Monday, April 15, 2013

This Week In.. 1980 - Whizzer and Chips


It's time once again to return to the greatest comic ever produced - Whizzer and Chips! This issue went on sale this week 33 years ago in 1980, the exact cover date being 12th April 1980.

The first strip inside is Jack Edward Oliver's take on The Champ. Originally illustrated by Leo Bexandale, then by Colin Whittock in a similar style, Jack's Champ was something else entirely. I'll let you judge for yourselves.



On the Whizz Kids letters page was a strip called Whizz Kids vs. Chip-ites. This was part one, part two appeared on the Chip-ites letters page, but I've shown both parts together for easy reading.




Lazy Bones is one of my favourite comic characters (up there with Sweeny Toddler and X-Ray Specs), and I couldn't imagine an artist more suited to the strip than Colin Whittock. He did an amazing job of the strip over its very long run, but this isn't one of his best - it's still good though.



And now we move into Chips, the rival comic to Whizzer!



Pongo Snodgrass is a weird strip about the world's worst smelling kid, illustrated by none other than Ian Knox, who, come to think of it, drew quite a few weird strips.



The Krazy Gang follows this, a great two-page adventure in brilliant Chip-ite blue.




This is followed by Run Rogan Run, or Rogan Runs Again, as it was known by this point. I don't know who the artist for this strip was, although this episode is signed. I can make out a 'masip 80' I think, and the 80 stands for 1980 of course, but does anybody know the artists name?




This is followed by a two-page episode of Terry Bave's politically incorrect strip The Slimms. I very much doubt something like this would appear today, it would probably be deemed as inappropriate, although really it's all good humour.




Moving back into Whizzer, and the last strip I'll show is Sid Burgon's Joker, which appeared in glorious full colour on the back page.



4 comments:

Peter Gray said...

Maisy I think is the name..

Whizzer and chips was at its best at this time..krazy comic joining really made Whizzer and chips special..

Andy Boal said...

It's Masip. The identity has baffled me since the 1970s.

That's a genuine Colin Whittock Lazy Bones.

George Shiers said...

I didn't think it was Misty - I can definitely see a Masip though. Maybe the artist signed his/her full name on one of the strips?

STEPHEN ARCHER said...

The two Slimms stories here were originally published in Cor on 21/4/73 and 5/8/72. Earlier this year I compiled a list of the reprint dates compared to W&C’s reprints at the British Library. Good job too as they’ve got a lot problems right now, as you may have heard. Could provide you with the full list if you wish; assuming you’re interested I can tell you 122 out of 129 stories were reprinted in all, the last being in a sense ‘back to the square one’!