Cheeky Weekly cover date 28 July 1979

Art: Dick Milington

Cheeky is joined on this week's cover by Doctor Braincell for horological hi-jinks drawn by Dick Millington.

Dick's contribution to this issue of Cheeky Weekly continues on page 2 where Cheeky is so preoccupied with gag-delivery that he parts with only one Sunday newspaper.

This week's is a classic 6 Million Dollar Gran strip, with some enjoyably surreal images from the mind of Ian Knox, as Gran encounters a surly scout master. It's evident from the rather sparse area at the right of the final panel that the strip was originally drawn with the Cheeky-watching-TV-conclusion, but the artwork has been altered to conform to the new 'no framing devices' editorial policy that was implemented as of the 07 July 1979 'new look' issue.

On Monday Dick Millington seems to base one of his depictions of the toothy funster on a distinctive pose that Frank McDiarmid was evidently so pleased with that he drew it 3 times in the 21 April 1979 issue...

Art: Dick Millington

Art: Frank McDiarmid from Cheeky Weekly 21 April 1979.
The centre image is the one on which Dick seems to have based the leftmost panel of his work above.

The concluding panel of this week's The Gang suggests to me that it may have been the final episode of the strip's original run in Whizzer and Chips. Thanks to Raven for confirming in the comment below that it was in fact the last Double Deckers episode.

Art: Robert MacGillivray

Speaking of conclusions, this is the 18th and final week of IPC's 1979 Star Guest promotion, and Bookworm is the last guest to pay a visit, with a rather atypical story in which Whoopee's bibliophile buddy spends most of the strip unconscious and subsequently exhibits symptoms of concussion. Not a very good choice of script for promotional purposes I would suggest.

Art: Barry Glennard

On Tuesday Cheeky introduces a new pal, the jovial joiner and woodwork wit, Mr. Chips.

Stage School Teacher has a classroom clash with a miniature Frank Carson - caution some of the humour in these clips would be considered inappropriate today -  who seems to be confusing his catchphrases with those of Basil Brush - caution some of the advice in this clip would be considered by some to be 'health and safety gone mad' today.

Art: Robert Nixon

On Friday Dick Millington includes a reference to his Cheeky Weekly colleague (I made this as large as possible but you'll still have to click on it to see the relevant detail)...

Cheeky's Week concludes with a Saturday spent at Doodle Doug's art class, and the comic rounds off with Snail of the Century in colour on the back cover.

Dick Millington supplies all of Cheeky's Sunday to Saturday strips, with Frank McDiarmid delivering Snail of the Century. This is the last time Dick will draw Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but he will supply artwork in one more edition of Cheeky Weekly.

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 28-Jul-1979

Artist	Elements
Dick Millington	8
Frank McDiarmid	1

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 28-Jul-1979, Issue 90 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Dr Braincell' 1 of 3 - Art Dick Millington (single art on feature)
2	Sunday - Art Dick Millington
3	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
4	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
5	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
6	What's New, Kids
7	Monday - Art Dick Millington
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	Star Guest (final appearance) 'Bookworm' - Art Barry Glennard (final art on feature)
12	Tuesday - Art Dick Millington
13	Disaster Des - Art Mike Lacey
14	Stage School - Art Robert Nixon
15	Stage School - Art Robert Nixon
16	Elephant On The Run - Art Robert Nixon
17	Calculator Kid - Art Terry Bave
18	Wednesday - Art Dick Millington
19	Mystery Boy reprint from Whizzer and Chips - Art John Richardson
20	Mustapha Million - Art Joe McCaffrey
21	Mustapha Million - Art Joe McCaffrey
22	Thursday - Art Dick Millington (final art on feature)
23	Ad: IPC 'Puzzle Time' 2 of 6 \Ad: North Pacific Flyers (final appearance)
24	Chit-Chat
25	Chit-Chat
26	Friday - Art Dick Millington (final art on feature)
27	Why, Dad, Why? - Art John K. Geering
28	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton
29	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton
30	Saturday - Art Dick Millington (final art on feature)
31	Saturday - Art Dick Millington (final art on feature)
32	Snail of the Century - Art Frank McDiarmid

Dick Millington RIP

Just read on Lew Stringer's blog of the sad passing of Dick Millington. As Lew mentions, Dick was probably best known among British comic enthusiasts for his Mighty Moth in TV Comic, but he was also one of the select band of artists who on occasion stepped in to keep the fun bubbling along in the Cheeky's Week elements of Cheeky Weekly. It was always interesting to see how other hands would portray Frank McDiarmid's roster of Cheeky characters, and Dick's lively contributions never failed to raise a chuckle.

