Freddy comics: the excitement continues

You may recall my previous posting about the feeble - yet strange - Archie comic rip-off, Freddy.

Well, safe in the knowledge that nobody else in the big wide world has the slightest interest in this greasy-haired, one-dimensional lothario, off I went to rub shoulders with the fragrant throng at a Collectors' Marketplace (what we used to call a Comic Mart) to see if, as I suspected, all copies of Freddy had vanished into oblivion.

I was wrong. I was intrigued to find copies of Freddy at two stalls. But, knowing from the outset that Freddy is rubbish,  I couldn't bring myself to cough up the £4.00 that was required in each case to purchase said unpopular cultural artefacts. 

I couldn't believe that anybody, anybody in the universe, would pay £4.00 for a Freddy comic; and I can't believe that any comic dealer actually would expect to sell a copy for anything over about 50p. As we have already ascertained, Freddy is rubbish. I could have afforded it, yes, of course I could; but should I set a precedent that might make comic dealers think that Freddy comics really are worth a few quid after all? If I had shamefacedly snapped them up, would it have started a rumour amidst the dealer community that there is some weird bloke going around buying copies of Charlton Archie rip-offs? As they consequently restickered all the newly priced-up copies, and rubbed their hands with glee, they'd have thought Christmas had come early. 

The other possibility is that I unwittingly started a Freddy craze, pushing up the prices, with my massively-popular blog.  Are "hep" young collectors (erm, that may perhaps be an impossible concept) rushing to snap up all remaining copies of Freddy, to scatter across the stylish retro coffee tables of their trendy East London studio-flats? I think we know the answer to this one.    

Sometimes adult life throws up conundrums so complex, you cannot possibly conceive of an answer; you will appreciate the impossible dilemma I was faced with here. The end result of all my umming and erring was that I left without any additional copies of Freddy for my collection. My pal Fred K., who had accompanied me to the event, shook his head sadly, and, as usual, promised me that, as has been the case with so many things, I would regret it. 

Will I crack next time? Are there cheaper copies elsewhere? Only time will tell. The excitement mounts. I'll keep you posted. 

At the top you'll see one of the issues I could have bought for the extravagant sum of £4.00. But "We love Freddy"? I fear not. No! Not £4.00. No!  

I guess I might end up buying this eventually.

You won't find this comic in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS (yet).

Nobody likes... Freddy

Because you didn't demand it: the first in an occasional series focussing on the worst, feeblest, most unloved, entirely critically unregarded, most mediocre and/or weird, forgottenest comics of yesteryear. We begin with Freddy issue 47, Charlton Comics, 1965. 

Yes, dear reader. There were 47 issues of Freddy. According to the indicia, it was published four times a year. Freddy was running for more than ten years. People bought this - regularly? Where are all the Freddy readers gone, long time passing? Where are all the thousands of copies of this and each of the preceding 46 issues? All destroyed?

Freddy is a lame rip off of the popular teen humour Archie comics: Freddy's hair is black, whereas Archie's is kind of red; Freddy's pal is fat, hirsute, yeucchy 'Stuff' (as seen on the delightful cover), whereas Archie's pal is Jughead. Archie has two gals on the go, virtuous Betty and sultry Veronica (the lucky stiff) whereas Freddy seems to go nuts over a wide array of interchangeable bimbo-girls. Dan De Carlo did a great job on the art for a lot of the Archie comics; Jon D'Agostino provides an inferior - though occasionally mildly deranged - carbon-copy of his style for Freddy.

 

Charlton Comics Give You More! it says at the top of every page. But you might find that you'd like less. One thing's quickly apparent: Freddy and his pal Stuff are odious creeps. Incidentally, that gal in the beret appears to have some serious upper-body issues. 

The stories revolve around the same kind of teen stuff that the Archie comics do, but they don't make much sense; and they have an added edge of charmlessness and raging libido, strangely at odds with their approval by the Comics Code Authority. I suspect that the CCA couldn't be bothered to wade through these. Or else how would a bizarre scene with a sex-crazed dress designer get through? 

And what's going on with these European stereotypes?

Did I mention that the comic also includes a story about smelly moustaches? That must have had a wide appeal.



And once you've enjoyed this charming tale, how about a pet monkey? Just flip to the advertisements...



