Cheeky Weekly cover date 13 January 1979 - The Deferred New Year Issue

The comic is still suffering fall-out from the industrial dispute that halted publication for 3 weeks in December 1978 - had printing not been interrupted, the previous week's issue would have been the edition welcoming in 1979. However, for reasons explained here, the 09 January 1979 issue was a 'standby' issue and therefore was devoid of any reference to the turn of the year.

This edition, with its new year references, had obviously been prepared some weeks prior to its eventual publication (it was probably completed before the industrial troubles at the printers escalated into an all-out strike). The Cheeky Weekly editor evidently felt that the new year festivities were fresh enough in reader's memories to get away with publishing Cheeky Weekly's New Year issue in the second week of 1979. The alternative option - to hold over this New Year issue until 1980 came around (in the same way that some of the material intended for the aborted Christmas 1978 issue was held over until the following festive season) - was evidently felt to be less attractive.

However, I would guess that, had this New Year issue been published a week earlier as originally scheduled, the cover would have made mention of the turn of the year, as did the covers of the comics dated 07 January 1978 and 05 January 1980. To run this issue with a mention of the New Year on the cover was possibly deemed unwise in case casual comic readers browsing the newsagents' shelves assumed it must be unsold stock from the previous week's edition.

This week's cover leads with news of the commencement of yet another cut-out game (the most recent being the Crack-a-Joke game which concluded in the 23 September 1978 issue). This time readers are invited to snip out and retain the first instalment of the Friends of Cheeky Snap Game, which will be running for the following three issues as well. The decision to print the announcement in light green ink on a pale blue background is a questionable one.

Meanwhile at the foot of the cover, the toothy funster is unconcerned by such matters, as in the Cheeky's Week…Sunday strip, he and his parents are preparing for their imminent New Year bash .

The party gets into full swing on page 2, where Cheeky's dad is blackmailed by luscious Lily Pop into allowing our grinning pal stay up to enjoy the festivities.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

The party continues onto page 3, where we witness the extremely rare sight of Uncle Hamish after being relieved of some cash. We might have guessed that Spiv would be the one to achieve this awesome feat.

The slogan on Hamish's badge is a reference to the
independence campaign by The Scottish National Party.
Art: Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky's dad is rewarded with a smackeroo from lovely Lily (much to Cheeky's mum's annoyance) as the clock strikes twelve.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

A caption above the first page of this week's new-year themed 6 Million Dollar Gran story explains "There was a special edition of Cheeky's favourite programme on Monday…". This is fortunate for readers, since on the front page we joined Cheeky on Sunday evening, and as from the 30 September 1978 revamp issue, Gran's TV programme had been moved to a Sunday afternoon slot (because the Sunday evening element of Cheeky's week had ceased the previous week). There is a curious moment in this week's Gran episode where she says "A happy new year, readers". Surely she meant "viewers"?

Art: Nigel Edwards

After a new-year's-resolution-based Calculator Kid story, Tuesday sees Cheeky encountering several of his pals whose resolutions are causing much hilarity.

This week's Mystery Comic is the first to be without Tub on the cover (or anywhere else, as he's absent this week, seemingly a casualty, along with Why,Dad, Why? of the intrusion of the snap game into the Mystery Comic's centre pages). Instead Disaster Des gets promoted to the perplexing publication's front page for the first of only two occasions. This week Des exports his particular brand of mayhem to South America, inadvertently foiling a revolution in the process.

Readers of the Mystery Comic who are unaware of Cheeky Weekly must be mightily puzzled by the snap game occupying the centre of their comic, featuring as it does a selection of characters entirely unknown to them. As a result of the snap game, which is printed in colour, this week's episode of Elephant On The Run, in which Elephant and The Man in the Plastic Mac have an encounter at a new year's party, is in black and white

This week's Skateboard Squad strip includes some nice crossovers with characters from Cheeky's Week.

Art: Jimmy Hansen

 

The belated new year issue rounds off with a Pin-Up Pal poster featuring noisy nosher Crunching Chris.

There's pure Frank McDiarmid art on all 11 Cheeky's Week elements this week (we have come to expect all-pure-FM work on Cheeky's Week in celebration issues), plus Frank does the honours on the back cover poster.

