Tribute to Jim Petrie on BBC Radio 4

The late Jim Petrie is remembered in the latest edition of BBC Radio 4's Last Word (starts 13:20 into the programme).

RIP Jim Petrie

Sad news here about the passing of the great Jim Petrie. Probably best known for his marathon stint on Minnie the Minx in the Beano, Jim also did a few bits of Cheeky work, which I thought his style particularly suited. Pity he didn't do more. Thanks for all the laughs, Jim.

The Cut-Out Features – Cheeky Diary 1978

As 1977 drew to a conclusion, Cheeky Weekly readers concerned that they lacked somewhere in which to record their doings over the forthcoming year were no doubt relieved to read the announcement on page 30 of the comic dated 26 November - the first instalment of the Cheeky Diary 1978 was to appear in the following issue.

The Cheeky diary was prominently featured on the cover of the 03 December 1977 comic, in which the debut instalment appeared on pages 31 and 32. In fact all four instalments of the diary were similarly located, allowing each part to benefit from the colour printing that was available on the back cover/page 32.

Friends of Cheeky who were so inclined could cut out and fold each section in half to make 4 diary pages. Having collected all the sections readers were able to assemble the pages (taking care to observe the correct chronology) into a booklet wherein they could chronicle 12 months of japes and jollifications.

The diary cover features an appearance of what I refer to as the 'standard Cheeky face (printed numerous times during Cheeky Weekly's run and used at the top of this blog), which I have always assumed was produced as a reference drawing or 'model sheet'.

Apart from the standard face, all the diary art was by Jim Petrie (this wouldn't be the last time Jim would contribute a cut-out feature).

Unlike a more traditional daily diary, this booklet provided space to record events by week only, with our grinning pal sharing chortlesome banter with one of his chums in each slot. Jim gave Cheeky a nice assortment of expressions, and there was a bonus centre spread.

Readers of the toothy funster's title were given the opportunity to record their daily happenings in the the What did YOU do today? section, introduced into the Cheeky pages as of the 30 September 1978 issue, as the comic underwent its second revamp.

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

Moving on to identify the artwork that would have appeared in the 30 December 1978 issue of Cheeky Weekly (the Christmas issue) had publication not been interrupted due to a strike...

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Sunday	Cheeky Weekly 29 December 1979	Monday	There is no evidence of title panel replacement (from the 30 September 1978 revamp issue to the edition dated 30 June 1979 each day of Cheeky's Week began with a title panel - with the exception of Sunday), the church appears in panel 3 and Cheeky's dialogue in the final panel has been changed from its original reference to 6 Million Dollar Gran, so this was drawn as a Sunday page. In 1978, Christmas day was on a Monday, so this Christmas Eve page was shunted forward a day when it was eventually published the following year. Foot of page doesn't appear to have been resized.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
6 Million Dollar Gran	Cheeky Annual 1980, pages 9-11	6 Million Dollar Gran	First Page: Text in first speech balloon has been changed - presumably 'New Year party' replaces 'Christmas Party' - note the Christmas cracker on the third page (this strip appears in the January section of the annual). There is evidence of panel resizing to make the strip fit the proportions of the annual pages. Final Page: Text in panels 1 and 5 has been changed - presumably 'New Year' replaces 'Christmas'. Looks like there's something missing from policeman's speech balloon in panel 4 - could have been a Christmas reference, but more likely the balloon has been enlarged to fill some of the blank space resulting from panel resizing. The final panel has been changed - it would originally have shown Cheeky looking at the TV screen, which was the customary final panel of Gran strips in late 1978. Instead, a Jim Petrie rendition of Cheeky, originally published on page 72 of the 1979 Cheeky Annual, has been pasted in. As I didn't want to damage my annual by scanning it, my thanks to the scanner of the Gran pages featured here.

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 2

Goodbye Krazy

In the same week that Cheeky Weekly number 26 hit the newsagents, readers of Krazy comic, in which the Cheeky character had originated, learned that the current issue was to be the last, and as from next week Krazy would merge into one of IPC's long-running titles, Whizzer and Chips.  Merges were the customary fate of comics whose sales figures had fallen below viable levels.  By merging the most popular strips from the failed title with an existing, more successful comic, the publishers hoped to deliver a circulation boost to the established title, in the form of the erstwhile readers of the defunct comic.

Krazy, which launched on 16 October 1976, almost exactly a year before Cheeky Weekly appeared, was a bold attempt to try something new; a melding of the traditional British humour comic with a less rigid, Mad Magazine-influenced style.  In Krazy, one-off humorous features appeared alongside the standard weekly strips, so that readers were never entirely sure what each issue would contain.  Some found this approach refreshing, but maybe it was too unsettling for those who preferred a comic consisting of the same strips every week.

Launching spin-off title Cheeky Weekly may in fact have hastened Krazy's demise.  Not all comic readers had access to unlimited budgets, and a significant number of those who had up until then read Krazy may have opted to drop Cheeky's progenitor title in order to fund their purchase of Cheeky Weekly.

