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.
A week after Mustapha was raided by Slippy in the 16 September 1989 edition of Whizzer and Chips, head Whizz-kid Sid announced the
resumption of weekly reciprocal raids (after the moratorium on new
raids was lifted in the 12 August 1989 issue, raids had been limited
to a single one each week, alternating between a Whizz-kid incursion
into Chips one week, and a Chip-ite foray into Whizzer the next).
Whizzer and Chips 23 September 1989
Thus it was entirely possible under the reintroduced 2-raids-a-week regime that a character could be both
perpetrator and victim, and the next issue to involve Mustapha in a cross-comic sortie (28 October 1989) did indeed see him in both roles.
Mustapha struck a blow for the Chip-ites by intruding upon the somewhat disturbing romantic entanglement of Bobby with his girlfriend from beyond the grave. The strip's title was a pun on Susan Maughan's 1962 recording of Bobby's Girl, a reference of which few Whizzer and Chips readers in 1989 would have been aware.
Art: Anthony Hutchings
Can you spot the gate-crasher in Mustapha's pages? Scroll down the discover the identity of the infant interloper.
I suspect the billboard advertising Gungeo Hair Gel is another popular music reference, although much more recent for readers in 1989 than that cited above - Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan had enjoyed chart success with 'Especially for You' in 1988. I'm not going to embed a video of the song, so please seek it out yourself if you're so inclined.
I'd spread my wings for you,,,no need to think about tomorrow...all the loneliness and the sorrow...now we are together...together... erm got carried away...
I'd spread my wings for you,,,no need to think about tomorrow...all the loneliness and the sorrow...now we are together...together... erm got carried away...
ReplyDeleteYou have a lovely voice...unfortunately it's more like Kylie than Jason ;)
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