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.

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.

Mini comics - Mickey Mouse

As we reach the fourth and final week of IPC's summer '78 mini comics promotion, we find that Cheeky Weekly dated 22 July is host to a sampler version of Mickey Mouse, a comic that I've never read.  I'm afraid I have no idea who the artists were on this, so I'll leave you to study it in peace.

Mini Comics - Cheeky mini comic in Buster and Monster Fun

The third week of IPC's summer 1978 mini comic promotion saw a miniature replica of Cheeky Weekly appearing in Buster and Monster Fun dated 15 July.  Many thanks to Zeg for providing the scans.

The format and artists for this Cheeky mini comic are the same as they were in the version that appeared in Whoopee! the previous week, although the content is different, so for artist details please look here.

Having said the format is the same as for the Cheeky mini comic in Whoopee! there is one major difference - the back/front cover of this mini comic is in black and white.  This is because, for some reason, Buster had colour only on the front and back covers, whereas Whoopee! and Cheeky Weekly, in addition to colour front and back, had 2 internal feature pages in colour.  Why this should be when all three comics had the same page count and cover price remains a mystery.

The image on the mini comic cover is from the Pin-Up Pal poster that appeared in Cheeky Weekly dated 08 April 1978.

Unlike the Cheeky comic that appeared in Whoopee! there is a panel explaining the reason for Gran's amazing feats.  However the explanation that Gran is bionic is not actually correct, as according to the first issue of Cheeky Weekly she is a robot.

Mini Comics - Whoopee!

The third week of the summer 1978 mini comics promotion saw Cheeky Weekly dated 15 July hosting a sampler version of Whoopee!

The back/front cover features the conclusion of Frankie Stein's story, and the first part of a Sweeny Toddler tale.  I don't know who did the art on the Frankie strip, but it's certainly not by Robert Nixon, who was the regular artist on the feature in Whoopee! at the time this mini comic was published.  Sweeny is drawn by Paul Ailey who is deputising for Tom Paterson who was the regular Sweeny artist in Whoopee! at the time.  Sweeny returned to Cheeky Weekly on a Star Guest page in the 14 April 1979 issue.

Next up is the final part of Sweeny's strip, together with the first Frankie page.  The title banner seems to feature a vintage Ken Reid rendition of Frankie.

Supermum is ghosted by Jack Clayton (Cheeky Weekly's Home Movie and Paddywack artist), standing in for Dicky Howett, who usually did the art on this strip in Whoopee!  Supermum made a Star Guest appearance in Cheeky Weekly dated 30 June 1979.  Alongside Supermum is a Claws strip drawn by Artie Jackson, deputising for usual artist Styx (Leslie Harding).  Artie ghosted on Paws, another Styx strip, in the Whizzer and Chips mini comic in the 01 July 1978 issue of Cheeky Weekly.

Ed McHenry stands in for Jimmy Hansen on the Bumpkin Billionaires strip.

Mini Comics - Cheeky mini comic in Whoopee!

The second week of IPC's summer 1978 mini comic promotion saw a miniature replica of Cheeky Weekly appearing in Whoopee! dated 08 July.  Many thanks to klakadak-ploobadoof from the Comics UK forum for providing the scans.

The combined back/front cover features a Bam, Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster, rather an odd choice to include in what one would expect to be a showcase of the best that Cheeky Weekly had to offer.  The BS&B filler strip appeared in only 9 of the 38 issues of Cheeky Weekly published by the time of this mini comic, and had appeared for the final time on 17 June 1978.  Alongside BS&B, on the mini comic cover, is a pic of Jogging Jeremy taken from the Pin-Up Pal poster in Cheeky Weekly's 25 February 1978 issue.  Beneath is a teeny-tiny What a Cheek that I think is by Frank McDiarmid, but the strip is printed so small it's hard to be certain.

Next up is a 6 Million Dollar Gran page by Nigel Edwards who, by the time of this mini comic, had stood in twice on the Gran strip for original artist Ian Knox over at Cheeky Weekly.  No attempt is made to explain to readers unfamiliar with Gran's back-story how or why she is able to perform such amazing feats.  Beside Gran is a Skateboard Squad strip by Jimmy Hansen.

This is followed by a Joe McCaffrey Mustapha Million page.  Over at Cheeky Weekly this very week, Joe was deputising for original Mustapha artist Reg Parlett for the second time.  Joe would eventually take over from Reg on Mustapha permanently (with one exception) in Cheeky Weekly from February 1979.  On the adjacent mini comic page is the conclusion of Gran's story.

Cheeky and a select few of his pals get the centre pages of the mini comic to themselves, drawn by Dick Millington.  Dick had provided Cheeky's Week pages in 3 issues of Cheeky Weekly by this time, as well as drawing the Sweet Tooth page in the Whizzer and Chips mini comic that had appeared in the previous week's issue of the toothy funster's comic.