You could even feed them on lollipops. Just imagine all the darling little confectionery-choked monkey-corpses buried in the backyards of 1960s suburban America. And if killing a monkey is too much effort, how about saving some money on hair cuts?



What a load of old rubbish Freddy was. If you know where I can obtain copies of the other 46 issues, please get in touch.

You'll find this comic - filed under "misguided comic cover images featuring obese skaters" - in the HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Whoopee and Wow! 26th May 1984

British weekly humour comics had become exceedingly weird by the mid-1980s. Sales had slumped, and publishers - like IPC, who published Whoopee - were struggling desperately to figure out just what it was the kids wanted to read - if they wanted to read at all, that was, what with the distractions of their wonderful ZX Spectrum 48k computers and BMX bikes. When a comic was cancelled, the strategy was to amalgamate it into another more robust title - hence Wow! had been incorporated into the longer-running Whoopee, a veteran of the early 1970s. But I don't think the latter title lasted very much longer - this must be one of the last few issues, I would guess. I found it, crumpled and yellow, in my kitchen cupboard, underneath a pile of copies of Bullet, a British adventure comic that I might have a look at a later date. Or I might not. 

So, anyway, Whoopee by this time was well past its sell-by date, struggling to survive, clinging on for dear life; in a perpetual state of identity crisis, with its editors anxiously reliant on the increasingly uninspired exploits of time-tested popular favourites like Sweeny Toddler (seen here on the cover, drawn by Tom Paterson), who was by now rubbing shoulders with an ever more motley crew of vaguely surreal, ultra contrived, conceptually bizarre characters and concepts, many of which had been rather hopefully salvaged from even less successful comics in the IPC Publishing line. So, dear reader, if you have a few moments to spare, let us pause from life's race and glance a while at a few of those weird, forgotten flops from the pages of Whoopee, before we consign them once more to the rotting heap of newsprint so akin to the eventual oblivion that beckons to us all.

 Let us begin with Stage School. This double page tale is adequately described by the title. A special school, full of the kind of brats that end up in Eastenders and The Bill. Taught by a quaint British comics style teacher, in mortar board and gown. Perhaps at the time it seemed somewhat exotic and outlandish to imagine such an institution? 

Looking back now it seems strangely prophetic. Note the junior Tommy Cooper. Is it Robert Nixon doing the art on this? 

Stage School epitomises the case for the reinstatement of corporal punishment. Bring back the birch. They all need a good thrashing, the little bleeders. 

We turn now to Creepy Comix. Once upon a time, comics were considered such a potent influence upon the nation's youth that questions were asked in parliament - yes, I'm referring to the Horror Comics flap of the 1950s.

Indeed, my Pater tells me that such was the furore once upon a time that when he was a lad his Dad tore up his British reprint of that fine EC publication Tales From The Crypt.

By 1984 it must have been apparent that comics had no influence whatsoever over anybody at all, certainly if we go by this strip, in which the comic of the title comes to life, producing horror monsters at useful moments - one of which is a demon, in fact - that pause from their rampages of destruction to help a young lad overcome the traumas of school life and get a good hot shower for the gym class - "Ooh, lovely!" Nice art by a very familiar artist whose name I have forgotten.

Family Trees is such a weird concept, you wonder how, and why, they came up with it.

It's a kind of soap opera type strip, by all accounts, but the characters are all trees. I believe the premise is that they are looking for a place to live. Each week, while they search, they dash out of the foliage - er, actually they are the foliage - have tree-fun doing exciting things like throwing coins down wishing wells (?) - but are forever thwarted in their attempts to find rest. Then they dash back into the foliage. Highly ecological, but exceedingly dull.

Boy Boss is another strange one. A kind of wish fulfillment fantasy where a kid runs a company; but the grim Jasper Ferret, the accountant, wants to stop him from having any fun, by forcing him to attend the meeting of "The Institute of Young Directors".

Of course, the joke's on Jasper when the other young directors are as outlandish as Boy Boss. Note the androgynous director of "Biff Records" and the frankly disturbing dog/bear man across the table. This strip is by Frank McDiarmid, who drew most of the Cheeky comic. His art saves this one.