Goodbye Krazy

In the same week that Cheeky Weekly number 26 hit the newsagents, readers of Krazy comic, in which the Cheeky character had originated, learned that the current issue was to be the last, and as from next week Krazy would merge into one of IPC's long-running titles, Whizzer and Chips.  Merges were the customary fate of comics whose sales figures had fallen below viable levels.  By merging the most popular strips from the failed title with an existing, more successful comic, the publishers hoped to deliver a circulation boost to the established title, in the form of the erstwhile readers of the defunct comic.

Krazy, which launched on 16 October 1976, almost exactly a year before Cheeky Weekly appeared, was a bold attempt to try something new; a melding of the traditional British humour comic with a less rigid, Mad Magazine-influenced style.  In Krazy, one-off humorous features appeared alongside the standard weekly strips, so that readers were never entirely sure what each issue would contain.  Some found this approach refreshing, but maybe it was too unsettling for those who preferred a comic consisting of the same strips every week.

Launching spin-off title Cheeky Weekly may in fact have hastened Krazy's demise.  Not all comic readers had access to unlimited budgets, and a significant number of those who had up until then read Krazy may have opted to drop Cheeky's progenitor title in order to fund their purchase of Cheeky Weekly.

Ironically, Cheeky made a reference to Krazy comic on the Tuesday page of Cheeky Weekly issue 26, which shared the same cover date as the final Krazy.  Krazy's precarious state would have been obvious to readers of Cheeky Weekly, as in the issues dated 14 January 1978 and 25 March 1978 the slogan 'Save a comic - buy Krazy' had been seen in the Cheeky's Week strips.  Presumably the decision to bring Krazy to an end had already been made by that stage.  The demise of  their comic would not have been a surprise to Krazy readers, either, as the cover of Krazy's 11 March 1978 issue, had read 'Save this comic, buy it'.

Cheeky had featured in 2 regular strips in Krazy; his own 'Ello, It's Cheeky feature, and The Krazy Gang where he appeared as a member of the titular group.  The Krazy Gang (with Cheeky) survived the merge and continued to appear in Whizzer and Chips.  'Ello, It's Cheeky did not continue after the merge, except in the sense that its format continued in the Cheeky's Week strips in Cheeky Weekly.  An intermittent Krazy series that began under the title Cheeky's Pal eventually evolved into The Burpo Special, a feature that was resurrected in the pages of Cheeky Weekly some 8 months after Krazy's cancellation.

In Krazy's final 'Ello, It's Cheeky strip, the toothy funster introduced his pals from Cheeky Weekly and invited readers to join him in his own comic, thereby risking a split in readership as some decided to move to Cheeky Weekly, while others opted to follow their Krazy pals into Whizzer and Chips.

In addition to the work he did in Cheeky Weekly, the prolific Frank McDiarmid had produced a total of 44 Cheeky-related pages in Krazy since Cheeky Weekly's launch, including the final 'Ello, It's Cheeky strip.  As with his Cheeky's Week work in Cheeky Weekly, Frank's terrific workload was eased by other artists on the Cheeky-related strips in Krazy.  The other artists' Cheeky output in Krazy since Cheeky Weekly started breaks down as follows; Barrie Appleby 7 pages, Dick Millington 18, Jim Petrie 4, Jim Watson 25, and there is one artist whose name I don't know, who drew the Bird Spotting page (a Cheeky-related feature) in Krazy dated 25 February 1978.

The Other Cheeky Artists - Dick Millington

In his interview in Crikey! issue 12, Frank McDiarmid says that Bob Paynter, Fleetway's Group Editor, wanted to use as much of Frank's artwork on Cheeky Weekly as possible.

However, given the Herculean task of generating the high number of Cheeky features in each issue, not to mention the material that Frank drew for the summer specials and annuals, it's not surprising that other artists were drafted in from time to time.  In this series of The Other Cheeky Artists posts, I'm going to focus on those intrepid pencil-wielders who manfully filled Frank's shoes.

