Cheeky's Week artwork credit reassigned

I have changed the artist credit that I previously referred to as Frank McDiarmid pencils 2. For reasons which I explain here, I have redesignated this artist as Unknown Cheeky Artist 1.

This reassignment of artwork credits has necessitated updates of a number of posts, the most significant being;

• The other Cheeky artists - Frank McDiarmid pencils 2 - this post now retitled The other Cheeky artists - Unknown Cheeky Artist 1
• Cheeky's Week artist roundup
• Cheeky's Week - Artists by issue and %
• Cheeky Weekly Index
• Cheeky Weekly Index - Artist Key

...and the remainder...

• The Features - Suddenly
• Profile - Manhole Man
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 14 January 1978
• Profile - Bump-Bump Bernie
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 21 January 1978
• Profile - Teacher
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 28 January 1978
• Profile - Lily Pop
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 11 February 1978
• Profile - Doodle Doug
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 18 February 1978
• Profile - Hid Kid
• Profile - Short-Sighted Dustman
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 04 March 1978
• Profile - Jogging Jeremy
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 11 March 1978
• Profile - Gunga Jim
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 25 March 1978
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 01 April 1978
• Profile - Cheeky's Mum
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 08 April 1978
• Profile - Granny Gumdrop
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 22 April 1978
• Profile - Six-Gun Sam
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 29 April 1978
• Cheeky Weekly cover date 06 May 1978
• Profile - Milkie
• Profile - Herman
• Profile - Goalie Cat
• Profile - Telephone Pole Man
• Profile - Mechanic
• Profile - Spiv
• The Pages - Page 11
• Profile - Ursula
• The features - Wednesday (conclusion)
• Profile - Flash Harry
• Profile - Auntie Daisy

Please note that the credit Frank McDiarmid pencils is, I believe, still valid so remains unchanged. That artist combination was responsible for 9 renditions of Harry between 07 January 1978 and 18 August 1979, 8 of which conformed (more or less) to Frank's original version of the character. The first occasion on which Harry was rendered by Frank McDiarmid pencils does actually cause me a little concern, as Harry is depicted with his face obscured by the camera and flash (see below), which could mean that the inker chose to obscure Harry's face as he/she had no visual reference for Harry's design (Harry had made his first appearance, drawn by Frank McDiarmid, the previous week), and if that was the case then obviously the page wasn't based on Frank's pencils. But at the moment I'm choosing to believe that Frank did the pencils and decided to emphasise the flash in this panel because the character's name is Flash Harry, so I don't think there's sufficient evidence to revise my opinion that this is in fact Frank's pencils being inked by another hand.

Flash Harry - Frank McDiarmid pencils 07 January 1978

Cheeky's Week artist roundup

Most recent update:03 May 2018 - The page 30 conclusion to Saturday in the 17 December 1977 issue (consisting of 2 cut-and-paste panels) had not previously been reflected in the figures below.

Updated 19 June 2016 - a total of 18 Cheeky's Week elements that were previously attributed to Mike Lacey have been credited to Jimmy Hansen, who wasn't previously listed here.

Updated 14 February 2016 as a result of reassigning 2 episodes of Snail of the Century from Frank McDiarmid to Barrie Appleby.

Updated 26 May 2013 as a result of reassigning The Burpo Special, Cheeky Weekly 10 March 1979, from Frank McDiarmid to Barrie Appleby.

Updated 10 May 2012 as the artist credit Frank McDiarmid pencils 2 has now been reclassified as Unkown Cheeky Artist 1.

Each page of Cheeky Weekly is made up of one or more elements. These elements may be features (e.g. Mustapha Million, Joke-Box Jury, James Bold, Interval) or adverts (e.g. ads for other IPC titles, 'coming next issue' ads or ads for Star Wars toys). A single issue can contain the same element on more than one page, such as the Wednesday feature which, when the Creepy Sleepy Tale was in the comic (itself a two-element feature), appeared as one whole page, plus a three-panel strip at the bottom of the page containing the second Creepy Sleepy Tale element.

There were a total of 1251 Cheeky's Week elements in Cheeky Weekly's run. I have assigned some sort of artwork credit to each of these elements, so I'm now in a position to do an analysis of the elements by artist classification and feature. As I have discussed in my Other Cheeky Artists posts, one of these classifications identifies what I believe to be a penciller/inker collaboration. There is also a Not Known category and a cut-and-paste category.

