A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: BENNY BENDO

Next in line is Benny Bendo – a humour strip about a lad who had a super-power to bend objects with his hypnotic glance. The illustrator was Phil Millar. Benny Bendo appeared in COR!! annuals and specials from 1978 until 1985.

It’s interesting to note how the editor experimented with the subtitle of the strip trying to find the perfect one: the opening episode was entitled Benny Bendo - His Hypnotic Glance Has an Amazing Effect on Things. The next two episodes in the 1979 Annual had two different versions of the title: one was Benny Bendo – His Hypnotic Glance Has Amazing Effect on Things, and the other one was Benny Bendo - His Uncanny Hypnotic Powers Bend Anything! A year later it was modified slightly to become Benny Bendo - His Uncanny Powers Bend Anything! Starting from the 1980 Holiday Special it became Benny Bendo - His Strange Powers Bend Anything. Apparently, the editor was satisfied with the version because it was kept until the very end (except that one or two episodes had no subtitle at all and were simply entitled Benny Bendo).

Here is an account of all Benny Bendo’s appearances:

1978 Annual (one episode of 4 pages). In fact it was a series of short adventures. Here are the first two pages:

Quite possibly the strip also appeared in the 1978 COR!! Holiday Special but I just don’t have a copy to check yet…

1979 Annual (two episodes, 4 pages each). The first episode was actually another series of short adventures. In the second Benny Bendo visits a Fun Fair. 

1979 Special (one episode of 2 pages). Benny Bendo goes to the seaside. Here is the full episode:

1980 Annual (one episode of 4 pages). Benny’s adventures in winter.

1980 Special (one episode of 4 pages). Benny goes on holiday to the lousy Mudsea Holiday Camp.

1981 Annual (3 episodes). Benny meets smash-and-grab raider Sam-the-Snatch (2 pages); Benny visits the Zoo (1 page) and Benny takes a winter holiday (4 pages).

1981 Special (one episode of 2 pages). Benny’s adventures on his uncle’s farm.

1982 Annual (one episode of 3 pages). Benny plays golf;

1982 Special (two episodes, two pages each). In the first episode Benny takes a day trip to the sea and entertains his mates in poor weather. In the second Benny goes fishing and meets a bloke who is swimming where it’s not allowed.

1983 Annual (2 episodes).  The first one is another winter fun episode in which Benny makes an artificial ski-run in the park (2 pages); in the second episode Benny  helps a family travelling by car (3 pages). Here's the second page of the first episode:

1983 Special (one 1-pager). Benny helps a lady get her dog back without paying a reward to the crook.

1984 Annual (one episode of 2 pages). Benny helps carol singers get a sledge for the children’s home:

1985 Annual (one episode of 2 pages). Benny helps catch a bank thief and then saves a Lord Lummy’s son and heir from the kidnapper.

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: SOLDIER SPOON

Soldier Spoon was a simple strip about private Spoon and his antics in the army camp. Suspiciously like Corporal Clot of the Dandy. 

Soldier Spoon appeared in 1975 and 1976 COR!! Summer Specials (4 one-page episodes in each) and in 1976, 1977 and 1978 COR!! Annuals (3, 4 and 4 episodes respectfully, all of them two-pagers). I don’t know the artist’s name.

First episode in COR!! 1975 Holiday Special

From 1978 COR!! Comic Annual

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: WILFRED THE WORLD'S WORST WIZARD

Wilfred the World’s Worst Wizard was a story that only appeared in COR!! annuals and was illustrated by Alan Rogers. The title says it all – the loony wizard’s spells usually went wrong and put him in trouble, most frequently with his wife. The scene of the Wilfred tales was set in Medieval times.

Here is a quick account of all Wilfred the Wizard tales:

1979 Annual: two 3-page episodes, one immediately after the other. Wilfred tries to get a job as a court wizard with one of the local kings but fails his audition; then he comes across a mean princess in distress whom he saves from the dragon and marries but soon comes to regret it.

Wiflred's first encounter with his future wife

1980 Annual: a 4-page episode (the only one with the short version of the title, Wilfred Wizard) in which Wilfred Wizard tries to help Peterkin find a wife to look after him and tidy his cottage.

1981 Annual: two 4-page episodes. In the first Wilfred Wizard tries to make the King’s sad-faced daughter (probably his wife’s little sister) laugh and win a reward of 100 crowns. For once he succeeds but only thanks to his clumsiness, not the magic. In the second episode (signed by the artist) Wilfred tries being a knight-errant but ends up on his usual night errand when his beefy wife refuses to move off her sofa to make him supper.

1982 Annual: one 4-page episode signed by the artist. Wilfred Wizard sparks a war between the King and his nasty neighbour Baron Wasteland. All turns out well in the end thanks to Wilfred’s spells that actually work but the King and his men still prefer to excuse themselves when the Wizard wants to demonstrate more of his tricks.

