"Dismiss these absurd follies from your mind!" The Stage-Struck Schoolboy and Miss Kitty Skitty (The Gem, No. 237, August 24th, 1912)

Greetings, dear reader. Today, let's forget all about that clod Freddy. May I invite you to step aboard my pop-culture time machine? We're going back a long way - back to the days of Empire, back before the First World War, back to England, August 1912. Never such innocence... Here we will pick up a copy of the popular weekly story-paper, The Gem -  issue 237 to be precise. It'll cost you 1d. in the old money.

The Gem was the companion paper to The Magnet. Both had, by then, for some years been published weekly; they were not comics: both featured lengthy written stories of fictional 'public schools'. The Gem came first, in 1907, and featured Tom Merry and Co. of St. Jim's;  The Magnet began shortly afterwards, in 1908, and featured Harry Wharton and Co. of Greyfriars, as well as a splendid obtuse bespectacled check-trouser wearing fat-boy character called Billy Bunter, perhaps even now, 100 years later, still dimly visible on the 'enduring fictional characters' radar. But probably any moment bound to slip off. 

No young folks remember either paper now, of course, and the idea of buying a magazine that just featured column after column of type-set prose fiction, with just the occasional illustration, would probably strike them as utterly bizarre, and laughable. Which is their loss. 

Greyfriars and St. Jim's were the creation of a highly prolific writer named Charles Hamilton (aka Frank Richards, Martin Clifford, and umpteen other pen-names). Not a public schoolboy himself, he went at his writing with Dickensian aplomb, hacking them out at his typewriter, but writing in a beautifully clear style, churning out thousands of stories for loads of publications for decades.  He created a truly fantastic, concise, yet clearly-defined imaginary world of high comedy and gripping drama amidst the ivy-clad cloisters, and somehow breathed life into massive casts of great characters, both pupils and teachers. None of this (thankfully) can have borne much resemblance to the elitist world of real public school life, but rather represented his considerably more democratic idea of how it ought to have been. Forget your J.K. Rowlings, this is the real deal. And, to a crackpot like me, at least, though it is supposedly based in 'reality' and set in a school, Hamilton's strange fictional universe is just as fantastically other-worldly, just as coherent, and just as meticulously realised, but a million times more entertaining than anything Tolkien ever dreamed up in his dreary footnote-riddled way. 

Hamilton's work, though liberal in its overall outlook, is very much a product of its time, of course, and is full of ideas, expressions, and stereotypes that might seem outrageous today, but that's part of the fun, isn't it? And let us never forget to consider the context and the times in which an artefact was produced when we appreciate all things old. Incidentally, such issues have plagued the discussion - and honest enjoyment - of Hamilton's work for decades - as can be seen in this cartoon from 1970, reprinted in a Giles collection I found in the charity shop for £1 yesterday....

Anyhow, enough of all that. Principally, I wanted to share a few dramatic moments, and the superb illustrations from this copy of The Gem, with you. Recounted in this issue was a strange, slightly melancholy tale of Tom Merry's pal, Monty Lowther. Infatuated with actress Miss Kitty Skitty, he decides to run away from school and join the theatre company with which she performs.     

Above we see Monty, wearing a rather fine topper, shamefully sneaking into a theatre, to ogle Miss Kitty. 

Yes, he's stage struck, and, we discover, he's covered the walls of his study back at school with "theatrical pictures and photographs". His Headmaster, Dr. Holmes, sternly demands that he take down the "absurd photographs", and orders him to burn them immediately. I'm with Dr. Holmes - you can clearly see the lady's ankles in one of those pictures. Disgraceful.

"Take down those absurd photographs from the walls, Lowther!" said the Head, sternly. Lowther hesitated. But there was nothing for it to obey. Dr. Holmes stood frowning, while Lowther pulled down the offending theatrical photographs. "And now put them in the grate and set fire to them!" said the Head. (See Chap. 5). 

