homage to Roger's creator.

Here is the first of Frank's Roger strips, from The Beano dated 13 December 1975. Previous Roger artist Tom Lavery's title panel has been retained.


Here's Frank's Roger from The Beano dated 22 October 1977 - the same cover date as the first Cheeky Weekly.


This one's from The Beano with the same cover date as the final Cheeky Weekly - 02 February 1980.


Below is Frank's final Roger strip from The Beano dated 24 May 1986.


Frank also drew at least one Bash Street Kids story in The Beano in 1975.

Roger the Dodger is copyright DC Thomson & Co. Ltd.

7 comments:

  1. You can't help missing the wittiness in panels of Cheeky also the characters were more fun...

    Imagine Roger the Dodger in a Cheeky style!!

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    1. Cheeky the Dodger...Roger the Cheeky...

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  2. Did you notice that the reader in the last strip is drawn by staff artist Jimmy Glen? Looks like either Frank drew him in silhouette or he was left "off-screen."

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    1. Yes, I did notice the different style on the reader's face. Maybe Frank, knowing this was to be his final work on Rodger, drew a likeness of somebody, or something else, that the Beano editor didn't like.

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  3. I've updated my blog post to put a link here...great to see the last one too...

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  4. Great to find this , I remember well dad drawing Rodger. He used to get fed up of Rodger's checked jumper, monotonous to do all the squares ha ha.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Gary - at least Roger didn't have as many teeth to draw as Cheeky!

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