Cheeky Weekly Mini Comics In Other Titles - Conclusion

 

Cover of the Cheeky Weekly
mini comic presented in
Whizzer and Chips 22 July 1978
Art: Frank McDiarmid 

Having (rather belatedly) wound up my individual examinations of IPC's 1978 mini comics promotion as it related to Cheeky Weekly, I felt it would be instructive (to me, anyway) to offer a concluding overview of the Cheeky Weekly mini comics which were presented in Mickey Mouse, Whoopee!, Buster and Monster Fun and Whizzer and Chips in that late 70s summer.

All the Cheeky Weekly mini comics contained the same features, namely;

• What A Cheek (all drawn by Cheeky supremo Frank McDiarmid)
• Mustapha Million (all by Joe McCaffrey who at the time in Cheeky Weekly was occasionally deputising for original MM artist Reg Parlett)
• 6 Million Dollar Gran (all drawn by Cheeky Weekly's occasional stand-in for Ian Knox, Nigel Edwards)
• Cheeky (a necessarily condensed version of the Cheeky's Week pages from the toothy funster's title, drawn in the mini comics by Dick Millington who provided the artwork for Cheeky's Week on occasion)
• Skateboard Squad (drawn by regular artist Jimmy Hansen)
• Bam, Splat and Blooie (reprinted from Buster – not sure who it was drawn by – probably one of the Spanish artists who were recruited to illustrate certain of Buster's content in the title's early days).
• A concluding promotional appearance by Cheeky

In terms of the distribution of features, the layout of the Cheeky Weekly mini comics in Whoopee!, Buster and Monster Fun and Whizzer and Chips were identical (although the individual strips were unique to each mini comic);

  

• Cover pic and What A Cheek on page 1
• 6 Million Dollar Gran on pages 2 and 3
• Cheeky on pages 4 and 5 (thus allocating our toothy pal the centre pages of the weeny facsimile editions in question)
• Mustapha Million on page 6
• Skateboard Squad on page 7
• Bam, Splat and Blooie and a promotional plug by the grinning gagster sharing the back cover.

Only Mickey Mouse chose to deviate from this agreeable arrangement, placing Mustapha Million on page 2, which resulted in the 6 Million Dollar Gran and Cheeky 2-pagers being shunted forward by a page. Thus those readers who chose to excise and collate their mini comics as instructed found the Gran and Cheeky stories printed back-to-back on a single sheet, necessitating a turn of the page to read the whole story, rather than being presented side-by-side for a more appealing reading experience.

Mickey Mouse's Cheeky Weekly mini comic further deviated from the norm by being the only one of the four not to source its main cover pic from a Pin-Up Pal Poster reprint, probably because the Pin-Up Pal depiction of Burpo wouldn't have reproduced well in reduced form.

Buster and Monster Fun's mini comic suffered from Buster's long-standing parsimonious policy on the use of colour, which meant that, unlike the toothy funster's condensed comics in the other titles which sported colour on the front and rear pages, B&MF's Cheeky Weekly mini comic was entirely monochrome.

	Mickey Mouse	Whoopee	Buster and Monster Fun	Whizzer and Chips
Page	01 July 1978	08 July 1978	15 July 1978	22 July 1978
1	Cover pic – Burpo & Cheeky (Barrie Appleby)/What A Cheek (Frank McDiarmid)	Cover pic – Jogging Jeremy (from Pin-Up Pal Poster)/What A Cheek (Frank McDiarmid)	Cover pic – Sid The Street-Sweeper (from Pin-Up Pal Poster)/What A Cheek (Frank McDiarmid)	Cover pic – Six-Gun Sam (from Pin-Up Pal Poster)/What A Cheek (Frank McDiarmid)
2	Mustapha Million (Joe McCaffery)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)
3	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)
4	6 Million Dollar Gran (Nigel Edwards)	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky
5	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Cheeky
6	Cheeky (Dick Millington)	Mustapha Million (Joe McCaffery)	Mustapha Million (Joe McCaffery)	Mustapha Million (Joe McCaffery)
7	Skateboard Squad (Jimmy Hansen)	Skateboard Squad (Jimmy Hansen)	Skateboard Squad (Jimmy Hansen)	Skateboard Squad (Jimmy Hansen)
8	Bam, Splat and Blooie/Join me each week...	Bam, Splat and Blooie/Join me each week...	Bam, Splat and Blooie/Join me each week...	Bam, Splat and Blooie/Join me each week...

