Cheeky Weekly Star Guests in Whizzer and Chips (part 7)

Calculator Kid was recruited to make a second Star Guest visit to Whizzer and Chips in that title's 23 June 1979 issue (Charlie and Calc's first W&C outing had occurred at the commencement of the 1979 run of Star Guest in the comic dated 31 March 1979). On the face of it, the return of Charlie and his calculating comrade to the pages of Whizzer and Chips would suggest that IPC felt Calculator Kid was a particularly strong feature. However the strip was, oddly, entirely absent from the Star Guest run concurrently appearing in Whoopee. I'm not sure what strips were appearing in Whoopee at the time, but maybe the inclusion of Calculator Kid would have made the level of Terry Bave artwork in a single Whoopee issue uncomfortably high for the editor (but certainly not for Mr Bave's many fans).

The premise of Calculator Kid is nicely encapsulated in the first panel (which, since readers of Whizzer and Chips had already been introduced to the main characters, could suggest that it was originally intended for Whoopee), but the ensuing escapade doesn't really make sense. OK, we understand that Charlie is robbed of his precious two pence by the nefarious Fred Fiddler, but why would the group of adults donate when the flags clearly read 'The Fred Fiddler Benefit Fund'?

Whizzer and Chips 23 June 1979
(week 13 of the 1979 Star Guest run)
Art: Terry Bave

It was certainly a busy (and lucrative) week for public-spirited Charlie Counter as, in the edition of Cheeky Weekly sharing the same cover date, he and his silicon-chipped sidekick foiled a robbery being planned by another of Krazy Town's alliteratively-named criminals, Ned Nicker.

Terry Bave again

Whizz-Kids or Chipites persuaded by this Star Guest outing into buying Cheeky Weekly with immediate effect would have been delighted to find that Calculator Kid was present in all remaining 33 issues of the toothy funster's title. When Cheeky's comic came to an end, Charlie and Calc were among the survivors who decamped to Whoopee where they were hitherto unknown due to their lack of a Star Guest visit to that title.