Cheeky Weekly cover date 18 August 1979

This week's cover is dominated by the announcement of the GIANT Cheeky poster inside. Those readers expecting a thrilling depiction of a Kong-sized toothy funster marauding through Krazy Town will be a little disappointed by the reality. The completed poster will present our mirthful mate in a rather stiff pose, but the canny editor has chosen to commence the four-part cut-out-and-keep souvenir from the feet up, as Snail gleefully (and rather conveniently for IPC's legal department who may otherwise be wary of accusations of misrepresentation of the contents) points out. 

Sharing the cover with the poster announcement is a banner alerting readers to the presence of the Alpha Man competition results, and a rather crudely drawn gag featuring Krazy Town stalwarts Postie and Manhole Man.

 

Flipping over to page 2, Cheeky's week gets off to a horrific start ...

Cheeky and Ursula (not to mention Bubblegum Boy)
Art: Frank McDiarmid

6 Million Dollar Gran's origin as a robot in the guise of an elderly lady, a ruse developed by Professor Potts to keep secret his scientific breakthrough, has rarely been referred to since Cheeky Weekly's first issue. However, there's a sudden shift in gear this week as foreign agents unleash a plot to destroy the synthetic senior citizen.

Art: Ian Knox

Once again the layout of the final row of panels at the bottom of page 3 of Gran's story, and the mismatched hatching on Gran's back, suggests to me that the original artwork contained a 'Cheeky-looking-at-closing-credits-of-Gran's-programme' final panel, which were the norm before Cheeky Weekly's various framing devices 'officially' came to an end in the 30 June 1979 issue (although one more slipped through in the 14 July comic, which I suspect was due to an oversight in production - please see link above for more info).

For the second week running we can enjoy (?) a double-page Joke-Box Jury. After that we rejoin our perky pal as he purveys a plethora of piscatorial puns (well, two, anyway).

Art: Frank McDiarmid

A typically and enjoyably daft Elephant On The Run ensues...

Art: Robert Nixon

 

Maybe the Man in the Plastic Mac should have invested in a Louis Marx Sonic Ear...

The centre pages are home to the first part of the giant poster which, as Snail pointed out on the front cover, focuses on the toothy funster's lower extremities, although the mirthful mollusc takes full advantage of the ground-level viewpoint.

Frank McDiarmid again

 

It's nice to see Mustapha's pals making a relatively small (but I'm sure much appreciated) gesture to repay our moneyed mate for all his past generosity this week's seaside story.

Art: Joe McCaffrey

 

Constable Chuckle apprehends this week's miscreant in the final panel of Speed Squad...

Art: Jimmy Hansen

 

On Saturday Auntie Daisy opens her kitchen to the public, resulting in the expected serving of culinary quips from the grinning gagster and pals.

Cheeky and Disco Kid
Art: Frank McDiarmid pencils

 

As has become the tradition since the strip made its debut in the 14 July 1979 edition, this issue rounds off with a glimpse of the garden-goings-on in Snail Of The Century.

Artwork duties on the Cheeky's Week strips are shared by Frank McDiarmid and Frank McDiarmid Pencils (FMP). This is the final issue to feature FMP artwork on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but FMP artwork will feature in three more issues.

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 18-Aug-1979

Artist	Elements
Frank McDiarmid pencils	5
Frank McDiarmid	4

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 18-Aug-1979, Issue 93 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Poster part 1' 2 of 2
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
3	Calculator Kid - Art Terry Bave
4	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
5	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
6	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
7	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid
8	The Gang reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art Robert MacGillivray
9	The Gang reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art Robert MacGillivray
10	Joke-Box Jury
11	Joke-Box Jury
12	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
13	Disaster Des - Art Mike Lacey
14	Elephant On The Run - Art Robert Nixon
15	What's New, Kids
16	Giant Cheeky Poster (first appearance)
17	Giant Cheeky Poster (first appearance)
18	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils (final art on feature)
19	Mystery Boy reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art John Richardson
20	Stage School - Art Robert Nixon
21	Mustapha Million - Art Joe McCaffrey
22	Thursday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils (final art on feature)
23	Speed Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
24	Chit-Chat
25	Tub - Art Nigel Edwards\Alpha Man competition results (single appearance)
26	Friday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils (final art on feature)
27	Why, Dad, Why? - Art John K. Geering
28	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton
29	Ad: IPC '2000AD and Tornado' 1 of 2
30	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils (final art on feature)
31	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils (final art on feature)
32	Snail of the Century - Art Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky Weekly Mini Comics In Other Titles - Conclusion

