A corpulent curiosity

I was surprised to discover over at the Kazoop blog that among the strips in the 1983 Shiver and Shake Annual, which was published towards the end of 1982, was an appearance by Cheeky Weekly's own bulging buffoon, Tub. Our portly pal had simultaneously appeared in the 1983 Cheeky Annual, and his final appearance in a Cheeky title came in the last ever Cheeky Annual cover-dated 1985. The Shiver and Shake '83 Annual strip was not a reprint, and I didn't expect to see Tub moonlighting in another annual while still on the Cheeky payroll!

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 5 - The Mystery Comic)

The features which comprised The Mystery Comic were grouped in Cheeky Weekly's centre pages from the 30 September 1978 issue to that dated 30 June 1979. Therefore, had the 30 December 1978 issue appeared as planned, it's a fair bet that the Mystery Comic features would have been located together in the middle of the comic.

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Tub	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 120	Tub	The size of this strip clearly indicates it was intended to appear below the Mystery Comic title (during the Mystery Comic's run, Tub was usually featured on The Mystery Comic's cover), so was obviously prepared for publication in the weekly comic. In Cheeky Weekly, during our chubby chum's tenure on the Mystery Comic's cover, the 'Tub' title panel was located at the top of the first frame of the strip but, since for this annual appearance the 'Tub' title has been moved up to replace the Mystery Comic banner, the title at the top of the first frame has been excised. The subject matter suggests the strip was intended for the Christmas Cheeky Weekly. There were in fact 2 Tub stories in the 1980 Cheeky Annual (the other appearing on page 57 - see below), both of which appear to have been drawn for Cheeky Weekly, but this Christmas morning story is the obvious contender for inclusion in the 30 December 1978 lost Christmas issue. N.B. Although there was a Mystery Comic title above the Tub strip on page 57 of the 1980 Cheeky Annual, the Mystery Comic features were scattered through the annual; pages 6-8 (Mustapha Million), pages 18-19 (Why Dad Why), pages 57-59 (Tub followed by Why Dad Why), 92-93 (Disaster Des) 102-103, 115 (Why Dad Why) and 120 (Tub). This was because the Mystery Comic section of the weekly comic ceased at the end of June 1979, so there was no need for the annual to emulate those issues of Cheeky Weekly in which the Mystery Comic strips congregated on the centre pages. My thanks to the scanner of the annual pages below who has yet again saved me from having to cram my (if I say so myself) pristine Cheeky Annual into the scanner.

Art: Nigel Edwards

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Why, Dad, Why?	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 115	Why, Dad, Why?	Another page drawn for the weekly comic judging by the width/height ratio but, like Calculator Kid's strip a page earlier in the same annual, this artwork has thankfully remained unresized (is that a word?). Also like Calculator Kid, this Christmas page was curiously located in the November section of the annual.

Art: John K. Geering

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Disaster Des	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 116	Disaster Des	Unlike Calculator Kid and Why, Dad, Why, this page drawn for the weekly comic has been resized - the panels in the first three rows have been extended at the bottom. Des had commenced a world tour in Cheeky Weekly dated 09 December 1978 (actually he had embarked on the tour the previous week, but the ship ran aground) which accounts for him arriving at the Arctic in this story, and is evidence that this story was intended for the 1978 Christmas issue..

Art: Mike Lacey

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Elephant On The Run	Cheeky Weekly 17 February 1979	Elephant On The Run	I'd suggest this was one of four experiments in converting a Christmas tale into a non-festive-season story (the others being the Skateboard Squad story published in the same 17 February 1979 issue as the EOTR story below, and Calculator Kid and Disaster Des from the 20 January 1979 issue. This episode of EOTR was published in a mid-February 1979 issue of Cheeky Weekly. It's fairly obvious that references to Christmas have been removed, most noticeably in the odd wording of the caption in the first panel. The Man In The Plastic Mac's speech balloon in the same panel has probably been revised so that the word 'weekend' replaces 'Christmas'. It looks as though the aggrieved commuter in page 1, panel 7, is spouting a similarly altered balloon, as is Elephant in the following picture. The same adjustment is evident in respect of the benevolent gent in panel 7, page 2, and I would guess Elephant's final line in this strip was originally 'Merry Christmas, Pals!". I suspect that some traditional British comic Christmas visual cues (tree, presents, decorations) have been removed from the final panel. Maybe the editor felt that these converted non-Cheeky strips were less than satisfactory so decided to hold the remainder in abeyance until the 1980 annual. Since most kids' first sight of the annual would be on Christmas morning, stories of a festive nature wouldn't seem out of place.

