welcome and enjoy!

Hi and welcome to my blog about comics from other people’s childhood! It is dedicated primarily to British humour comics of the 60s and 70s. The reason they are not from my childhood is simply because I didn’t live in the UK back then (nor do I live there now). I knew next to nothing about them until fairly recently but since then I’ve developed a strong liking for the medium and amassed a large collection, including a number of complete or near complete sets. My intention is to use this blog as a channel for sharing my humble knowledge about different titles, favourite characters and creators as I slowly research my collection.

QUICK TIP: this blog is a sequence of posts covering one particular comic at a time. The sequence follows a certain logic, so for maximum results it is recommended that the blog is read from the oldest post up.

Copyright of all images and quotations used here is with their respective owners. Any such copyrighted material is used exclusively for educational purposes and will be removed at first notice. All other text copyright Irmantas P.



Thursday, December 8, 2016

THE CHRISTMASES OF SWEENY TODDLER – PART ONE




Sweeny Toddler the infamous demonic baby first appeared in the first issue of SHIVER AND SHAKE in March 1973. The paper lasted for less than two years, so there was only enough time for one X-mas episode of Sweeny Toddler. Script and artwork by Leo Baxendale:


SHIVER AND SHAKE was merged into WHOOPEE! in October 1974. It sounds quite surprising, but Sweeny didn’t make a straightforward leap to the new combined comic. It had to prove its strength by participating in a poll: WHOOPEE! editor selected 8 strips and invited readers to vote in a Pick-A-Strip competition that ran in the Autumn of 1974. Sweeny was declared victor in WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER & SHAKE cover-dated 22nd March, 1975, and his regular appearances recommenced a week later. This means that Sweeny Toddler would have missed the X-mas of 1974 even if WHOOPEE! hadn’t been affected by industrial action in the end of that year and the X-mas issue of the paper  had been published (WHOOPEE! missed the last week of 1974 and the first two weeks of 1975).

Leo Baxendale stopped drawing Sweeny Toddler in June 1975, and was succeeded by the excellent Tom Paterson who imitated Mr. Baxendale’s style very well indeed. Here are the next three festive episodes from the 1975, 1976 and 1977 X-mas issues of WHOOPEE! :




Come back soon for more X-mas stories featuring the little pest!

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

X-MAS EPISODES – GUESS WHO??



Regular followers of KAZOOP!! know that @ about this time of the year this blog has the fine tradition of running a series of X-mas episodes of a landmark UK comics character… I have covered Frankie Stein, Buster, Faceache and Scream Inn so far. 

Any guesses who I might show this year? If you want some hints, the character enjoyed one of the longest runs in UK comics; created by Leo Baxendale, it started in Shiver and Shake, rose from the ashes in the pages of Whoopee! and eventually migrated to Whizzer and Chips. I have made it a really easy guess for you, haven’t I? :)

Do come back soon for the quite obvious answer - I won't take long with my next article because I don't like blogposts without illustrations (like this one). 

P.S. -  having checked the statistics of KAZOOP!! over the recent two or three months I was genuinely surprised to discover that the vast majority of regular visits come from the USA and... Russia.  I'd be delighted to hear from my readers over there and learn more about their interest in UK comics! Unless you are some disappointing  bots, of course...

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – SMILER




The series of guest appearances of fellow-Whoopee! characters in Scream Inn concludes with an episode featuring Smiler – the boy with a permanent smile. Drawn by Nick Baker, the character first appeared in 1976 in Whoopee! issue No. 102 (March 6, 1976) and ended in 1983 in issue No. 475 (June 25, 1983 – the last one before WHOOPEE! absorbed WOW!). 

Here is the two-pager, followed by the episode of Smiler from the same issue of WHOOPEE! Note how Brian Walker credited Nick Baker in the opening panel of Scream Inn. Quite unusual, isn't it? 



Scream Inn is a great strip and one of my favorite ones in British comics so I will surely return to it in the future…

Thursday, November 10, 2016

THE MOONSTERS COVERS OF SPARKY - PART TWELVE



Here comes the twelfth and final part of SPARKY Moonsters covers gallery that I started back in May earlier this year. The final appearance of The Moonsters on the front cover of SPARKY was in issue No. 139 (Sept 16th, 1967).










Starting from issue 140, The Moonsters were given the back cover again, ousted from the front page by what is now perceived as the politically incorrect version of Sparky the character. Check out front and back covers of SPARKY issue No. 140:


The Moonsters continued to feature on the back page of the comic until issue 199:


Sunday, October 30, 2016

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – TOY BOY




Whoopee’s own favorite Toy Boy visited Scream Inn in Whoopee! issue cover-dated August 28th, 1976. As always, two pages of Scream Inn by the ever-excellent Brian Walker are followed by the episode of Toy Boy from that same issue. The artist is of course Terry Bave.

Now there’s only one installment of this series left in the pipeline. Can you guess who the star-guest might be? :) 

Blogger is still treating me poorly because the list of my favourite blogs that used to show on the right-hand side of this page is still missing and I have no idea how to restore it. I tried doing it manually but it still didn’t work. I find it quite annoying as I can’t conveniently visit my friends’ sites whenever I check in here. Any ideas how to fix this??