In his interview in Crikey! issue 12, Frank McDiarmid says that he drew two thirds of Cheeky (by this I assume he meant two thirds of the Cheeky's Week strips). We can see by the figures below that the total Cheeky's Week elements I have attributed to Frank McDiarmid and Frank McDiarmid pencils  amounts to 835. This is in fact just over two thirds of the 1251 Cheeky's Week elements (66.74% to be precise), and confirms that Frank provided the pencils for the FMP artwork. Thanks again to Lew Stringer and RobFilth over at the Comics UK forum who originally suggested that Frank may have had an inker working with him to ease the burden of generating such a large number of pages every week.

In addition to his work on the Cheeky's Week features listed below, Frank also drew 32 Pin-Up Pal poster pages and 60 Cover Features, as well as 44 Cheeky-related pages in Krazy comic in the period between the first issue of Cheeky Weekly dated 22 October 1977 and the final issue of Krazy dated 15 April 1978. He also supplied pages for the Cheeky Specials and Annuals. During Cheeky Weekly's run, Frank was of course drawing Roger the Dodger in the Beano.

Please note that Cheeky's Pal Puzzle is not listed separately in this analysis as it's actually part of the Saturday feature so is included in that category.

Count of Elements by Artist	Barrie Appleby	Bob Hill	Cut and Paste	Dick Millington	Frank McDiarmid	Frank McDiarmid pencils	Jim Watson	Jimmy Hansen	Mike Lacey	Not Known	Unknown Cheeky Artist 1	Total
Ash Wednesday					1							1
Boxing Day					2							2
Cheeky's Week	2			1	23	3			7			36
Christmas Card					2							2
Christmas Day					1							1
Christmas Dinner					1							1
Christmas Morning					2							2
Easter Monday					2							2
Easter Saturday						2						2
Easter Sunday					1							1
Friday	7	1		4	48	23	4	1	22	1	6	117
Good Friday						1						1
Interval	4			2	18	18	6		6		5	59
Monday	8			5	61	20		3	15		3	115
New Year's Eve					1	1						2
Saturday	13	2	4	7	93	39	9	2	44	2	10	225
Saturday - April Fool's Day						2	1					3
Shrove Tuesday					1							1
Snail of the Century	2				25							27
Suddenly	4		1	1	10	5			1		3	25
Sunday	8			5	60	21		3	15		3	115
Sunday evening	5			2	20	15			3		3	48
The Burpo Special	1				15				7			23
Thursday	7	1		4	46	26	4	3	21	1	5	118
Tuesday	8			6	64	22	1	3	15		3	122
Wednesday	9			5	58	21	1	3	14	1	3	115
Wednesday (conclusion)	11			1	15	11			1		5	44
What a Cheek	2			1	25	10					3	41
Total	91	4	5	44	595	240	26	18	171	5	52	1251

The other Cheeky artists - Unknown Cheeky Artist 1

This post updated 10 May 2012.


I have changed the artist credit that I previously referred to as Frank McDiarmid pencils 2. I had originally thought the artwork in question was a combination of Frank's pencils with another artist doing the inking, but since doing the research while writing the profile of Flash Harry, I have begun to doubt that Frank had any input into this art.

Flash Harry - Frank McDiarmid 31 December 1977

Flash Harry - unknown artist 04 March 1978

This change of opinion hinges on the distinctive way this artist drew Flash Harry in the 04 March 1978 issue, in which Harry's appearance was unlike any other depiction of the character to appear in the comic's run. It seems to me that if this artwork was based on Frank's pencils, Harry's design in that issue would have been closer to the version that Frank drew when the funny photographer made his debut in the 31 December 1977 comic. It could be that at the time the unknown artist was assigned the work that eventually appeared in the 04 March 1978 comic, he/she had no visual reference for Harry, as the silly snapper had only appeared in two issues prior to 04 March 1978, so the artist just took his/her best guess at what the character looked like. This comic is the only one in which the artist that I'm referring to drew Flash Harry, although the artist contributed to 13 issues in total.


As I mentioned in my original post on this artist, he/she did include a number of distinctive components in the drawings, which is another reason to suppose that the work was entirely original, with no input from Frank - I doubt an inker would be given license to add to the pencilled pages.


Consequently, I have redesignated this artist as Unknown Cheeky Artist 1 (UCA1).

In an earlier post I discussed the Cheeky's Week artwork that I have attributed to Frank McDiarmid as penciller, with inks by other artists.  I refer to this combination of talents as 'Frank McDiarmid pencils', but I believe that the inking on the artwork that I have placed in that category may not all be by the same hand.  


Note as of 10 May 2012:  I believe that the artist credit Frank McDiarmid pencils is still valid, but I have struck out the reference to it above as I felt it was confusing.


However, in the process of preparing this blog I have looked through all the Cheeky art several times, and to me it seems that there is one inker who added some of his/her own touches when working on the Cheeky's Week pages he/she was assigned.  I have rather unimaginatively called this particular Frank-and-inker combination 'Frank McDiarmid pencils 2' (FMP2).

