Gang Pong Merrily on High - Part 2

Cheeky fans perusing 1979's festive edition of Whizzer and Chips would have been gratified to see their toothy chum on the cover (as we saw in the first part of my examination of that issue), and were no doubt anticipating more Cheeky chuckles inside in his role as a member of the Krazy Gang, but maybe they wouldn't have expected to see him make an appearance in Super Store.

Whizzer and Chips 29 December 1979
Art: Bob Hill
Santa's route takes him via IPC's offices
in King's Reach Tower.

A rather intoxicated-looking Cheeky attends the Super Store slap-up feed and, unlike the cover scene, the whole Krazy Gang are in attendance (Store artist Bob Hill is familiar with the Gang's mugs since he's also the artist for their strip).

 

Among the gathered diners enjoying the festive feast is Steve Ford who was absent from the cover, as well as the full cast of Happy Families who were somewhat depleted on the front page. As well the current stars of the comic, the ever-generous Uncle Rich has invited along a few comic celebs from days gone by. Can you name all the characters in the final panel? There are three whose names elude me - the character wearing a ruff and seated between Chip-ite and Willoughby, the face that can barely be seen above the table between Willoughby and Shiner, and the lad between Shiner and Bewitched Belinda. UPDATE - See Stephen Archer's comment below. There also seems to be a disembodied hand gripping a glass of pop (or maybe something stronger if Cheeky's apparent condition is anything to go by) that's floating above Nobby's party hat. I was a bit confused by Benny 'Lazy' Bones, from whose bonce a rather alarming punk-style hairdo seems to have erupted, but then I realised that it's another example of festive headgear. Pongo Snodgrass is absent. UPDATE - No he's not!

Our toothy pal gets to enjoy a further slap-up nosh at the Krazy Gang's hut in their story.

Art: Bob Hill

Pongo endures a second 'clean-up' this issue (see link above for his first wash), and the tale pleasingly resolves with seasonal goodwill all round. I can only echo Liz's sentiments - Merry Christmas, Readers!

Mr. Hill - Bob or Gordon?

Some time back, when I was preparing this Other Cheeky Artists post, I needed to find the artist's first name. I recognised his style, which I mainly associate with the Super Store strip from Whizzer and Chips (although more relevant to this blog was his work on The Krazy Gang which he took over from Ian Knox in issue 48 of Krazy and continued to draw after Krazy folded and the strip transferred into Whizzer and Chips), and knew his surname was Hill because he sometimes signed his work as 'Mr. Hill'. I did a search and found this page, which suggests his first name was Bob, as does this.

However, I have subsequently seen him referred to as Gordon Hill by a number of people who are far more knowledgeable than I am in the field of British humour comics. Here are a couple of examples;

Peter Gray, whose blog is one of my go-to sources of British comic artist info has this;

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/happy-easter-from-whizzer-and-chips.html

(note the Mr.Hill signature on the Krazy Gang poster in the above link)

George over at Wacky Comics posted this, and it looks as though, despite having a wealth of knowledge of British artists, George was originally also confused about the name of the artist in question - see the comment from Andy Boal, whose knowledge of British comic artists is extensive, at the foot of the page...

http://www.wackycomics.com/2013/02/this-week-in-1978-whizzer-and-chips.html

Yet Lew Stringer who is without doubt one of the most knowledgeable members of the British comic community refers to the artist as Bob here;

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/this-week-in-1989-buster.html

And just to confuse things further, Peter Gray also has this...

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Bob%20Hill

Does anybody know definitively which is the correct first name of the Super Store/Krazy Gang Mr Hill?

UPDATE: Many thanks to Irmantas who has confirmed in his comment below that according to Denis Gifford, this artist's name was Bob Hill.

Having revived fond memories in the course of investigating this comic conundrum, I thought I'd treat myself to a look at the very first Super Store strip (I hope readers of this blog will allow me to go a little off-topic here), and I embarked on a trawl through my Whizzer and Chips collection to locate it. I'd forgotten that Super Store was one of the winners of Whizzer and Chips' Comedy Choice feature, in which six new strips were tried out in the issues dated 29 May to 03 July 1976, and at the end of the series readers were invited to rank the prospective features in order of preference. This wasn't the first time this idea had been used in IPC's comics.

W&C's editor engendered a friendly rivalry between those readers who preferred the contents of Whizzer (who were dubbed Whizz-Kids) and those whose tastes gravitated more towards the features in Chips (Chip-ites). It wasn't revealed when the voting coupon was printed that two strips were going to get a regular slot in the comic. The winners were announced in Whizzer and Chips dated 11 September 1976. Chip-ites who had listed Super Store as their top strip would have been disappointed to find the following week their strip of choice had been allocated to the Whizzer section.

It was never revealed which of the two winners garnered the most points.

Art on all the Super Store strips below is by 'Mr' Hill.

The first appearance of Super Store,
Whizzer and Chips 12 June 1976

Whizzer and Chips 10 July 1976

Whizzer and Chips 11 September 1976

Super Store's first appearance in its own right.
Whizzer and Chips 18 September 1976

Aside from the artwork, it's hard to see the appeal of the strip in that first Super Store appearance on 12 June 1976 - the tone of the story differs quite markedly from those I remember from later in the run. Certainly the 'store which sells everything' element of classic Super Store is present, but the other appealing aspect of the later strips - the fact that nothing retailed at more than a few pence - is absent. While the bogus customer is certainly out to cause a bit of mischief, does he really deserve having £300.00 (the equivalent of almost £2000.00 today) extracted forcibly, not to mention the physical assault? Maybe readers wanted to see more sham shoppers get their comeuppance but, as if to atone for the brutal treatment of their first visitor, Uncle Rich and Willoughby give away a human chess set with real horses to another cocky customer in the first episode of the series proper.