All of Cheeky's pals appearing on the various mini comic front covers were present among the Cheeky strips' supporting cast within the respective issues.

Cheeky (and Snail) naturally featured in all the Cheeky strips, but none of Cheeky's pals featured in more than 2 mini comics each. Baby Burpo, Jogging Jeremy, Manhole Man and Teacher were those who made it into 2 of the teeny tracts.

Readers of the mini comic in Whoopee! enjoyed a gag-packed Cheeky strip in which the toothy funster quipped with 8 of his Krazy Town chums, whereas Whizz-kids and Chip-ites were somewhat short-changed with a measly 6 of Cheeky's pals represented in their mini comic. Mickey Mouse and Buster and Monster Fun fans were able to make the acquaintance of 7 of the Cheeky's Week supporting cast each.

	Mickey Mouse	Whoopee!	Buster and Monster Fun	Whizzer and Chips	Total Cheeky Mini Comic appearances
Snail	Y	Y	Y	Y	4
Baby Burpo	Y	Y			2
Jogging Jeremy	Y	Y			2
Manhole Man	Y	Y			2
Teacher			Y	Y	2
Auntie Daisy			Y		1
Baker's Boy				Y	1
Bump-Bump Bernie		Y			1
Constable Chuckle	Y				1
Crunching Chris			Y		1
Do-Good Dora				Y	1
Doctor Braincell		Y			1
Gloomy Glad			Y		1
Granny Gumdrop	Y				1
Knock-Knock Door	Y				1
Lily Pop		Y			1
Louise			Y		1
Posh Claude				Y	1
Sid The Street-Sweeper			Y		1
Six-Gun Sam				Y	1
Yikky-Boo		Y			1
	7	8	7	6

The Cheeky Weekly mini comics gave as good a representation of the contents of a typical issue as was possible within the constraints of miniature format. The only puzzling inclusion was Bam, Splat and Blooie who had permanently exited the toothy funster's title some weeks before the commencement of the promotion. I suppose there were plenty of BS&B strips mouldering in IPC's vault, so the feature made a cheap half-page filler, but the reduction in size rendered the artwork less than appealing. Surely some specially-drawn Paddywack jokes or Cheeky-and-pal gags would have served the promotion better.

Whizzer and Chips - The Cheeky Raids part 13

New readers start here... After Cheeky Weekly folded and was incorporated into Whoopee as of February 1980 six strips that had originated in the toothy funster's title survived the merge and continued to appear in the amalgamated comic. Whoopee itself foundered in March 1985 and was merged into Whizzer and Chips. Three of the surviving Cheeky Weekly strips successfully negotiated this second merge and went on to appear in the newly combined publication, rather inelegantly titled 'Whizzer and Chips now including Whoopee'. The survivors were Mustapha Million, Calculator Kid and (appearing only twice) Stage School. Cheeky continued to appear, but as a member of The Krazy Gang, who had moved into W&C when Krazy, the comic in which the Gang originated, expired in April 1978.

Whizzer and Chips had a long tradition of sending characters from the Chips section into Whizzer and vice versa. These cross-comic forays were known as 'raids'. In this series of posts I'm chronicling the raids involving the ex-Cheeky Weekly characters who made the transition into Whizzer and Chips, all of whom were allocated to the Chips section. For the purposes of this series, although this particular manifestation of the toothy funster didn't directly descend from Cheeky Weekly, I'm including Cheeky's Krazy Gang appearances as those of an 'ex-Cheeky Weekly character'.