Look who's on the joke page - the Krankies. Pause here to thank the lord that we don't have to see them on TV any more.  In classic comics style, the "Star Joke" is "told by" the Krankies by virtue of attaching speech bubbles to a cheaply obtained press photograph. Well, it sure beats booking them through their agent. Fan-da-bi-dozy! Incidentally, I think I have their LP somewhere, but I seem to recall it has a massive scratch across most of Side One, where, I suspect, a disgruntled yuletide recipient of said album expressed their dissatisfaction with the "music" contained therein. 

Spare Part Kit. I remember this character always gave me the creeps, as a child, and he still does. It was something about the premise - a boy who carried muscular arms and legs, and a "six-pack" torso around with him, donning them to become "bionic" - in combination with his knobbly knees and his goggle-eyed, curly-haired, Harpo Marx-like visage.  It sends a shiver down my spine. I'll say no more about it. 

Finally, Mustapha Million, the kind of light-comedy foreigner once so prevalent in the Great British comic, but who vanished from all mass-produced media sometime shortly after they stopped repeating Mind Your Language on ITV. We shall not see his like again.

A pretty ropey old comic, all told, but still I'm sad that they don't make 'em anymore. I was going to throw this issue of Whoopee out - but maybe I'll put it back in the kitchen cupboard for a few more years.

You will find this comic in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.   

The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer: The Francis Blake Affair

I've just been reading this recently translated Belgian Bande Dessinee featuring the intrepid, stiff-upper lipped British duo Blake and Mortimer, originally created by Edgar P. Jacobs, the artist who worked closely with Herge on some Tintin books (notably The Seven Crystal Balls) before they had a bit of a dust up. Jacobs wanted more credit on the series - I think he was keen for the books to be labelled "The Adventures of Tintin by Herge and Edgar P. Jacobs". Not much to ask, eh? Needless to say Herge was not best pleased and eventually Jacobs received the order of the boot. 

Off he went and created his own comic book series about spiffing Brits Blake, a top-ranking secret service man, and Mortimer, a genius physicist. Just average chaps. They share a posh flat in London with Egyptian statues lying about the place and hunting trophies on the walls, where they lounge about in their grey flannels, say "blimey" a lot and smoke their pipes. But - no smirking at the back! - they're just good friends, right? 

A few years back I read The Mystery of the Great Pyramid, by Jacobs, expecting Tintin-level excellence, but was greatly disappointed. I realised then why Herge had to show Jacobs the egress. The basic idea was entertaining enough, and the strip looked great - with Jacobs employing the same clear line drawing style that Herge used - stylistically almost identical in some respects - but unfortunately Jacobs lacked the humour or visual economy of Herge. The story was torturously overwritten, over complicated, and relentlessly po-faced. The characters - even the main ones - seemed to be empty, stiff-jawed moustachioed ciphers.  And if that didn't put you off, the stiff new translation into English would. 

So I picked up this new volume - done in the 1990s by a new writer/artist team, Van Hamme and Benoit, working for the Jacobs studio - in the hope that it might be better than Jacobs' originals. It's a good effort, and has its moments, but unfortunately it seems authentically Jacobsian in its overbearing, wordy, grim-visaged convolutions. And once again, the translation seems more suitable for a physics textbook than a comic strip. 

Here's a sample of the delightfully sprightly dialogue for you. 

Mortimer: But that's Ardmuir Castle! That's where I was invited to attend a physics seminar.

Blake: I found one of those publications on Ardmuir Castle in Olrik's pocket. And that's how I finally understood what kind of "move" our enemies were preparing: the kidnapping by a foreign power of the best physicists in the Kingdom!

Mortimer: Good Heavens! That...that would be appalling!

Blake: Indeed. This would represent a technological step backward of almost ten years for Britain and her allies. And, an equivalent gain for the country that would thus obtain the forced collaboration of the unfortunate scientists.  

Still awake at the back there? Like Mr Jacobs' earlier originals, it all looks splendid (though the period and location details are somewhat odd - attention all European cartoonists: no, British police didn't carry guns in the good old days, and I wonder how many inns would have served "a fried sausage and beans"), but it's all so desperately serious and pointlessly complicated and the speech bubbles are sadly crammed to overflowing with dry, stiffly translated, purely plot-progressing blather. By the end of the book I was wishing that the evil Olrik had kidnapped Mortimer, Blake, and every other bow-tied stuffed shirt in the volume, if only in the hope that it would make them shut up. 

You will find this book in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.