Lowther is undeterred, however, and ends up doing a bunk, to get his chance to tread the boards. He gets swizzled out of his post-office savings by an boozy, unscrupulous thespian, but does manage, finally, to make his debut with Miss Kitty. However, just as they go giddily into the opening chorus of "The Counter Girl Waltz", and they begin to skip gaily about the stage, Dr. Holmes arrives to turn his dreams to dust. I must say, the old gentleman does not look especially impressed by Lowther's effete behaviour.


At least, in the background, the stagehand's having a good laugh at it all...


Dr Holmes takes Lowther back to school, and orders him to "dismiss these absurd follies from your mind". A wise lesson for us all. Never allow the siren lure of musical theatre, or Miss Kitty Skitty's ankles, to distract you from the quiet, contemplative world of academic study. I have always lived by this maxim.

I didn't read the back up story, The School Under Canvas, a story of Gordon Gay and Co. (another Hamilton creation, I believe), because it was part of a serial (modestly billed as the most exciting school serial ever written, in fact), but the introductory illustration of good-old fashioned school discipline might serve as a useful reminder of how we have taken the wrong turn with our modern, liberal educational methods.

The German master strode savagely towards Gordon Gay and grasped him by the collar. "Mein papers!" he hissed. "Give dem to me, or---" And in his blind rage his hands closed in a grip like a vice upon the throat of the Cornstalk junior. (See p.23). 

You will find this story-paper (temporarily - I borrowed it) in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

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).

What point would there be to life without Bela Lugosi films?

Believe it or not, dear reader, I am a single man. Hard to believe, I know, of a fellow of my obvious high calibre; yet there it is. I am a loose cannon; a gay blade, if you will.

One of the benefits (?) of the bachelor's life is the freedom to do precisely as you please; this means that you can pursue nerdy, ultra-male, often highly ridiculous pursuits to an absurd degree, unfettered by any need to pay visits to Ikea, or engage in extensive early-morning discussions about how the relationship might be "progressing".

One such pursuit is my current project: to collect and watch every film ever made by the legendary horror actor Bela Lugosi. Far more worthwhile than any relationship with a woman, don't you agree? Forever Dracula, frequently a Mad Scientist, eventually Ed D. Wood's mate, Bela's mannered performances, intensity and thickly accented delivery were unique. He would never have visited Ikea. He always gave the performance of his lifetime, regardless of whatever old tat he was appearing in, regardless of how little his genius was appreciated by the many infinitely less talented foolish hack film directors that ultimately controlled his fate. Things went so wrong for Bela, with his career falling to pieces by the 1940s, whereas things went so right, comparatively speaking, for his rival, (the equally brilliant, but luckier and more clearly spoken) Boris Karloff - hence I have a particular extra soft-spot for the underdog, Mr Lugosi.

I recently finished watching The Phantom Creeps, a 12 part late-thirties cliff-hanger Universal serial featuring the erstwhile Mr. Lugosi. I must confess it was a somewhat ramshackle production. Apparently, Mr. Lugosi was worried about remembering all his lines, and wrote them on bits of paper, secreted about the set. He need not have worried. He is, as always, majestic in his performance, and it would be hard to spot a fluffed line in this particular script. Unsurprisingly, he plays a mad scientist, Doctor Zorka. I think he may have planned to take over the world, perhaps - it wasn't entirely clear until episode 11, when a newspaper headline usefully clarified the situation: MAD GENIUS RUNNING WILD: DOCTOR ZORKA ALIVE. MAY BE INVISIBLE TO THE HUMAN EYE.  Ah yes, I see. Pass the marmalade, won't you, dear? What was clear was that this was one of Bela's most gleefully evil roles, and also that he was wearing one of his finest fake beards (later mimicked by the jazz musician, Manfred Mann, I reckon).