Two weeks after Mustapha Million infiltrated Chips' Animalad strip, the loaded lad was targeted in a revenge raid. But can you spot the sneaky interloper? Scroll down for the reveal...

Whizzer and Chips 19 October 1985
Art: Joe McCaffrey
This strip is reprinted from the 'standby' issue of
 Cheeky Weekly dated 06 January 1979

Whizzer and Chips 26 October 1985
Art:Single-panel gag - Jim Crocker,
Glow Boy - Roy Mitchell

Unusually, the raider wasn't depicted on Sid's Whizz-kids page, possibly because space was tight due to the debut of Glow Boy, a character inspired by the long-running Ready Brek TV advertising campaigns that each year heralded the approaching winter months.



By this stage Mustapha had perpetrated and suffered 3 raids, and the overall tally at this point was Whizz-kid raiders 9, with 6 raids carried out by ex-Cheeky Weekly characters.

Whizzer and Chips Cover Date	Raider	Raided
06 April 1985	Mustapha Million	Super Steve
04 May 1985	Bloggs (Store Wars)	Mustapha Million
11 May 1985	Joker	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky)
18 May 1985	Calculator Kid & Calc	Odd-Ball
01 June 1985	Animalad Mustapha Million	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky) Boy Boss
08 June 1985	Odd-Ball	Calculator Kid
06 July 1985	Toy Boy	Calculator Kid
13 July 1985	Pa Bumpkin	The Krazy Gang (Cheeky)
27 July 1985	Joker	Mustapha Million
24 August 1985	Cheeky	Sid's Snake
14 September 1985	Odd-Ball Calculator Kid	Calculator Kid Store Wars
05 October 1985	Mustapha Million	Animalad
19 October 1985	Odd-Ball	Mustapha Million

Mini Comics - Cheeky mini comic in Whizzer and Chips

Way back in July 2011 I concluded my series on IPC's Cheeky Weekly-related entries in their Mini Comics promotion of 1978. Unfortunately I seem to have prematurely drawn the series of posts to an end, as I've now realised that I never presented the Cheeky Weekly mini comic that appeared in Whizzer and Chips dated 22 July 1978 (the final week of the promotion).

Here then is that missing post...

As was the case with the Cheeky mini comics in Whoopee! and Buster and Monster Fun (but curiously not the one in Mickey Mouse), this weeny version of the toothy funster's title featured on its cover artwork lifted from one of the Pin-Up Pal posters – in this case Frank McDiarmid's rendition of comical cowpoke Six-Gun Sam, which originally appeared in Cheeky Weekly a couple of months before this mini comic was published (the issue dated 13 May 1978). Below our lasso-wielding pal is an original What A Cheek gag strip by Frank. To the left of the 'fold here' line, on the mini comic's back cover, is a Bam, Splat and Blooie reprint from Buster. As I have noted in my conclusion to the Star Guest series of posts, the choice of strips used in these supposedly readership-boosting campaigns can sometimes be baffling. The reduction in the size of the strip, necessary to fit it onto this condensed comic, does the artwork no favours but if any Whizzer and Chips readers had been sufficiently enamoured of it to seek further cat, dog and bird antics within the pages of Cheeky Weekly, they would have been sorely disappointed since BS&B had come to an end in the issue of our grinning pal's comic dated 17 June 1978, a month before this mini comic appeared.

There then follows the first page of a 6 Million Dollar Gran story by Nigel Edwards, who at this point over at Cheeky Weekly had deputised twice for regular artist Ian Knox. As was so often the case, even within the pages of the toothy funster's regular-sized funny paper, Gran is described as bionic when her origin story made it clear she was a robot. After a good gag from the museum attendant, Gran's fossil frustrations are interrupted by the Skateboard Squad, who manage to wrap up their pursuit of some purloined moolah within a single page. Art by Cheeky Weekly's regular Squad pencil-pusher, Jimmy Hansen.