 

Cover of the Cheeky Weekly
mini comic presented in
Whizzer and Chips 22 July 1978
Art: Frank McDiarmid 

Having (rather belatedly) wound up my individual examinations of IPC's 1978 mini comics promotion as it related to Cheeky Weekly, I felt it would be instructive (to me, anyway) to offer a concluding overview of the Cheeky Weekly mini comics which were presented in Mickey Mouse, Whoopee!, Buster and Monster Fun and Whizzer and Chips in that late 70s summer.

All the Cheeky Weekly mini comics contained the same features, namely;

• What A Cheek (all drawn by Cheeky supremo Frank McDiarmid)
• Mustapha Million (all by Joe McCaffrey who at the time in Cheeky Weekly was occasionally deputising for original MM artist Reg Parlett)
• 6 Million Dollar Gran (all drawn by Cheeky Weekly's occasional stand-in for Ian Knox, Nigel Edwards)
• Cheeky (a necessarily condensed version of the Cheeky's Week pages from the toothy funster's title, drawn in the mini comics by Dick Millington who provided the artwork for Cheeky's Week on occasion)
• Skateboard Squad (drawn by regular artist Jimmy Hansen)
• Bam, Splat and Blooie (reprinted from Buster – not sure who it was drawn by – probably one of the Spanish artists who were recruited to illustrate certain of Buster's content in the title's early days).
• A concluding promotional appearance by Cheeky

In terms of the distribution of features, the layout of the Cheeky Weekly mini comics in Whoopee!, Buster and Monster Fun and Whizzer and Chips were identical (although the individual strips were unique to each mini comic);

  

• Cover pic and What A Cheek on page 1
• 6 Million Dollar Gran on pages 2 and 3
• Cheeky on pages 4 and 5 (thus allocating our toothy pal the centre pages of the weeny facsimile editions in question)
• Mustapha Million on page 6
• Skateboard Squad on page 7
• Bam, Splat and Blooie and a promotional plug by the grinning gagster sharing the back cover.

Only Mickey Mouse chose to deviate from this agreeable arrangement, placing Mustapha Million on page 2, which resulted in the 6 Million Dollar Gran and Cheeky 2-pagers being shunted forward by a page. Thus those readers who chose to excise and collate their mini comics as instructed found the Gran and Cheeky stories printed back-to-back on a single sheet, necessitating a turn of the page to read the whole story, rather than being presented side-by-side for a more appealing reading experience.

Mickey Mouse's Cheeky Weekly mini comic further deviated from the norm by being the only one of the four not to source its main cover pic from a Pin-Up Pal Poster reprint, probably because the Pin-Up Pal depiction of Burpo wouldn't have reproduced well in reduced form.

Buster and Monster Fun's mini comic suffered from Buster's long-standing parsimonious policy on the use of colour, which meant that, unlike the toothy funster's condensed comics in the other titles which sported colour on the front and rear pages, B&MF's Cheeky Weekly mini comic was entirely monochrome.

	Mickey Mouse	Whoopee	Buster and Monster Fun	Whizzer and Chips
Page	01 July 1978	08 July 1978	15 July 1978	22 July 1978
1	Cover pic – Burpo & Cheeky (Barrie Appleby)/What A Cheek (Frank McDiarmid)	Cover pic – Jogging Jeremy (from Pin-Up Pal Poster)/What A Cheek (Frank McDiarmid)	Cover pic – Sid The Street-Sweeper (from Pin-Up Pal Poster)/What A Cheek (Frank McDiarmid)	Cover pic – Six-Gun Sam (from Pin-Up Pal Poster)/What A Cheek (Frank McDiarmid)
2	Mustapha Million (Joe McCaffery)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)
3	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)
4	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky
5	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky
6	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Mustapha Million (Joe McCaffery)	Mustapha Million (Joe McCaffery)	Mustapha Million (Joe McCaffery)
7	Skateboard Squad (Jimmy Hansen)	Skateboard Squad (Jimmy Hansen)	Skateboard Squad (Jimmy Hansen)	Skateboard Squad (Jimmy Hansen)
8	Bam, Splat and Blooie/Join me each week...	Bam, Splat and Blooie/Join me each week...	Bam, Splat and Blooie/Join me each week...	Bam, Splat and Blooie/Join me each week...