Ironically, Cheeky made a reference to Krazy comic on the Tuesday page of Cheeky Weekly issue 26, which shared the same cover date as the final Krazy.  Krazy's precarious state would have been obvious to readers of Cheeky Weekly, as in the issues dated 14 January 1978 and 25 March 1978 the slogan 'Save a comic - buy Krazy' had been seen in the Cheeky's Week strips.  Presumably the decision to bring Krazy to an end had already been made by that stage.  The demise of  their comic would not have been a surprise to Krazy readers, either, as the cover of Krazy's 11 March 1978 issue, had read 'Save this comic, buy it'.

Cheeky had featured in 2 regular strips in Krazy; his own 'Ello, It's Cheeky feature, and The Krazy Gang where he appeared as a member of the titular group.  The Krazy Gang (with Cheeky) survived the merge and continued to appear in Whizzer and Chips.  'Ello, It's Cheeky did not continue after the merge, except in the sense that its format continued in the Cheeky's Week strips in Cheeky Weekly.  An intermittent Krazy series that began under the title Cheeky's Pal eventually evolved into The Burpo Special, a feature that was resurrected in the pages of Cheeky Weekly some 8 months after Krazy's cancellation.

In Krazy's final 'Ello, It's Cheeky strip, the toothy funster introduced his pals from Cheeky Weekly and invited readers to join him in his own comic, thereby risking a split in readership as some decided to move to Cheeky Weekly, while others opted to follow their Krazy pals into Whizzer and Chips.

In addition to the work he did in Cheeky Weekly, the prolific Frank McDiarmid had produced a total of 44 Cheeky-related pages in Krazy since Cheeky Weekly's launch, including the final 'Ello, It's Cheeky strip.  As with his Cheeky's Week work in Cheeky Weekly, Frank's terrific workload was eased by other artists on the Cheeky-related strips in Krazy.  The other artists' Cheeky output in Krazy since Cheeky Weekly started breaks down as follows; Barrie Appleby 7 pages, Dick Millington 18, Jim Petrie 4, Jim Watson 25, and there is one artist whose name I don't know, who drew the Bird Spotting page (a Cheeky-related feature) in Krazy dated 25 February 1978.

Cheeky Weekly cover date 03 Dec 1977

Bubblegum -chewing Fred is still hanging around the cover this week. Prominence is given to the first part of the 1978 diary, and Frank is back on duty with a signed What a Cheek strip.

The Sunday page is also pure Frank, but the remainder of the Cheeky strips inside are 'Frank McDiarmid pencils'.

6 Million Dollar Gran inadvertently springs a convict from jail this issue, and in the process assaults a prison officer.  Gran captures the freed felon and his accomplices, but departs without facing the police - there are questionable moral messages running through some of the stories in this comic ;)

Ian Knox turns in some of his trademark grotesque artwork in the story - one of the baddies gets his head lodged in the mouth of another, and there's a good gag when a workman ejects the dentures of his colleague.

 

In this week's episode of Fangs of Fear, James Bold almost kills an innocent man when he drives his rapier through a painting after realising someone is hiding behind it, but without knowing who that person is. Rather a reckless act for a supposed hero, and another poor example to set readers.

On the main Wednesday page, the artist invites us to spot the deliberate mistake. I must admit it took me a while to find it.



On page 18 there's an in-house ad where Cheeky asks if we have met his comic chums, The Buytonic Boy from Krazy, The Bumpkin Billionaires in Whoopee!, and Joker from Whizzer and Chips.

This week's Home Movie is a spoof on TV's aquatic hero, with Tubby Thomson starring as The Boy from Atlantis.

The art on the inside pages of the 1978 diary is by Jim Petrie, who went on to draw the monthly Cheeky pages, along with two Burpo strips, in Cheeky Annual 1979.

There are two character debuts on the Cheeky pages this issue, the defective detective, Sherlock, appears for the first time on Friday (and is back again on Saturday), and Skatie from the Skateboard Squad is evident on Sunday, as the Squad knock Cheeky off his feet. She doesn't even apologise. What sort of example are they setting our kids?

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 03-Dec-1977, Issue 7 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Diary part 1' - Art Frank McDiarmid\What a Cheek - Art Frank McDiarmid
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
3	Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
4	Sunday evening - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
5	James Bold 'Fangs of Fear' 7 of 11 - Art Lopez
6	James Bold 'Fangs of Fear' 7 of 11 - Art Lopez
7	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
8	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
9	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
10	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Ian Knox
11	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
12	Old Comic reprint from Film Fun 'Red Skelton'
13	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils\Doug's Doodle - Art Terry Bave
14	What's New, Kids
15	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
16	Creepy Sleepy Tale - Art Mike Brown (final art on feature)
17	Creepy Sleepy Tale - Art Mike Brown (final art on feature)\Wednesday (conclusion) - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
18	Ad: IPC 'Have you met my comic chums'
19	Thursday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
20	Home Movie 'The Boy from Atlantis' - Art Jack Clayton
21	Friday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
22	Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
23	Mustapha Million - Art Reg Parlett
24	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
25	Wile E Coyote 'Poll Fault'
26	Wile E Coyote 'Poll Fault'
27	Interval - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
28	Space Family Robinson 'Race Against Time' - Art John Richardson
29	Space Family Robinson 'Race Against Time' - Art John Richardson
30	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
31	Diary (first appearance) - Art Jim Petrie (first art on feature)
32	Diary (first appearance)