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 13-Jan-1979, Issue 62 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Friends of Cheeky Snap Game' 1 of 2 - Art Frank McDiarmid\Cheeky's Week - Art Frank McDiarmid
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
3	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid
4	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Nigel Edwards
5	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Nigel Edwards
6	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Nigel Edwards
7	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid
8	Calculator Kid - Art Terry Bave
9	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
10	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton
11	Ad: Shreddies (first appearance)\Ad: IPC 'Collecting promo' 2 of 2
12	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid
13	Disaster Des 'Mystery Comic' 12 of 30 - Art Mike Lacey
14	Mustapha Million 'Mystery Comic' 13 of 34 - Art Joe McCaffrey
15	Mustapha Million 'Mystery Comic' 13 of 34 - Art Joe McCaffrey
16	Friends of Cheeky Snap Game (first appearance)
17	Friends of Cheeky Snap Game (first appearance)
18	Elephant On The Run 'Mystery Comic' 13 of 34 - Art Robert Nixon
19	Elephant On The Run 'Mystery Comic' 13 of 34 - Art Robert Nixon
20	Mystery Boy reprint from Whizzer and Chips 'Mystery Comic' 13 of 37 - Art John Richardson
21	Ad: IPC 'Roy of the Rovers' 7 of 8 Ad: 'Tiger' 6 of 10
22	Thursday - Art Frank McDiarmid
23	Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
24	Joke-Box Jury
25	Friday - Art Frank McDiarmid
26	Eagle Eye reprint from Shiver and Shake
27	Eagle Eye reprint from Shiver and Shake
28	Chit-Chat
29	The Burpo Special 'Dr Braincell' - Art Frank McDiarmid
30	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid
31	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid
32	Pin-up pal 'Crunching Chris' - Art Frank McDiarmid

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 13-Jan-1979

Artist	Elements
Frank McDiarmid	11

Cheeky Weekly cover date 06 January 1979 - The Standby Issue

Glumly entering the newsagents in the full expectation that Cheeky Weekly will be absent from the counter for a fourth week running, Friends of Cheeky all over the country (and possibly beyond) are delighted to spy a neat little pile of their favourite title awaiting them. What a great start to 1979!

Had publication not been interrupted, this would have been the New Year issue of Cheeky Weekly. There is usually a small area at the bottom of each page reading 'CHEEKY DD.MM.YY', the date being the cover date of the issue in which the page appears.  The fact that there are no dates on the pages of this edition suggests to me that this is a 'standby' issue, compiled in order that the publishers had something ready to send to the printers at short notice, as soon as they were aware that the industrial dispute had come to an end. Since the Cheeky Weekly editor had no way of knowing how long the strike would last, he chose to omit the dates from the pages, and to make this standby issue non-specific in terms of the time of year depicted therein. For the same reason, the date sections in all the What Did YOU Do Today? Diary areas on the Cheeky's Week pages are blank.

The New Year issue was published the week after this issue appeared.

The cover makes no reference to the missed issues, instead a new strip is announced; Eagle Eye joins the Cheeky Weekly gang this week. Veteran consumers of IPC product may be less than thrilled at this announcement, as they will be aware that Eagle Eye is in fact a reprint from Shiver and Shake, 1973. In the grand tradition of Cheeky Weekly covers which promote adventure strips, the Eagle Eye art is lifted from the debut story inside. Below the announcement, Cheeky shares a joke with arthritic athlete Jogging Jeremy.

At the top of page 2 is an acknowledgement of the interruption to publishing.

Nigel Edwards does the art honours on this week's 6 Million Dollar Gran episode, deputising for regular artist Ian Knox for the 5th time since the series began. This week, Gran and the Potts children visit the pet shop with the intention of purchasing a parrot. Outraged on learning that their colourful feathered mimic of choice has an exorbitant price tag of ten pounds, Gran slams the counter and launches the bird through the door, into the street. A parrot-chase ensues, and on spotting the terrified avian cowering among the leaves of a tree, Gran unleashes a mighty blast from her synthetic lungs. This powerful puff (incorrectly labelled a Bionic Blast on the page - Gran is a robot) not only uproots and defoliates the parrot's arboreal haven, but divests the frightened bird of its feathers. Surprisingly, the plucked polly retains the power of flight. In a further plot twist, Gran inadvertently allows a felon to escape arrest, but by the end of the story not only is said miscreant delivered into the long arm of the law, but the parrot is miraculously re-feathered.

For readers like myself, who aren't fans of IPC's incessant 'cut out and keep' promotions, there's ominous news on page 11; Cheeky Weekly will be featuring the first part of a snap game next week. Readers of stablemate titles Whizzer and Chips (with Krazy) and Whoopee! will find their comics similarly blighted over the next four weeks.

Milkie is the source of Cheeky's copy of The Mystery Comic this week - it seems someone left it in a milk bottle instead of their milk order. The unfortunate customer's milk shortage is our good fortune, as we get a classic, totally bonkers Elephant On The Run tale in the centre pages of the mysterious publication.

The inaugural instalment of cover star Eagle Eye's adventure (as far as Cheeky Weekly is concerned, anyway) appears on pages 26 and 27, and ends on a cliff-hanger as young Tommy Trotter (he with the vision of the bird of prey) stumbles upon a bullion robbery.

The issue rounds off with a treat for all Elephant fans, as the peripatetic pachyderm is the subject of this week's Pin-Up Pal poster on the back page.