All of Cheeky's pals appearing on the various mini comic front covers were present among the Cheeky strips' supporting cast within the respective issues.

Cheeky (and Snail) naturally featured in all the Cheeky strips, but none of Cheeky's pals featured in more than 2 mini comics each. Baby Burpo, Jogging Jeremy, Manhole Man and Teacher were those who made it into 2 of the teeny tracts.

Readers of the mini comic in Whoopee! enjoyed a gag-packed Cheeky strip in which the toothy funster quipped with 8 of his Krazy Town chums, whereas Whizz-kids and Chip-ites were somewhat short-changed with a measly 6 of Cheeky's pals represented in their mini comic. Mickey Mouse and Buster and Monster Fun fans were able to make the acquaintance of 7 of the Cheeky's Week supporting cast each.

	Mickey Mouse	Whoopee!	Buster and Monster Fun	Whizzer and Chips	Total Cheeky Mini Comic appearances
Snail	Y	Y	Y	Y	4
Baby Burpo	Y	Y			2
Jogging Jeremy	Y	Y			2
Manhole Man	Y	Y			2
Teacher			Y	Y	2
Auntie Daisy			Y		1
Baker's Boy				Y	1
Bump-Bump Bernie		Y			1
Constable Chuckle	Y				1
Crunching Chris			Y		1
Do-Good Dora				Y	1
Doctor Braincell		Y			1
Gloomy Glad			Y		1
Granny Gumdrop	Y				1
Knock-Knock Door	Y				1
Lily Pop		Y			1
Louise			Y		1
Posh Claude				Y	1
Sid The Street-Sweeper			Y		1
Six-Gun Sam				Y	1
Yikky-Boo		Y			1
	7	8	7	6

The Cheeky Weekly mini comics gave as good a representation of the contents of a typical issue as was possible within the constraints of miniature format. The only puzzling inclusion was Bam, Splat and Blooie who had permanently exited the toothy funster's title some weeks before the commencement of the promotion. I suppose there were plenty of BS&B strips mouldering in IPC's vault, so the feature made a cheap half-page filler, but the reduction in size rendered the artwork less than appealing. Surely some specially-drawn Paddywack jokes or Cheeky-and-pal gags would have served the promotion better.

Whizzer and Chips - The Cheeky Raids part 13

New readers start here... After Cheeky Weekly folded and was incorporated into Whoopee as of February 1980 six strips that had originated in the toothy funster's title survived the merge and continued to appear in the amalgamated comic. Whoopee itself foundered in March 1985 and was merged into Whizzer and Chips. Three of the surviving Cheeky Weekly strips successfully negotiated this second merge and went on to appear in the newly combined publication, rather inelegantly titled 'Whizzer and Chips now including Whoopee'. The survivors were Mustapha Million, Calculator Kid and (appearing only twice) Stage School. Cheeky continued to appear, but as a member of The Krazy Gang, who had moved into W&C when Krazy, the comic in which the Gang originated, expired in April 1978.

Whizzer and Chips had a long tradition of sending characters from the Chips section into Whizzer and vice versa. These cross-comic forays were known as 'raids'. In this series of posts I'm chronicling the raids involving the ex-Cheeky Weekly characters who made the transition into Whizzer and Chips, all of whom were allocated to the Chips section. For the purposes of this series, although this particular manifestation of the toothy funster didn't directly descend from Cheeky Weekly, I'm including Cheeky's Krazy Gang appearances as those of an 'ex-Cheeky Weekly character'.

Two weeks after Mustapha Million infiltrated Chips' Animalad strip, the loaded lad was targeted in a revenge raid. But can you spot the sneaky interloper? Scroll down for the reveal...

Whizzer and Chips 19 October 1985
Art: Joe McCaffrey
This strip is reprinted from the 'standby' issue of
 Cheeky Weekly dated 06 January 1979

Whizzer and Chips 26 October 1985
Art:Single-panel gag - Jim Crocker,
Glow Boy - Roy Mitchell

Unusually, the raider wasn't depicted on Sid's Whizz-kids page, possibly because space was tight due to the debut of Glow Boy, a character inspired by the long-running Ready Brek TV advertising campaigns that each year heralded the approaching winter months.



