Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 8)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Saturday	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Saturday	First page: Clever replacement of title panel by shunting original 2nd and 3rd panels to the left, inserting an image of Snail in place of the original 3rd panel, and extending the top of panel 5. Reference to Speed Squad in panel 6 has been changed from Skateboard Squad. No resizing at foot of page as Saturday continues on the next page. Second page: The final row of panels has possibly been extended at the top.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

That concludes my investigations into Cheeky Weekly's lost 1978 issues.

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 1

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 7)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Friday	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Friday	Hmm, not entirely sure that title panel HAS been replaced. Glad's dialogue altered to refer to 1980. The different lettering style in Cheeky's speech balloon in the final panel suggests the toothy funster was originally shown reading an instalment of the Eagle Eye strip. This indicates that Eagle Eye was slated to start in one of the missing issues, 'cos Cheeky would read the serial in school on Fridays commencing in 06 January 1979's first post-hiatus issue (obviously school was out for the Christmas hols in this particular issue). Resizing at foot of page.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 8

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 6)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Thursday	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Sunday	Title panel replaced, so this wan't originally a Sunday page. The original Sunday artwork was published as Monday in the 1979 Christmas issue. The Cheeky's Week pages had to be shuffled around in this way when eventually published in 1979 because December 25th fell on a Tuesday, not Monday as the previous year. Cheeky says this is the first time we've seen Mechanic's face, but we had actually seen it in the 28 July 1979 issue. Had this page been published at Christmas 1978 as originally intended, Cheeky would have been correct. In the altered second panel, Cheeky says he will have to wait until Christmas day to open his presents, yet Ursula and Mechanic have received their presents - so this was clearly drawn as a post-Christmas-day page. Cheeky's final speech balloon has been altered, it would have introduced the Skateboard Squad strip (in the Christmas 1979 issue, Calculator Kid followed this page). Cheeky's altered text in the final panel, with its reference to a forthcoming Christmas, again conflicts with the the panels featuring Mechanic and Ursula. Foot of page has been resized to compensate for removal of What Did YOU Do Today? diary section.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Skateboard Squad	Cheeky Weekly 17 February 1979	Skateboard Squad	This appears to be another Christmas story conversion (see also Elephant On The Run, which had a converted story in the same 17 February 1979 issue, and Calculator Kid and Disaster Des who had converted stories printed in the 20 January 1979 comic (see here and here). I would guess that the reference to the infants' 'annual party' was changed from 'Christmas party'. I suspect that a Christmas tree has been removed from panels 8 and 9. Those certainly look like Christmas presents.

Art: Jimmy Hansen

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 7

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 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 4)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Wednesday	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Thursday	The shunted-a-day-forward effect, resulting from the delay of a year in publishing this material, continues to ripple through the post-Christmas day pages of the comic. Title panel replaced by inserting a new second panel featuring a pasted-in 'standard Cheeky face'. Artwork in the final panel has been altered - it would originally have shown Cheeky whipping out The Mystery Comic. Canny editor cleverly changes it to plug the 1980 Cheeky Annual. Our portly pal Tub would have followed this page had it been published as intended in 1978, as the Mystery Comic section would have followed Wednesday (the Mystery Comic concept came to an end in the 30 June 1978 issue). Foot of page resized.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 5

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 3)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Tuesday - Boxing Day	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Wednesday	As a consequence of appearing a year later than intended, this page has been shunted forward a day from Tuesday to Wednesday (Boxing Day in 1979). Title panel replaced (by inserting a new second panel and shifting the original second panel to the left - sneaky!).  This delayed appearance by Spiv  is the final one he'll make in Cheeky Weekly (the final Spiv joke to be written appeared in the 30 June 1979 comic). Calculator's dialogue has been changed as this page would have led to the Calculator Kid strip (Tub followed Wednesday in the 29 December 1979 issue). Foot of page resized.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Calculator Kid	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 114	Calculator Kid	The large amount of blank space surrounding the strip is evidence that it was intended for a page in the weekly comic. Fortunately, no attempt has been made to resize the artwork to better fit the proportions of the annual page, allowing us to enjoy Terry Bave's original page design.. Strangely, this Christmas story was placed in the November section of the annual. As I didn't want to damage my annual by scanning it, my thanks to the scanner of the Calculator Kid page featured here.

Art: Terry Bave

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 4

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 2)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Monday - Christmas Day	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Tuesday (Christmas day in 1979 was on a Tuesday)	First Page: Title panel replaced. The Cheeky Annual on the toothy funster's bed was presumably changed to represent the 1980 annual. No resizing at the foot of the page, meaning it was originally followed by a continuation of Christmas day. Second Page: No title panel replacement or resizing at foot of page, as this is a continuation of Christmas Day. Third Page: The lettering and shape of Burpo's speech balloon doesn't match all the others, so may have been changed. No evidence of resizing at the bottom of the second and third pages, so it appears there was no What did YOU do today? section for Christmas day 1978.

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 3