Sadly the beard disappears after Zorka fakes his own death around the third episode (perhaps it fell off, it looked rather fragile). Apart from the fact that Bela plays his role with the fervour of a deranged, homicidal schoolboy, one of the reasons this serial is so splendid is that Bela/Zorka has numerous superb wholly impractical gizmos, gadgets and weapons of mass destruction, none of which are put to any particularly useful effect. These include: 

1. An invisibility belt, which Bela often wears while he drives around town - cackling - in a huge station wagon. Actually, if he wants to travel incognito, the use of a car might be something of a schoolboy error. "Hey! who exactly is driving that huge station wagon? Why is there evil laughter drifting out of the windows? Yipes!" I guess even invisible mad geniuses need a solid, reliable, family car; but public transport may have been a better option.

2. A piece of a meteorite, which Bela is very proud of, which glows, and is kept in a secret cupboard in the lab. It is mentioned that this has something to do with Bela's power, but I couldn't figure out what. It is repeatedly stolen, then he steals it back, then it is stolen, ad infinitum. This, my friends, is the plot.

3. The spider/tablet bomb. This is particularly good. Pay attention, now. Bela has some white discs, in his pocket. If Uncle Bela drops a white disc in your pocket, then opens up a funny box that he carries in his other pocket (are you with me?), an electric spider will scurry out, go up your leg, and you will explode (and might be dead, or might be in suspended animation - the script, and Bela's superbly mannered incoherent delivery of the relevant lines, make this uncertain). I would imagine that when the scriptwriters came up with this particular concept it was a "high-five" moment.   

4. A buzzing death ray of some kind. You know the sort - crackle lines scratched into the emulsion of the film. All mad scientists worth their salt have one. But there are so many cool inventions in this particular serial, this almost pales into insignificance. So spare a thought for the buzzing death ray. 

5. A rather splendid giant robot, with an enormous, dome-like head. The best things about this are that Bela controls it using an armlet with some buttons on (like the one General Jumbo controlled his toy soldiers with in The Beano many years later), probably marked "STOP" "GO" "WAVE ARMS" and "DESTROY", it has long bendy-spring tube arms, and, best of all, it goes "kerzunk - kerzunk - kerzunk" whenever it is switched on. It looks like it was made with "My First Evil Robot Kit" and it is a proper robot. Incidentally, stored behind a sliding wall panel in Bela's house, it is brought out intermittently to lumber about unthreateningly until it is easily destroyed by a bullet around episode 12. Springs fly everywhere; Bela looks genuinely sad to see it go, and I was genuinely sad. I haven't got over it yet.

  

6. Test-tubes filled with "bomb liquid". Believe it or not, when the script runs out of steam (for about the third time) somewhere around episode 10, it's almost as if Bela said: "bugger this for a game of soldiers, my children of the night, how about if we stop all this 'stealing the meteorite' shtick and I fly around in a plane chucking bombs at things for the last couple of episodes?" And what a splendid idea it was. I have never seen Bela seem so joyously evil. He really looks like he's enjoying himself. And - thanks to the splendour of the Universal stock footage library - not only can he callously blow up ships and buildings, while he (and I) laugh like a drain (they all deserve it, the fools), he also blows up the Hindenberg, which we see in flames, in some genuine newsreel footage. Is this the first "snuff" movie? 

Come to think of it, the whole serial resonates with  a cheerful relish of death and destruction, and an appealingly carefree disregard for human life. I know that the cliffhanger serial should hardly be expected to be an arena for Bergmanesque ponderings on the frailty of humanity, and in B Pictures generally everybody gets over death - and every other trauma -  remarkably quickly, but usually there is some gesture made to signify compassion. Here, neither heroes nor villains seem to care much about anyone, or any thing, except the meteorite. Which is all rather entertaining. When a passenger train is horribly wrecked (presumably killing hundreds) somewhere about episode 8, our bland hero and heroine seem mostly unconcerned, as they stand amidst the flaming wreckage. 

He: The mystery box - did you find it? 

She (straightening her hat): What a horrible experience. 

He (wryly): Think what a swell story it'll make for your paper... (As an afterthought) feel strong enough to lend a hand with the first aid?  