By this stage Mustapha had perpetrated and suffered 3 raids, and the overall tally at this point was Whizz-kid raiders 9, with 6 raids carried out by ex-Cheeky Weekly characters.

Whizzer and Chips Cover Date	Raider	Raided
06 April 1985	Mustapha Million	Super Steve
04 May 1985	Bloggs (Store Wars)	Mustapha Million
11 May 1985	Joker	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky)
18 May 1985	Calculator Kid & Calc	Odd-Ball
01 June 1985	Animalad Mustapha Million	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky) Boy Boss
08 June 1985	Odd-Ball	Calculator Kid
06 July 1985	Toy Boy	Calculator Kid
13 July 1985	Pa Bumpkin	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky)
27 July 1985	Joker	Mustapha Million
24 August 1985	Cheeky	Sid's Snake
14 September 1985	Odd-Ball Calculator Kid	Calculator Kid Store Wars
05 October 1985	Mustapha Million	Animalad
19 October 1985	Odd-Ball	Mustapha Million

Mini Comics - Cheeky mini comic in Whizzer and Chips

Way back in July 2011 I concluded my series on IPC's Cheeky Weekly-related entries in their Mini Comics promotion of 1978. Unfortunately I seem to have prematurely drawn the series of posts to an end, as I've now realised that I never presented the Cheeky Weekly mini comic that appeared in Whizzer and Chips dated 22 July 1978 (the final week of the promotion).

Here then is that missing post...

As was the case with the Cheeky mini comics in Whoopee! and Buster and Monster Fun (but curiously not the one in Mickey Mouse), this weeny version of the toothy funster's title featured on its cover artwork lifted from one of the Pin-Up Pal posters – in this case Frank McDiarmid's rendition of comical cowpoke Six-Gun Sam, which originally appeared in Cheeky Weekly a couple of months before this mini comic was published (the issue dated 13 May 1978). Below our lasso-wielding pal is an original What A Cheek gag strip by Frank. To the left of the 'fold here' line, on the mini comic's back cover, is a Bam, Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster. As I have noted in my conclusion to the Star Guest series of posts, the choice of strips used in these supposedly readership-boosting campaigns can sometimes be baffling. The reduction in the size of the strip, necessary to fit it onto this condensed comic, does the artwork no favours but if any Whizzer and Chips readers had been sufficiently enamoured of it to seek further cat, dog and bird antics within the pages of Cheeky Weekly, they would have been sorely disappointed since BS&B had come to an end in the issue of our grinning pal's comic dated 17 June 1978, a month before this mini comic appeared.

There then follows the first page of a 6 Million Dollar Gran story by Nigel Edwards, who at this point over at Cheeky Weekly had deputised twice for regular artist Ian Knox. As was so often the case, even within the pages of the toothy funster's regular-sized funny paper, Gran is described as bionic when her origin story made it clear she was a robot. After a good gag from the museum attendant, Gran's fossil frustrations are interrupted by the Skateboard Squad, who manage to wrap up their pursuit of some purloined moolah within a single page. Art by Cheeky Weekly's regular Squad pencil-pusher, Jimmy Hansen.

Our monied mate Mustapha Million is the next to be recruited for this visit to Whizzer and Chips, in a rather unsettling story which culminates with our Bedouin buddy gleefully surveying the injuries suffered by some (albeit unpleasant) kids. Not really the kindly Mustapha to whom regular Cheeky Weekly readers were accustomed, and the strip gives those unfamiliar with the character little clue of its original premise. Although the illustration of MM alongside the title is drawn by Reg Parlett, Joe McCaffery (who that very week, in the toothy funster's comic, had stood in for original Mustapha artist Reg for the third time) provides the artwork on this story. Joe became the regular artist on the strip in February 1979. Adjacent to Mustapha's uncharacteristic outing, Gran's Paleozoic panic reaches its chaotic conclusion.

Occupying this mini comic's centre pages is the toothy funster himself, drawn by Dick Millington, whose work had graced four issues of Cheeky Weekly at this stage. Mini comic cover star Six-Gun Sam is on hand to deliver a wild west witticism, following which the toothy funster fulfils his contractual obligation to plug the comic, before an appearance by Teacher brings Cheeky's mini centre-spread gagfest to an end.

Thanks to hankshanklin whose question over at the Comics UK Forum caused me to realise I had omitted to cover this Cheeky mini comic.

All the mini comics posts can be found here.