Mini Comics - Cheeky mini comic in Mickey Mouse

It's time for another look at a mini comic from IPC's summer 1978 promotion, and I'd like to look at the Cheeky mini comic which appeared in Mickey Mouse dated 01 July 1978.  I'd like to look at it, but I can't as I've never seen it.

My weekly IPC comic purchases in summer 1978 were Cheeky Weekly, Whizzer and Chips and 2000AD.  When IPC announced this mini comic scheme, I assumed the contents of each compressed comic would be reprints, so I didn't bother seeking out the Cheeky mini comics which appeared in other titles.  It was only when a Cheeky mini comic appeared in Whizzer and Chips during the final week of the promotion that I realised new material had been specially prepared for the mini Cheekys.  So in addition to the sample version of Cheeky Weekly in Mickey Mouse, I also missed those appearing in Whoopee! and Buster.  However, thanks to the generosity of Zeg and klakadak-ploobadoof, I now have scans of the Whoopee! and Buster mini Cheekys, which will be appearing here soon.

So I'll leave this post as a placeholder for the Cheeky mini comic from Mickey Mouse dated 01 July 1978.  If anyone has a copy, you can imagine how delighted I'd be to hear from you.

UPDATE 16 November 2011 - Well, all good things come to those who wait, and I'm extremely grateful to Jes who provided me with the scans of the Cheeky mini comic from IPC's Mickey Mouse comic dated 01 July 1978, the first week of IPC's summer 1978 mini comics promotion...

The combined front and back cover features a Bam, Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster, along with a tiny What A Cheek strip that's probably by Frank McDiarmid, but is so small it's hard to be sure.

The two other Cheeky mini comics (in Whoopee! and Buster and Monster Fun - click here to see all the mini comics posts) featured previously-published art from Cheeky Weekly's Pin-Up Pal posters on their covers.  The mini comic cover pic of Burpo and Cheeky above, which looks to me to be the work of Barrie Appleby, isn't from a poster.

There follows a coupling of Mustapha Million by Joe McAffrey, and Mike Lacey's Skateboard Squad.  Both strips are in colour, making this the only Cheeky mini comic to feature colour on internal pages as well as the front/back covers.  I suppose this makes up for the Cheeky mini comic that appeared in Buster, which had no colour pages at all.

Next up is the second page of the Cheeky strip drawn by Dick Millington, together with the first page of 6 Million Dollar Gran by Nigel Edwards.  As with the Cheeky mini comic in Buster and Monster Fun, the story erroneously refers to Gran as being bionic. In the debut issue of Cheeky Weekly it is clear she is a robot.

Now Gran and Cheeky swap places in order to complete their respective stories.  In honour of the host comic, Cheeky is making Disney jokes.

All 3 Cheeky mini comics featured the same strip and artist combinations, but with different content.  As I mentioned elsewhere in the mini comics posts, Bam, Splat and Blooie was an odd choice to include in the Cheeky mini comics, as not only was it a reprint, but it had finished its run in Cheeky Weekly by the time the mini comic promotion started.

Mini Comics - Buster

Moving into the second week of summer 1978's mini comic promotion, Cheeky Weekly dated 08 July was host to a miniature replica of IPC's long-running title, Buster, which at the time was sharing its masthead with the latest in a long line of merges, Monster Fun.

First on the combined front/back cover is an ad for the popular Leopard from Lime Street strip.  Presumably it was felt that a single page mini comic strip wouldn't do the Leopard Boy justice (it was an ongoing serial of 3-page instalments in Buster), so an ad has to suffice.  Art by Mike Western, who did the artwork on the regular strip.  Alongside is a Buster strip which demonstrates that reprinting artwork originally prepared for the full-sized page is not very satisfactory in a mini comic.  Angel Nadal's vintage Buster strip suffers in the reduction, and the text is squintingly compressed.  At the time the mini comic was published, Reg Parlett had taken over art duties on the Buster strip.

Thankfully, Reg furnishes us with a mini-comic-sized Stan Still's Stopwatch page.  Reg was the regular artist on this strip over at Buster.  On the adjacent page, in a nice touch, Rob Lee, the regular Kid Kong artist, depicts the 'nana-loving ape visiting Cheeky and pals in Krazy Town.

Mike Lacey gives us X-Ray specs, and Rob Lee is back with a page featuring Kid Gloves.  Mike and Rob were the regular artists on these strips.

Next we have a couple of reprints, so it's microscopes at the ready to study Tin Teacher and Faceache by Peter Davidson and Ken Reid respectively, both of whom were the regular artists.