1983 Annual: two 4-pagers. In the first one the King makes Wilfred Wizard take the place of his knight whom the nit renders unfit for the jousting tournament. In the second tale (signed by the artist) Wilfred decides to make himself big and strong so that he can run all the errands and appease his mean wife. Here is the whole episode:

1984 Annual: two 4-pagers. In the first Wilfred goes to cut himself some wood to warm his chambers and brings home a dragon who is grateful to the daft wizard for (accidentally) lighting his fire with a Roman candle and saving his life. In the second episode Wilfred uses his magic to get a new cart so that he and his wife can make it to Aunt Griselda’s castle on time for lunch:

1985 Annual: two 4–page episodes, both signed by the artist. In the first story Wilfred joins the King’s court on their way to the picnic at the sea-side. When the tide washes the cart out to sea, Wilfred Wizard transports the King and his party home on an improvised flying carpet, without realising it is tartan cloth that will take them to Scotland. In the second tale Wilfred Wizard tries to please his wife and get her a bearskin coat like the one her sister has. The missus is in for a shock when Wilfred’s spell makes all of her clothes disappear leaving her bare-skin:

1986 Annual: two 4-page episodes, both signed by the artist. In the first tale Wilfred is the only one in the castle who is not ill with cold and succeeds in repelling the attack of the army of the King’s enemy Baron McBadd. In the last tale Wilfred tries his best entertaining auntie Groanface at the King’s banquet. It turns out he picked a cook book to learn his tricks from while the cook used Wilfred’s spell book to make his special soup that turned all the guests into frogs…

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: DR. WHAT AND HIS TIME CLOCK

Dr. What and his Time Clock was a comedy version of BBC’s Doctor Who. It was strange tale that appeared in just two COR!! publications but had quite an impressive page count nonetheless.

The strip premiered in the second COR!! Summer Special (the one published in 1972) and was 19 pages long. Dr. What invented a time clock, a time machine in effect. Dr. What could set the clock to any year and when the alarm went off, he was transported to the past or the future. In the first episode he visited 1664 and nearly prevented Isaac Newton from formulating his theory of gravitation because Dr. What caught the apple as it was about to fall on the scientist’s head. His next trip was to the future and the year was 2072. Dr. What accidentally got on a space bus and ended up on the Moon. There he discovered that the Moon was inhabited by Mooniks (some of whom were Moonatics), law and order was guarded by Policemoons, while the government was led by Prime Moonister. He fell off the Moon’s End and was taken prisoner by Martians who thought he was a spy. He got rescued by a Plutonian Pilot from the Planet Pluto. They escaped from Mars in the Plutonian’s flying cup but it took a direct hit from Martian anti-flying cup fire. Dr. What travelled back in time to 1972. From there he transported himself to the year 1026 where he met King Canute and then Neptune. He decided he’d had enough when he was invited to join Danish army on its way to conquer Norway. Dr. What was about to use the time clock and make his escape but the Danish general suspected he was a Norwegian spy trying to activate some secret Norwegian weapon and threw him overboard. Dr. What had to wrestle giant marine creatures to get his clock back. Finally, Dr. What saw a shore that he believed to be good old British soil. To his disappointment, he found himself in Calais. He accidentally set his clock off and ended up in 1789 when the French Revolution was still on. Dr. What tried his hand at being the Scarlet Pimpernel and nearly got himself guillotined. He managed to time-clock himself back to 1972 and lost his clock just before reaching the White Cliffs but promised to invent another one. 

Here are two sample pages from COR!! Summer Special 1972:

Dr. What was given a break of a year and reappeared in COR!! Annual 1974 as another 12-page epic. The daft inventor shows up at the Patents Office to patent his invention but the clerk doesn’t think much of it. Here are the the first two pages:

Offshore radio stations were officially outlawed in the UK 

in the late 60s. This confirms that the strip is a reprint.

Dr. What decides to go to the year 1492 - Columbus’ times. After a lot of trouble that he gets from a sword fish and a giant gorilla he spends a short time on board Santa Maria but is thrown overboard for knocking Christopher Columbus out with a mop. He reaches the shore and beats Columbus at the discovery of America. Dr. What becomes the Great Whiter than White Chief of Red Indians who also take him for a weather man. Things get complicated when Dr. What is unable to stop the rain and Red Indians decide to scalp him. Dr. What uses his time clock again to travel to America of the 20th century where he finds himself in the company of entrepreneurial Luke Backwards, chairman of Coyote County’s historical reference library. Here is how the story ends:

Dr. What also made a brief appearance in one of the two episodes of Jasper the Grasper in the 1974 annual illustrated by Trevor Metcalfe:

I am guessing that the three blokes behind the Gasworks Gang 

in the top right corner of the last panel may be 

portraits of IPC artists or editors. 

Does anyone know who they might be?  
UPDATE: Peter Gray has answered this for me in his comment: 
of course, they are the Goodies!

Something about reproduction quality and the way Dr. What stories are structured suggests the strip may be a reprint but if that’s the case, I don’t know where from. The name of the artist who illustrated the two long episodes of Dr. What and his Time Clock in COR!! Summer Special 1972 and COR!! Comic Annual 1974 is unknown to me but the artwork isn’t very impressive, IMHO.