Barry Glennard and Robert Nixon's Cheekys

The management at comic publishers IPC were clearly convinced of the effectiveness of cut-out-and-collect promotions, which appeared incessantly in their comics during the seventies and eighties. This cover of Whizzer and Chips dated 30 August 1980 sees the comic in week 3 of its Book Snap promotion...

Citrussy Sid's Snake art - Mike Lacey
Parfum de Pongo Snodgrass art - Ian Knox

Book Snap added another level of marketing into the usual cut-and-keep scenario, as the images on each of the snap cards were re-drawn versions by Barry Glennard of the covers of that autumn's IPC annuals, including the 1981 Cheeky Annual (publication of the Cheeky annuals continued until 1984's 1985-cover-dated annual, despite Cheeky Weekly having folded in February 1980). The rather primitive printing process used at the time could not handle colour photographs, hence the need for these re-drawn, slightly simplified versions.

Art: Barry Glennard

Below is the actual cover, drawn by Robert Nixon. Unfortunately, the front and back of the annual both feature the same image. It would have been nice if the back cover showed a 'what happened next' pic of Cheeky, whose rather un-Christmassy intention would no doubt have backfired, leaving him liberally coated in custard, but the IPC budget clearly didn't stretch to such extravagances (they couldn't afford to waste the custard). I'll leave you to work out what (and more importantly who) is missing from Barry Glennard's version of the cover.

Art: Robert Nixon

A later example of Robert's renderings of Cheeky and pals can be seen here, while the entirety of this The Other Artist's Cheekys series can be tracked down here.