Our monied mate Mustapha Million is the next to be recruited for this visit to Whizzer and Chips, in a rather unsettling story which culminates with our Bedouin buddy gleefully surveying the injuries suffered by some (albeit unpleasant) kids. Not really the kindly Mustapha to whom regular Cheeky Weekly readers were accustomed, and the strip gives those unfamiliar with the character little clue of its original premise. Although the illustration of MM alongside the title is drawn by Reg Parlett, Joe McCaffery (who that very week, in the toothy funster's comic, had stood in for original Mustapha artist Reg for the third time) provides the artwork on this story. Joe became the regular artist on the strip in February 1979. Adjacent to Mustapha's uncharacteristic outing, Gran's Paleozoic panic reaches its chaotic conclusion.

Occupying this mini comic's centre pages is the toothy funster himself, drawn by Dick Millington, whose work had graced four issues of Cheeky Weekly at this stage. Mini comic cover star Six-Gun Sam is on hand to deliver a wild west witticism, following which the toothy funster fulfils his contractual obligation to plug the comic, before an appearance by Teacher brings Cheeky's mini centre-spread gagfest to an end.

Thanks to hankshanklin whose question over at the Comics UK Forum caused me to realise I had omitted to cover this Cheeky mini comic.

All the mini comics posts can be found here.

We Whiz You A Merry Chipmas - Part Two

Following on from my examination of the contents of the Whizzer section of the Christmas 1986 Whizzer and Chips, I'm now going to scrutinise the festive doings which occurred within the Chips portion of that same Yuletide publication.

As was the case with that week's copy of Whizzer, a story ran through the pages that constituted Chips. Chips' resident sleuth, Mizz Marble, was called upon to investigate the apparent theft of Shiner's Christmas presents to his Chip-ite chums.

 

Art: Jimmy Hansen

Unlike the Whizzer section, where apart from the usual raider, no characters from the rival title appeared, the Chips story included cameos by several Whizz-kids as the investigation got under way on the Junior Rotter page.

Art: Trevor Metcalfe

Over the page, Phil Fitt chased a couple of suspects but neither turned out to be the present pilferer.

Art: Mike Lacey

 

Titchy Chip-ite Sammy Shrink was the next to be embroiled in the mystery, and our pint-sized pal placed a suitably seasonal message in the border around his strip.

Art: Terry Bave, master of the Christmas border

Mizz Marble then enlisted Town Tarzan in the search.

Art: Trevor Metcalfe

There then followed a 2-page break to allow for readers' Christmas messages to friends and family, but the search resumed as Mustapha Million (by this time the sole survivor from Cheeky Weekly) recruited fictional sleuths Inspector Clueless (Clouseau), Sherlock Holmes (with Doctor Watson), Kojak, Cagney and Lacey, Magnum P.I. plus Crockett and Tubbs (from TV series Miami Vice). I think the glasses-wearing guy in the baseball cap is meant to be the helicopter pilot from either the Blue Thunder film or the subsequent spin-off TV series of the same name. Not only that, the strip concludes with a reference to vintage American TV police comedy Car 54 Where Are You?

Art: Barry Glennard

The action then moved to the Bottom Of The Class page. This strip's title would later contract to 'Bottom' (some years before Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson appropriated the title for their own comedic purposes), and the stories would then revolve around protagonist Rock's unfortunate habit of tearing or splitting his trousers, but at this point the humour usually focused on the titular lad's surname and resultant posterior-based hilarity. However at the end of this particular episode Rock is trapped under the mistletoe by ugly Cynth and suffers a selection of slobbery kisses...

Art: Nigel Edwards

 

...hence the hideous sucking noises originating off-panel at the commencement of Creepy Comix which, as well as participating in the ongoing investigations, also contained the conclusion to the JR/Bumpkins subplot that commenced earlier.

Art: Reg Parlett

The Case of The Missing Presents then reached its dramatic climax as all was revealed. Like the Whizz-Kids, our Chip-ite pals enjoyed a well-deserved traditional festive nosh-up at the conclusion of their storyline.

Art: Colin Whittock

But that wasn't quite the end of the riddles, as on the following page readers were challenged to identify the contents of the recovered Chip-ite parcels. The Whizz-kids had an equivalent page in their section which consisted of instructions for the party games as played at their Christmas get-together.