We say farewell to one of the more obscure inhabitants of Krazy Town this issue - this is the final appearance of the time-travelling phone box.

Frank McDiarmid pencils contribute 9 Cheeky's Week elements to this issue, with pure Frank McDiarmid art on The Burpo Special only.

Cheeky Weekly	Cover Date: 06-Jan-1979, Issue 61 of 117
Page	Details
1	Cover Feature 'Eagle Eye' 1 of 2 \Cheeky's Week - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils (final art on feature)
2	Sunday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
3	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Nigel Edwards
4	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Nigel Edwards
5	6 Million Dollar Gran - Art Nigel Edwards
6	Monday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
7	Calculator Kid - Art Terry Bave
8	What's New, Kids
9	Tuesday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
10	Paddywack - Art Jack Clayton
11	Ad: IPC 'Collecting promo' 1 of 2
12	Wednesday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
13	Tub 'Mystery Comic' 12 of 34 - Art Nigel Edwards
14	Why, Dad, Why? 'Mystery Comic' 9 of 28 - Art John K. Geering
15	Mystery Boy reprint from Whizzer and Chips 'Mystery Comic' 12 of 37 - Art John Richardson
16	Elephant On The Run 'Mystery Comic' 12 of 34 - Art Robert Nixon
17	Elephant On The Run 'Mystery Comic' 12 of 34 - Art Robert Nixon
18	Mustapha Million 'Mystery Comic' 12 of 34 - Art Joe McCaffrey
19	Mustapha Million 'Mystery Comic' 12 of 34 - Art Joe McCaffrey
20	Disaster Des 'Mystery Comic' 11 of 30 - Art Mike Lacey
21	Thursday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
22	Skateboard Squad - Art Jimmy Hansen
23	Chutes Away competition winners (single appearance)
24	Joke-Box Jury
25	Friday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
26	Eagle Eye (first appearance) reprint from Shiver and Shake
27	Eagle Eye (first appearance) reprint from Shiver and Shake
28	Chit-Chat
29	The Burpo Special 'Yikky-Boo' - Art Frank McDiarmid
30	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
31	Saturday - Art Frank McDiarmid pencils
32	Pin-up pal 'The Elephant' - Art Robert Nixon (single art on feature)

Cheeky's Week Artists Cover Date 06-Jan-1979

Artist	Elements
Frank McDiarmid pencils	9
Frank McDiarmid	1

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

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

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 7)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Saturday (first page)	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Saturday (first page)	Title panel replaced. Christmas card story continues. In the first panel of the final row, which depicts Cheeky exchanging a joke with Mechanic, there's a note reading 'Must've read last week's comedy catalogue'. This reference to the Cheeky's Cut-Out Comedy Catalogue Of Mechanic Jokes booklet which appeared in the 15 December 1979 issue was evidently added to the original artwork. The punchline to the previous week's variation on the same joke was 'Mini Miner'. No resizing at bottom of page because the What did YOU do today? diary area didn't appear on the first Saturday page after the 02 December 1978 issue.

Art: Mike Lacey

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Saturday (concluding page)	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Saturday (concluding page)	Christmas card storyline concludes. The change of lettering style in the dialogue between Cheeky and Spiv in panel 5 suggests the text has been altered - don't know why. This is Spiv's penultimate published appearance - his previous appearance had been way back in the 30 June 1979 issue, which was presumably the last Spiv joke to be written (his final appearance will be in a page from the lost 1978 Christmas issue, published in the 29 December 1979 comic). No evidence of panel resizing, so it appears there was no What did YOU do today? section.

Art: Mike Lacey

That concludes my investigations into Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue.

Cheeky Weekly's lost 30 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 1

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 6)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Friday	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Friday	Title panel replaced with a copied-and-pasted Cheeky head on a roughly drawn body lacking the 'C' on his jumper. Christmas card story continues. The final panel suggests that the Eagle Eye strip was slated to start in one of the missing issues, 'cos Cheeky would read each EE episode in school on Fridays commencing in the 06 January 1979 issue (obviously School was out for the Christmas hols in this particular issue). Presumably Cheeky would have been reading Eagle Eye in the original artwork. Foot of page has been resized.

Art: Mike Lacey

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 7

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 5)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Thursday	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Thursday	Title panel replaced. Christmas card story continues despite change in artist. Final panel is intro to Skateboard Squad, but that strip finished in May 1979, a couple of weeks before the team re-appeared under their new title, Speed Squad. Text has therefore been altered (Why, Dad, Why? followed Thursday in the 22 December 1979 issue - Speed Squad appeared 8 pages later). Foot of page resized.