Art: Robert Nixon

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Mystery Boy	Cheeky Weekly 20 January 1979	Mystery Boy	Mystery Boy (a reprint of the Who Is Sandy strip from Whizzer and Chips) was the only Mystery Comic strip to feature a continuing story (fellow amnesiac Elephant, from Elephant On The Run, remained a fugitive for the duration of his strip, but each episode was self-contained and no plot development occurred as the series progressed). It's therefore possible to deduce that, had there been no interruption to the publishing schedule and issues dated 16, 23 and 30 December 1978 had appeared as intended, the episode of Mystery Boy which would have appeared in the 30 December 1978 issue would have been that which was actually displaced to the third issue to appear following resumption of publication, i.e. Cheeky Weekly dated 20 January 1979. This is because the story resumed after the industrial dispute at the cliffhanger it reached in the final issue to be published before the hiatus. There was no Christmas-themed episode of Mystery Boy. Other than the substitution of the Mystery Boy title for its original name, which applied to all the strips during the series' Cheeky Weekly run, there appear to be no changes to the artwork.

Art: ?

This leaves one last character from the complement of Mystery Comic fun-pals unaccounted for - Mustapha Million. I am not aware of any converted Christmas tales featuring Mustapha in Cheeky Weekly's run. Mustapha's sole appearance in the Cheeky Annual 1980 is on pages 6, 7 and 8. This is not a Christmas-themed story and appears to have been drawn to fill an annual-size page. The Mustapha strips in Cheeky Weekly were never more than 2 pages. Probably the 1979 Christmas story was the one intended for the 1978 Christmas issue - there's no way of telling for sure.

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Mustapha Million	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Mustapha Million	No real evidence for this being a deferred Christmas 1978 strip, but the balance of probabilities is that it is.

Art: Joe McCaffrey

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 6

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 4)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Wednesday	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Wednesday	Another cut-and-pasted head on new body replaces the title panel. Christmas card storyline continues. Final panel is clearly an intro to The Mystery Comic, but that came to an end in the 30 June 1979 issue, so the text has been changed to make it a Christmas card reference. Clever! In the 22 December 1979 issue, Mustapha Million followed Wednesday. Foot of page resized.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Tub	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 57	Tub	This was the first of 2 Tub strips in the 1980 Cheeky Annual (the other, more Christmassy tale can be seen here). Both were sourced from material prepared for the missing December 1978 issues. I would guess that this strip was drawn for the abandoned 23 December 1978 pre-Christmas issue, as it has an icy/snowy setting. Note how the Mystery Comic's sci-fi cover background has been cut down to allow the Tub strip to be blown up to fill the width of the annual page - now why didn't they do the same for Tub's episode on page 120 of the annual, seen in the link above, which is left floundering at the centre? Thanks to the scanner of this annual page.

UPDATE 26 November 2012:

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Disaster Des	Cheeky Weekly 20 January 1979	Disaster Des	This page, one of the two occasions on which Disaster Des occupied the Mystery Comic's cover, appears to include a strip from which Christmas references have been removed (as was the case with Elephant On The Run and Skateboard Squad in the 17 February 1979 Cheeky Weekly, and Calculator Kid in the same 20 January 1979 issue as this Des story). I suspect that Des's speech balloon in panel 2 on the second row originally read "I thought we were going to be home by Christmas, Cap'n!", and that in the following panel he originally said "It's not going to be much of a Christmas with only us two on board". In the final panel, it looks as though the Captain's balloon has been altered, probably the words "some fun" replaced "a party". I'd guess Des's closing balloon originally read "It isn't everyone who gets his own private Christmas circus!" I have assumed that this strip was originally intended for Cheeky Weekly's 23 December 1978 issue, but it's possible that the Disaster Des strip that was eventually printed in the 1980 Cheeky Annual (as seen in this post) was the one slated for the pre-Christmas issue, and this episode was intended for the Christmas issue.

Art: Mike Lacey

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 5

The features - Tub

From our health-conscious, early 21st century viewpoint, the depiction of overweight characters as figures of fun will be seen by many as highly inappropriate. There were no such concerns in the comics of the 1970s; IPC's reluctant calorie counters The Slimms had been featuring in their titles since the early 70s. The Cheeky Weekly editor evidently felt there was scope for another corpulent comic character, so enter our chubby chum Tub in Cheeky Weekly's revamp issue dated 30 September 1978.

Tub's first, front garden-wrecking appearance
was on the first Mystery Comic cover
to be printed in the toothy funster's comic.

Tub's immense weight was usually the focus of his stories - sometimes it proved a hindrance to him (or quite often, his father) but on occasion it could bring benefits. Tub's dad and unnamed dog were the strip's co-stars. Dad would often attempt to enlist his overweight offspring in various weight-reducing schemes but to no avail. Our podgy pal was usually depicted wearing shorts, and a t-shirt with the number 1 printed on it.