Art: Jack Oliver

The Christmas 1986 Whizzer and Chips was a real Yuletide treat, and the extra effort that was no doubt required from the creators paid off very well. As far as I know it was the only IPC comic to feature plotlines running across the various strips in a single issue (I think DC Thomson may have done something similar on one or two occasions). This edition was so fun-packed that it featured no internal adverts at all – there was just a Weetabix ad on the back cover. Also, as Stephen Archer commented on part one of this post, this edition was, unusually, entirely free from reprints. The running storylines also meant that the strips presented here were very unlikely to be used as reprints themselves.

P.S. Rather ironically I forgot to include reference to the Memory Banks strip in the first part of this two-part post. I have now made a minor update to rectify my omission.

We Whiz You A Merry Chipmas - Part One

Excited youngsters lifting the 1986 Christmas issue of Whizzer and Chips from the newsagents' shelf would, while enjoying the cover depicting a seasonal truce between rivals Sid (Whizz-kid leader) and Shiner (chief Chip-ite), have wondered what '2 fab fun packages' lay in store as they commenced their Yuletide reading. This cover teaser heralded an unusual festive edition of the long-running two-in-one comic, wherein the Whizzer and Chips sections each contained a running storyline that continued across the individual strips in the constituent parts.

The Whizzer plotline began on page 2 where Mr Superstore from the Store Wars strip was, as usual, finding it hard to compete with neighbouring retailer, Bloggs...

Art: Jim Watson

 

Sneaky Superstore's first prospective customer was Sweeny Toddler...

Art: Tom Paterson

 

The action continued overleaf, as sugar-craving Sweet-Tooth seemed about to visit Superstore in search of his Yuletide glucose fix...

Art: Trevor Metcalfe

 

On Winnie, The Royal Nag's page, the titular equine heroine was required to pull Charles and Di's carriage as they visited Superstore, intent on a regal Christmas shopping spree.

Art: Ian Knox

Toy Boy was Mr. Superstore's next target, and things were looking good for the shifty shopkeeper...

Art: Terry Bave

 

Likeable loafer Lazy Bones seemed to have generated a sale, but ended up being given a ride home courtesy of Bloggs' assistant Ted and his delivery bike. This strip was also the subject of a seasonal sneaky raid by a Chip-ite invader – can you spot the infiltrator?

Art: Bob Hill

Next up was Whizz-Kid leader Sid and his serpentine sidekick Slippy.

Art: Mike Lacey

Mr Superstore then turned his attention to Joker.

Art: Sid Burgon

Surely the Bumpkins, always keen to dispose of their unwanted millions, were only too willing to bestow their fortune on Mr Superstore?

Art: Jimmy Hansen

A great Odd-Ball page followed...love how the Odd-Balls from the surround merge into the first panel of row 3.

Art: Terry Bave

Whizzer's forgetful Bernie 'Memory' Banks was the next to encounter greedy Mr Superstore.

Art: Mark Bennington
who was signing himself Mark Benno at this time

Sadly, Mr Superstore didn't undergo a Scrooge-like redemption as the story came to a conclusion (the strip had to continue as normal in the new year, after all) but at least things ended on a traditional Christmas slap-up feed. Were the years of festive face-filling finales in British comics inspired by the Cratchits dining on Turkey at the end of A Christmas Carol? Discuss. But not here.

Art: Jim Watson

Part 2 of this examination of Whizzer and Chips' Christmas 1986 edition will be a little more on-topic as I report on, among other things, Mustapha Million's role in the Chips section of this issue.

Profile – Bubblegum Boy: Part Two - The Cheeky Weekly Era

For a profile of Bubblegum Boy's career in the pages of Krazy, see here.