The Phantom Creeps would not win any awards for subtlety. It wouldn't win any awards for anything, for that matter. Do I care? And to be honest, I didn't make any attempt to follow the details of the meteorite-stealing plot after the third or fourth snatch. But it matters not. It was certainly a useful macguffin for Universal's scriptwriters - the whole serial is based around "the mystery box" (there's a narrative archetype if ever I saw one) being stolen - by government agents - by foreign spies - then Bela turns invisible, and steals it back - then foreign spies steal it - then Bela turns invisible, and steals it back - then foreign spies steal it - then Bela turns invisible, and steals it back - and so on, forever and ever, amen. It seems that it is only the fact that there was a limit of 12 episodes that succeeds in bringing the cycle to a close; but it is a narrative loop of the purest kind that could have gone on forever. There's no pretension about it and it could quite easily have been continued endlessly in next week's thrilling episode, at this theater, for all eternity, perhaps with the children of the cast taking over the acting chores when their parents passed on. "It's a proud day, my boy: it's your turn to take over the family serial now, Bela Jnr.!"

The Phantom Creeps may be an empty, ephemeral entertainment, but I like to think it is also an acute allegory for all human experience. There are various glowing meteorites of uncertain significance in this world to be collected (Bela Lugosi DVDs? Relationships? Ikea furniture?); people covet them, they are stolen, they are stolen back; they are lost...meanwhile, confused, seeking narrative resolution, we wander about the earth, perhaps invisibly...there are things people say we don't understand, there are cliffhangers at regular intervals, perhaps some evil laughter, maybe your robot explodes, and then your personal 12 episodes are all over. The end. 

Yes, as I have demonstrated to you here, The Phantom Creeps is far more profound than anything Samuel Beckett ever wrote, and, besides, it features Bela Lugosi in a false beard. 

You will find this serial in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

  

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.

Paperbacks with good covers that I'll never actually read

I will never read either of these books, but I like the covers. Which can be something of a dilemma, when you're short of space, and you have tended to live the life of the hobo. Is it worth keeping books purely for this reason? Who else will ever see them, except me? Do I want them just to look at them? Would I ever look at them anyway? Do I want to carry them, like bricks, for the rest of my days, from one rented room to another? I guess so.

In the case of Art Colony, a pulpy US paperback of the 1950s, you just know that the story inside will never be able to compete with the saucy shenanigans going on on the cover. That roguish chap may be wearing an "artistic" spotty shirt and mauve neckerchief, but we all know that his mind is not on his paintbrush (incidentally he reminds me somewhat of Heinz, pop protege of mad 1960s British record producer Joe Meek - I've attached a picture of him so that you can compare). If you hadn't already guessed it, he must be a delinquent - just look at those biker-jeans. But I must confess I'm jealous - both those chicks look pretty hy-tone to me. You know, he shouldn't risk his chances with his red-headed steady, even for a valuable lesson in aesthetics with that raven haired floozy. Is he crazy? Hang on a moment, I'm forgetting - it's just an illustration. But, anyhow, nope, I dig that cover, but I'm never going to bother to look inside this volume. Never. 

In the case of the Hank Janson, Bring Me Sorrow, that's a great title, and a great cover, but I'm not a fan of this series of British hard-boiled rip-off volumes, despite the fact that there are loads of folks out there, apparently, who are on the hunt for these - I can't believe they ever read many of them. They caused quite a scandal once upon a time, in the early 50s - because they were supposed to be very violent, and sexy, and the beautiful cover pictures of glamorous dames left little to the imagination - but the few I've read are tedious in the extreme (except for one called Bad Girl, which was sensational semi-erotic super-violent pulp trash of the highest order - unfortunately an ex-girlfriend swiped this one), with surprisingly little violence and virtually nothing remotely sexual - just page after page of turgid badly written guff about trilby-hatted, grim-smiling "dicks" - Hank himself is the main protagonist - shaking cigarettes out of packets, driving around, waffling on and on, with similarly cipherous other characters. Eleven million sale? Blimey, we must have been hard up for salacious thrills in 1950s Blighty.