The grand tradition of Cheeky Weekly plots featuring a villain nabbing the takings (cf Skateboard Squad (twice) and 6 Million Dollar Gran) extended to the rotund rascal. In his 25 November 1978 escapade, Tub inadvertently foiled a miscreant's attempt to make off with the fares from the bus company's office. The corpulent cove became wedged in the door frame, thus barring the pilferer's escape route. The large-bellied layabout also foiled an attempt at shoplifting after sitting on and squashing the thief's getaway motorbike in the 16 June 1979 comic, and thwarted a football trophy theft in the comic dated 19 January 1980.

Tub found a copy of Cheeky Weekly on his lawn in the issue dated 05 May 1979, meaning that the Mystery Comic and Cheeky Weekly occupied two overlapping, nested realities, with each comic existing in the other's universe.

Fellow Mystery Comic star Disaster Des made a cameo appearance in the final panel of Tub's tale dated 19 May 1979.

The concept of the Mystery Comic came to an end in Cheeky Weekly dated 30 June 1979. All the characters who featured in the perplexing publication continued to appear in the toothy funster's comic, but were no longer grouped together in the centre pages. Tub clocked up 34 appearances in the 37-issue run of The Mystery Comic, being bumped from the 13 and 20 January 1979 issues by the snap game in the centre pages, and from the 12 May 1979 comic when a Star Guest feature intruded upon the Mystery Comic. All of Tub's Mystery Comic appearances were on that comic's front cover.

In the post-Mystery-Comic era, Tub appeared in a further 26 issues. The first 14 Tub strips to appear in the immediate post-MC period were half-pagers. As of 17 November 1979, Tub gained truly full-page status for the first time - his Mystery Comic cover appearances had included the comic's title, as well as various amounts of artwork surrounding his strip, as in the example above. From the same date a rather unappealing new title panel was introduced in which the title character's name was spelled out in a conglomeration of sundry foodstuffs and a rather guilty-looking Tub was seen surrounded by the remnants of a furtive feast.

Tub's first post-Mystery Comic strip

The first true full-page Tub

Tub was one of the guests at Pete and Pauline Potts' party in the 6 Million Dollar Gran strip in Cheeky Weekly dated 06 October 1979.

43 Tub strips featured spot colour (always black, white and red). The circus-based Christmas 1979 Tub strip was the only one to be printed in Cheeky Weekly in full colour (or at least as full as IPC's rudimentary printing of the time would allow), and it appears that during the course of the story, Tub's jersey was afflicted by a mutant strain of Cheeky Weekly Inconsistent Hair Colour Syndrome.

All concerned are somewhat lacking
in Christmas spirit.
Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979

For me, this was one of Cheeky Weekly's less enjoyable features. Tub is a rather unappealing character and the weight-related jokes soon pall. The succession of bullies, thieves and rascals with which the titular character had to contend, and Tub's unpleasant dad regularly threatening our podgy pal with physical violence, gave the series a rather uncomfortable feel (particularly noticeable in the surprisingly nasty Christmas 1979 story). Presumably this opinion was shared by a significant number of Cheeky Weekly readers as, while Tub survived to the final issue of Cheeky Weekly (missing only 5 issues between the demise of the Mystery Comic and the end of Cheeky Weekly's run), his was not among the strips which transferred to Whoopee! post-merge. Nevertheless, the big-boned buffoon clocked up a creditable 60 issue stint.

A slap-up feed is seen heading towards our portly pal's capacious gob, having been propelled from the far end of the seesaw on which he's perched, on the Pin-Up Pal poster in Cheeky Weekly dated 03 February 1979, drawn by Nigel Edwards, who did the artwork on all the Tub strips. Tub made an appearance in his pyjamas on the main cover picture of Cheeky Weekly's 27 January 1979 issue, in an image lifted from one of the panels of the adventure that would appear on 10 February 1979, two weeks later.

UPDATE 09 November 2013: I was surprised to learn on the Kazoop blog that a Tub strip appeared in the Shiver and Shake Annual 1983 - our portly pal also featured in the same year's Cheeky Annual. Tub's guest appearance in the S&S Annual appears to be a new strip, not a reprint.

Tub in the Cheeky Weekly Index

Feature	First Appearance	Final Appearance	Total Issues	Total Issues Missed In Run	Page History
Tub	30-Sep-78	02-Feb-80	60	8	9,10,11,13,16,21,25,27,29

Issues Missed In Run

13-Jan-79

20-Jan-79

12-May-79

28-Jul-79

11-Aug-79

22-Sep-79

29-Sep-79

03-Nov-79

Feature	Artist	Number of Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Tub Mystery Comic	Nigel Edwards	34	30-Sep-1978	30-Jun-1979
Tub	Nigel Edwards	26	07-Jul-1979	02-Feb-1980