Bubblegum Boy had the honour of appearing on the cover of Cheeky Weekly's debut issue, where he narrowly avoided a collision with the flying free gift. Inside that same edition, BB's appearance on the Sunday page saw him musing philosophically on Krazy Town's signage before drifting away on the breeze. From thereon BB continued to float, silent and unnoticed for the most part, across the cartoon skies as depicted in Cheeky Weekly, in exactly the same way as he had in Cheeky's strip in Krazy prior to the launch of Cheeky's own title. Indeed, our aerial chum continued to appear in Krazy while concurrently floating across the pages of Cheeky Weekly.

Cheeky Weekly No 1
Art: Frank McDiarmid, as is all the art in this post,
unless noted otherwise

Soon after the debut of the toothy funster's comic, BB was honoured with his own episode of the Cheeky's Pal feature in Krazy's 10 December 1977 edition, wherein it was revealed that the reluctant aviator's name was Fred, although this fact was never referred to again in Krazy, and only once more in Cheeky Weekly.

A month after his cover appearance on the first Cheeky Weekly, Fred was again on the front page of the 19 November 1977 issue.

Fred's third cover appearance occurred on Cheeky Weekly dated 03 December1977, and his fourth on 28 January 1978.

 

Thanks to a note from Frank McDiarmid which appeared in Cheeky Weekly dated 18 February 1978, readers learned that Fred's surname was Holroyd.

Young Master Holroyd was back on the front cover of the 22 April 1978 comic, where his likeness was in fact the same image that had appeared on the cover of the first issue.

Our airborne chum made yet another front page appearance on the edition dated 13 May 1978.

  

A catastrophic mid-air clash between BB and B-BB occurred on Monday in the 05 August 1978 comic.

In Cheeky Weekly's '60 years into the future' edition, it was prophesied that an aged Fred will still be airborne in the year 2038.

The hapless chewer was again on the cover of the 14 October and 28 October 1978 issues, on these occasions observing events within the front page gag strips.

  

The cinema Commissionaire employed a gum-bubble to evade his customary Saturday trampling in the issue dated 04 November 1978.

Art: Mike Lacey
BB first took to the skies in Krazy dated 08 January 1977,
so by November 1978 he hadn't been aloft 'over two years'
but no doubt the aerial banishment seemed longer to him.

The reluctant aviator was once again on the cover of the comic dated 25 November 1978, and he narrowly avoided a rapidly-descending Tub on the 27 January 1979 cover.

 

High-flying Fred was yet again witness to front page frolics as of the 02June 1979 edition.

A plaintive cry from the sky on Sunday in the 09 June 1979 edition revealed that our airborne chum's birthday was the 2^nd of June.

Art: Frank McDiarmid pencils

 

Bubblegum Boy's aerial wanderings took him to the coast in Cheeky Weekly dated 07 July 1979, just in time for a wee joke with Walter Wurx.

 

Our drifting pal had a speaking role on the cover of the 11 August 1979 issue.

 

Six-Gun Sam caused BB some concern

Bubblegum Boy appeared on the Pin-Up Pal poster featuring Disco Kid that appeared in the 16 September 1978 comic.

Fred joined Cheeky Weekly's front cover fun for the final time as of the 03 November 1979 issue, and his final appearance within the pages of the toothy funster's title was on the Friday page of the last issue dated 02 February 1980.

BB's final Cheeky Weekly outing.
The mystery was revealed later in the comic to
be the imminent merge with Whoopee!

This last appearance brought to 73 the number of Cheeky Weekly issues through which our soaring pal drifted, 13 of which featured BB on the front cover.

Character	Total Issues	First Appearance	Final Appearance
Bubblegum Boy	73	22-Oct-1977	02-Feb-1980

Count of elements by artist

Character	Artist	Total Elements
Bubblegum Boy	Frank McDiarmid	96
Bubblegum Boy	Frank McDiarmid pencils	25
Bubblegum Boy	Barrie Appleby	6
Bubblegum Boy	Mike Lacey	3
Bubblegum Boy	Jim Watson	2
Bubblegum Boy	Dick Millington	1
Bubblegum Boy	Unknown Cheeky Artist 1	1
Bubblegum Boy	Nigel Edwards	1