But even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to read this one. And do you know why, dear reader? Because I was CONNED. Yes, I bought this volume recently in a second hand bookshop in Newbury. At the time I thought the shopkeeper looked a bit sheepish as he rushed it into the bag - he knew, you see, that the spine glue had disintegrated decades ago and he was well aware that about forty pages were missing. He even made a big deal of saying "these are worth buying, just for the covers". The scoundrel. I should send Hank Janson round to rub him out, but more likely he'd just talk him into a deep sleep.

You'll find these books - forever unread - in the HOUSE OF COBWEBS.  

The only item of Star Wars memorabilia I possess

This didn't come from the kitchen cupboard - I found it in a commemorative OXO tin from the 1980s, in a chest of drawers. It is one of a series of bubble-gum cards, issued to capitalise on the success of  Star Wars, with which all boys who grew up in the 1970s will be familiar. I've never been much of a fan, to be honest. I remember going to the Northfields Odeon to see it, with a boy in my class, for his birthday treat, and marvelling at how it could be that such special effects were possible; and thinking that Han Solo was rather cool in his waistcoat, and being scared of Darth Vader, but I never got that into the whole thing. In later years, it was amusing to wind up one of my friends who is obsessed with it by labelling it a "Western in space" (which it is, of course) to his enragement - he dislikes all 'old' films, particularly Westerns.  Alas, even Star Wars, and all of us young bucks who saw it first time round, are getting on a bit these days.  

Once upon a time, as a boy, I had loads of these cards. Looking at this one now, I vividly remember the feel of the waxy greaseproof paper the cards were wrapped in, and the awful oblong of stiff pink bubblegum that came with them (in those days cards weren't sold specifically for sick adult geek collectors, on their own, to put in dumb binders; they were for children, and it was thought you needed something more to justify the purchase - but not much more). This gum was covered with a dry white powder, and I felt compelled to chew it, even though I didn't like the stuff (who did?) just to ensure that I got value for money. I recollect that it cracked into razor-sharp shards the moment you snapped it between your teeth, before gradually morphing into a stodgy mass of the least flavoursome, but most powerfully fragranced gunk you could hope to find in this galaxy, or in any others far, far away. I also recall the backs of the cards: when your collection was complete, and these were assembled corner-to-corner in a big square, they would make a giant jigsaw-picture - I believe the scene was Luke and Han in the Trash Compactor - I spent many hours of summer holiday (happy?) torment trying to complete that. 

I think I may have had the whole set at one time. But I got rid of the lot. I'm not sure of the provenance of this particular card, number 60 in the set, but I know why I have it - because it features one of my favourite actors, the late great Peter Cushing, as Grand Moff Tarkin. It reminds me, at first glance, of two things. Firstly, his expression on the card reminds me that Cushing (like Bela Lugosi before him) treated every role, no matter how absurd, as if it was desperately serious, and worthwhile, even if it was little more than a cameo, and involved wearing a strange back-to-front coat with a watercolour paint-box on front, and being strangled by the Green Cross Code man (Dave Prowse, as Darth Vader). Secondly, it reminds me of that great story about Cushing wearing tartan slippers on set because the Nazi-esque boots were too tight and made his feet hurt. Only an actor of Cushing's stature - and old fashioned dignity, and lack of pretension - would have been permitted - or would have wanted -  to do this. I love that story, and also that other splendid tale about Cushing, in his final years, wearing a special white glove to smoke a single cigarette (one per day, no more, no less), which was in turn held in a long holder which was kept behind the counter - along with the glove, of course, and his personal cushion (Peter's Cushion?) - to be ritualistically brought out for his daily visits to his favourite cafe in Whitstable, Kent. 

It's a shame there weren't more pictures of Peter Cushing in the Star Wars bubblegum card series; and I would have liked to have seen one of the chap who played Mr Bronson in Grange Hill, too. Ah yes, I'd certainly hang on to one of those. But bafflingly the majority of the cards seem to feature the main stars of the films. In any case, it occurs to me that maybe Mr Bronson was in the second film, was he not? So he would be on one of the later cards with the red borders...I'd have to check with a Star Wars nerd to find out. Yes, someone nerdier than me.

You will find this bubblegum card 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.