Art: Mike Lacey

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 6

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 4)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Wednesday	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Wednesday	Another cut-and-pasted head on new body replaces the title panel. Christmas card storyline continues. Final panel is clearly an intro to The Mystery Comic, but that came to an end in the 30 June 1979 issue, so the text has been changed to make it a Christmas card reference. Clever! In the 22 December 1979 issue, Mustapha Million followed Wednesday. Foot of page resized.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Tub	Cheeky Annual 1980, page 57	Tub	This was the first of 2 Tub strips in the 1980 Cheeky Annual (the other, more Christmassy tale can be seen here). Both were sourced from material prepared for the missing December 1978 issues. I would guess that this strip was drawn for the abandoned 23 December 1978 pre-Christmas issue, as it has an icy/snowy setting. Note how the Mystery Comic's sci-fi cover background has been cut down to allow the Tub strip to be blown up to fill the width of the annual page - now why didn't they do the same for Tub's episode on page 120 of the annual, seen in the link above, which is left floundering at the centre? Thanks to the scanner of this annual page.

UPDATE 26 November 2012:

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Disaster Des	Cheeky Weekly 20 January 1979	Disaster Des	This page, one of the two occasions on which Disaster Des occupied the Mystery Comic's cover, appears to include a strip from which Christmas references have been removed (as was the case with Elephant On The Run and Skateboard Squad in the 17 February 1979 Cheeky Weekly, and Calculator Kid in the same 20 January 1979 issue as this Des story). I suspect that Des's speech balloon in panel 2 on the second row originally read "I thought we were going to be home by Christmas, Cap'n!", and that in the following panel he originally said "It's not going to be much of a Christmas with only us two on board". In the final panel, it looks as though the Captain's balloon has been altered, probably the words "some fun" replaced "a party". I'd guess Des's closing balloon originally read "It isn't everyone who gets his own private Christmas circus!" I have assumed that this strip was originally intended for Cheeky Weekly's 23 December 1978 issue, but it's possible that the Disaster Des strip that was eventually printed in the 1980 Cheeky Annual (as seen in this post) was the one slated for the pre-Christmas issue, and this episode was intended for the Christmas issue.

Art: Mike Lacey

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 5

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 3)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Tuesday	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Tuesday	A rather peculiar agglomeration of cut-and-pasted Cheeky head with newly-drawn body replaces the title panel. Christmas card storyline continues. Doodle Doug's presence in the final panel indicates that Paddywack would have followed had the page been published in December 1978, but the text has been altered because the Doodle Doug intros to the Paddywack strips ceased as of the 07 July 1979 comic. In the 22 December 1979 issue, Paddywack appeared 6 pages earlier than the Tuesday page, which was followed by a Soggy the Sea Monster reprint. The art at the foot of the page has been resized to compensate for the removal of the What Did YOU Do Today? diary section.

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! Part 4

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed! (part 2)

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Monday	Cheeky Weekly 22 December 1979	Monday	Christmas card storyline continues. In December 1978 the introductory page of each daily Cheeky feature had a Cheeky's Week… title panel. These panels ceased to appear as from July 1979. This page in the 22 December 1979 comic has clearly had the title panel removed and replaced with a cut-and-paste Cheeky and some text in a different style to the rest of the page. Calculator Kid would have evidently followed in December 1978, but Cheeky's dialogue has been amended because CK had actually appeared on the preceding page in the 22 December 1979 issue. The artwork at the foot of the page has been resized because the 'What did YOU do today? diary section, which was also present in December 1978, but not in December 1979, has been removed. Disco Kid's badge references a character from TV series Roots, which was first shown on the BBC on 08 April 1977. See below for what I believe was the Calculator Kid strip that would have followed in the lost 23 December 1978 issue.

Art: Frank McDiarmid

Element	Eventually published in	Published as	Notes
Calculator Kid	Cheeky Weekly 20 January 1979	Calculator Kid	This was one of four strips that I suspect were originally intended for the lost 23 or 30 December 1978 issues, but were converted into non-festive-season stories (the other conversions being the Disaster Des strip that eventually appeared in the same 20 January 1979 issue as this CK story, and Elephant On The Run and Skateboard Squad published in Cheeky Weekly dated 17 February 1979 ). It would be my guess that this story originally saw Charlie setting out to buy Christmas presents - note the snow, suspiciously festive wrapping paper on Charlie's presents and what look like Christmas decorations inside the store. If I'm correct, the original version of the story was set prior to December 25th, so it's likely that it was intended for the 23 December 1978 issue (I suspect the Calculator Kid strip that eventually appeared on page 114 of the 1980 Cheeky Annual was originally intended for the 30 December 1978 issue). Update 08 October 2020 - see Stephen Archer's interesting observations in the comments section below. It may be that the Cheeky Weekly editor decided that the Christmas story conversions were not entirely successful, and as a consequence the rest of the non-Cheeky strips originally created for the 23 and 30 December 1978 issues were held over for use later in the year.

Cheeky Weekly's lost 23 December 1978 issue - Reconstructed!  Part 3