Whizzer and Chips - The Cheeky Raids part 49

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. However, the Krazy Gang's Whizzer and Chips run ended in the issue dated 08 February 1986. Calculator Kid survived a little longer, his run of reprints coming to an end in the 26 July 1986 edition and leaving Mustapha Million as the sole Cheeky Weekly survivor.

During the period covered so far in this series of Whizzer and Chips – The Cheeky Raids posts, every week a character from Chips infiltrated Whizzer and a member of the Whizzer cast gate-crashed Chips (although long-time followers of this blog will know that I only report on those raids which involved characters who appeared in Cheeky Weekly). For the benefit of those less-than-eagle-eyed Whizz-kids or Chip-ites who were unable to locate the sneaky interlopers, the identities of the clandestine intruders were revealed each week in the following issue.

However, it appears that the Whizzer and Chips editor’s apparent concerns over the unexpected consequences resulting from the rivalry he had engendered among readers, which emerged in May 1988, resulted in a moratorium on raids as of Whizzer and Chips dated 30 July 1988, because commencing with the 06 August 1988 issue raiders ceased to be identified. Now, this poses something of a problem for me, since sometimes the cunningly-concealed uninvited guests can be difficult to spot. When I encountered such a situation while researching this series up to this point I was able to refer to the next issue to discover who had been raided by whom. Nevertheless I have done my best to scour the issues from 30 July 1988 (in which the previous week’s raiders were revealed but no raids on that week’s content were in evidence) onwards for raiders, and it seems that for a period there was a halt to ’new’ raids. I believe a few raids did appear during what we might call The Great Whizzer and Chips Truce, but it seems that they only featured in reprinted strips which included a raider on their first outing. In fact there was such an occurrence in that same 06 August 1988 first-to-include-no-raider-report issue, when the reprinted Lazy Bones strip included a raid by an old character, Brave Dave.

Here is that reprinted Lazy Bones strip from the 06 August 1988 issue. The strip had originally appeared in Whizzer and Chips dated 19 November 1983.

Whizzer and Chips 06 August 1988,
reprinted from 19 November 1983
Art: Colin Whittock

Brave Dave first appeared in Whizzer and Chips dated 16 July 1983. Since he's a little-remembered character (certainly not as famous as Odd-Ball or Joker, for example), here's his strip from that same 19 November 1983 edition.

Whizzer and Chips 19 November 1983
Art: Vic Neill

There are 2 further reprinted raids that I have identified during the period of the Truce – the next being a further intrusion upon Lazy Bones, this time by JR in the 13 August 1988 comic. I'm assuming that this is another reprinted raid - I must admit I haven't tried tracking down the original. UPDATE 05 December 2019 - My thanks to Stephen Archer who has tracked down the original appearance of JR raiding Lazy Bones to Whizzer and Chips dated 21 April 1984.

However, the third reprinted raid is more relevant to this blog, since the incursion is undertaken by none other than our toothy pal. This Store Wars story originally appeared in Whizzer and Chips dated 25 August 1984, and was reprinted during the Truce, in the 05 August 1989 edition.

Whizzer and Chips 05 August 1989,
reprinted from 25 August 1984
Art: Jim Watson

 I have done my best to identify any intrusions during this period, but can't guarantee that the odd sneaky one didn't bypass my raider radar.

The moratorium on new raids was eventually lifted, so there'll be more raiding fun soon!

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
23 November 1985	Sweeny Toddler Sweeny Toddler Sweeny Toddler	Calculator Kid The Krazy Gang (Cheeky) Mustapha Million
18 January 1986	Mustapha Million	Super Steve
25 January 1986	Odd-Ball Cheeky	Mustapha Million Odd-Ball
08 February 1986 The Krazy Gang ends this issue	Animalad	Mustapha Million
15 February 1986	Lazy Bones	Calculator Kid
15 March 1986	Odd-Ball	Calculator Kid
29 March 1986	Calculator Kid	Master P Brain
05 April 1986	Bumpkin Billionaires	Mustapha Million
12 April 1986	Animalad	Calculator Kid
31 May 1986	Lazy Bones	Calculator Kid
07 June 1986	Mustapha Million	Joker
28 June 1986	Sweet Tooth	Mustapha Million
26 July 1986 Calculator Kid ends this issue	No Cheeky-related raid this issue	No Cheeky-related raid this issue
16 August 1986	Mustapha Million	Joker
23 August 1986	Sweet Tooth	Mustapha Million
18 October 1986	Winnie the Royal Nag	Mustapha Million
06 December 1986	Toy Boy	Mustapha Million
13 December 1986	Mustapha Million	Odd-Ball
17 January 1987	Sid	Mustapha Million
14 February 1987	Odd-Ball	Mustapha Million
11 April 1987	Pa Bumpkin	Mustapha Million
25 April 1987	Mustapha Million	Odd-Ball
20 June 1987	Toy Boy	Mustapha Million
27 June 1987	Mustapha Million	Memory Banks
25 July 1987	Lazy Bones	Mustapha Million
22 August 1987	Winnie the Royal Nag	Mustapha Million
12 September 1987	Mustapha Million	Sweet Tooth
19 September 1987	Odd-Ball	Mustapha Million
24 October 1987	Odd-Ball	Mustapha Million
12 December 1987	Joker	Mustapha Million
13 February 1988	Bloggs (Store Wars)	Mustapha Million
20 February 1988	Mustapha Million	Joker
12 March 1988	Odd-Ball	Mustapha Million
23 April 1988	Joker	Mustapha Million
28 May 1988 Readers asked not to let their Whizz-kid or Chip-ite sympathies colour their favourite strip votes	No Cheeky-related raid this issue	No Cheeky-related raid this issue
11 June 1988	Slippy	Mustapha Million
16 July 1988	Toy Boy	Mustapha Million
30 July 1988 New raids halted
05 August 1989 (raid reprinted from 25 Aug 1984)	Cheeky	Store Wars