I have to say that I'm certainly not an expert on comics and have no insight into what was happening behind the scenes of Cheeky Weekly.  However I reckon I have a reasonable knowledge of the IPC humour artists of the 70s and 80s.  My attempts to identify artists are just my opinions and you're welcome to disagree.

Let's look first at the Cheeky pages supplied by Dick Millington.

Dick's first Cheeky artwork was a single page in the issue dated 17 December 1977.

He provided all the Cheeky features in the following week's 24 December issue, with the exception of the Friday page, which coincidentally was the feature that he drew in the 17 December issue, so maybe there was some juggling going on.  The fact that the 17 December Friday page includes a trip to see Father Christmas rather suggests it was originally destined for the 24 December issue, which has a Christmas theme running through it, although the Christmas issue was dated 31 December.



In Cheeky Weekly dated 27 May 1978, Dick drew all the Cheeky features except the front page 'What a Cheek' strip which was by Frank.

The next Cheeky-related work of Dick's that I'm aware of is the two-page Cheeky strip in the centre of the Cheeky mini comic which appeared in Buster dated 15 July 1978 (my thanks to Zeg for the scans which I'll be using in a future post).  A different Cheeky strip drawn by Dick appeared in the Cheeky mini comic in Whizzer and Chips dated 22 July 1978.  I can only assume that Dick drew the Cheeky pages in the Cheeky mini comic which appeared in Mickey Mouse comic dated 01 July 1978, as unfortunately I have never seen a copy of that issue.  If anyone has it please contact me as I'm planning a post on the mini Cheekys, so it would be great to be able to feature all of them.

In Cheeky Weekly dated 26 May 1979, Dick supplied the artwork for a 'Star Guest' appearance of Happy Families, the strip he regularly drew in Whizzer and Chips, but since this post is about his work on the Cheeky pages, I won't mention it.

After a break of over a year, Dick was back on full-size Cheeky Weekly duty in the 30 June 1979 issue, for which he supplied all the Cheeky's Week pages apart from the cover. The comic dated 28 July 1979 is the only issue of Cheeky Weekly in which Dick drew all the Cheeky's Week features (I don't count Snail of the Century as a Cheeky's Week feature).

Dick's final stint on Cheeky Weekly was to provide four pages in the issue dated 03 November 1979.

Dick Millington's Cheeky pages in Cheeky Weekly

Cover Date	Page	Element
17-Dec-1977	21	Friday
24-Dec-1977	1	What a Cheek
24-Dec-1977	2	Sunday
24-Dec-1977	4	Sunday evening
24-Dec-1977	7	Monday
24-Dec-1977	12	Tuesday
24-Dec-1977	14	Tuesday
24-Dec-1977	15	Wednesday
24-Dec-1977	17	Wednesday
24-Dec-1977	19	Thursday
24-Dec-1977	24	Saturday
24-Dec-1977	27	Interval
27-May-1978	2	Sunday
27-May-1978	4	Sunday evening
27-May-1978	8	Monday
27-May-1978	11	Suddenly
27-May-1978	12	Tuesday
27-May-1978	15	Wednesday
27-May-1978	19	Thursday
27-May-1978	21	Friday
27-May-1978	25	Saturday
27-May-1978	28	Interval
27-May-1978	31	Saturday
23-Jun-1979	1	Cheeky's Week
30-Jun-1979	2	Sunday
30-Jun-1979	6	Monday
30-Jun-1979	9	Tuesday
30-Jun-1979	12	Wednesday
30-Jun-1979	23	Thursday
30-Jun-1979	25	Friday
30-Jun-1979	30	Saturday
30-Jun-1979	31	Saturday
28-Jul-1979	1	Dr Braincell
28-Jul-1979	2	Sunday
28-Jul-1979	7	Monday
28-Jul-1979	12	Tuesday
28-Jul-1979	18	Wednesday
28-Jul-1979	22	Thursday
28-Jul-1979	26	Friday
28-Jul-1979	30	Saturday
28-Jul-1979	31	Saturday
03-Nov-1979	2	Sunday
03-Nov-1979	7	Monday
03-Nov-1979	10	Tuesday
03-Nov-1979	15	Wednesday

More on the other Cheeky artists in future posts.