For a while, I wasn't sure whether this artwork was by Frank with an inker, but having looked at it over a period of time I see enough of Frank's work in it to satisfy myself that it's not entirely the work of another artist. I have some statistical evidence to support my theory that FMP2 is the work of Frank and an assistant, which I will discuss in my wrap-up post on the subject of the other Cheeky artists.  But then again maybe I'm completely wrong.

 The trademarks which appear to be exclusive to FMP2 UCA1 are;

* A bird that eats the Baker's Boy's cakes, and sometimes perches on the edge of the panel, occasionally hanging upside-down.

* A punctured hot-air balloon which is propelled across the sky with attendant rude noises.

* A bat circling Ursula's head.

* The Starship Enterprise boldly going over Krazy Town.

* Two references to saving Krazy comic.  Krazy was to come to an end 6 months into Cheeky Weekly's run, so maybe this inker artist was also doing work on Krazy.

* References to Cheeky putting sugar on his porridge. Scots famously put salt on theirs, so maybe this was a reference to Frank.

FMP2 UCA1's work first appeared in Cheeky Weekly issue 13, cover date 14 January 1978.  This issue featured A whole Cheeky's Week of UCA1 artwork.

UCA1 was back in the following week's issue, but this time he/she contributed the Saturday page only. In the next issue, dated 28 January 1978, UCA1 was responsible for 5 pages.

After skipping a week, UCA1 was back in the 11 February 1978 issue with the cover's What a Cheek plus 4 pages, and the following week there were again 4 UCA1 pages, but no What a Cheek.  There was then another week's break before UCA1 was back with 5 pages in the 04 March 1978 issue.  The 11 March issue contained 5 pages of art, plus the cover's What A Cheek, by UCA1.

The comic dated 25 March 1978 featured the highest number of UCA1 contributions to a single issue, totalling 6 pages.

The next comic to feature UCA1 art was the issue dated 08 April 1978, which contained 4 of his/her pages.

After another week's gap, UCA1 contributed the 3-panel conclusion to Wednesday in the 22 April 1978 issue, and delivered the same element again on 29 April, and again in the 06 May 1978 comic, which was the last to feature UCA1 art.  Continuing my speculation that this artist had a link with Krazy comic, and the fact that Krazy's final issue was dated 15 April 1978, maybe it's significant that no further UCA1 art appeared in Cheeky Weekly after 06 May 1978.

UCA1's Cheeky's Week pages in Cheeky Weekly

Cover Date	Page	Element
14-Jan-1978	1	What a Cheek
14-Jan-1978	2	Sunday
14-Jan-1978	4	Sunday evening
14-Jan-1978	8	Monday
14-Jan-1978	11	Suddenly
14-Jan-1978	12	Tuesday
14-Jan-1978	15	Wednesday
14-Jan-1978	17	Wednesday
14-Jan-1978	19	Thursday
14-Jan-1978	21	Friday
14-Jan-1978	24	Saturday
14-Jan-1978	27	Interval
21-Jan-1978	24	Saturday
28-Jan-1978	15	Wednesday
28-Jan-1978	19	Thursday
28-Jan-1978	21	Friday
28-Jan-1978	24	Saturday
28-Jan-1978	27	Interval
11-Feb-1978	1	What a Cheek
11-Feb-1978	21	Friday
11-Feb-1978	25	Saturday
11-Feb-1978	28	Interval
11-Feb-1978	31	Saturday
18-Feb-1978	19	Thursday
18-Feb-1978	21	Friday
18-Feb-1978	24	Saturday
18-Feb-1978	27	Interval
04-Mar-1978	19	Thursday
04-Mar-1978	21	Friday
04-Mar-1978	25	Saturday
04-Mar-1978	28	Interval
04-Mar-1978	31	Saturday
11-Mar-1978	1	What a Cheek
11-Mar-1978	2	Sunday
11-Mar-1978	4	Sunday evening
11-Mar-1978	9	Monday
11-Mar-1978	10	Suddenly
11-Mar-1978	12	Tuesday
25-Mar-1978	2	Sunday
25-Mar-1978	4	Sunday evening
25-Mar-1978	8	Monday
25-Mar-1978	11	Suddenly
25-Mar-1978	12	Tuesday
25-Mar-1978	31	Saturday
01-Apr-1978	17	Wednesday
08-Apr-1978	15	Wednesday
08-Apr-1978	19	Thursday
08-Apr-1978	21	Friday
08-Apr-1978	25	Saturday
22-Apr-1978	17	Wednesday
29-Apr-1978	17	Wednesday
06-May-1978	17	Wednesday