Cracked

Some scans in this article contain racist caricatures.

Shortly after the closure of Buzz, D. C. Thomson decided to have another go at launching a new weekly humour comic for children. It would do things a bit differently from its immediate predecessor: whereas Buzz had been in A3 size, the new comic would be A4, allowing it to boast 32 pages of comics and features. Although it didn't have a regular cover star, instead featuring a large splash panel promoting the characters within, it would feature a character that did not really have a strip of his own, but rather served as the comic's host, not dissimilar to some titles by rival publisher Fleetway of the time. It would prioritise gags, and lots of them, and include several points of reader interactivity.

The first issue of Cracker was on the shelves in January 1975, just two weeks after the conclusion of Buzz, but this title was destined to have an even shorter run: just 87 issues, across twenty months.

I have an issue from just after the halfway point here, number #51, and -- along with some examples of stories that had already been phased out by this point -- I'm going to well and truly scan it in.

Buzz Words

In January 1973, D. C. Thomson launched a new weekly humour comic for children into a market that already looked pretty crowded; they were already producing the Beano, Dandy, Beezer, Topper and Sparky at the time, and to introduce a sixth comic into this mix seems ambitious. Like its stablemates the Beezer and Topper, Buzz was published in A3 size, making it twice the size of many other comics of the time, but this didn't mean it would be a big hit: just two years and 103 issues later, Buzz would become the publisher's first mayfly when it closed.

A mayfly which I am now about to pin and mount to the wall. (I don't think that's what you do with mayflies, but just go with it.) The issue I have scanned in is from just over halfway through its life, number #59.

Unplugged

No, it wasn't some weird dream you had, D. C. Thomson really did produce an entire comic based around the ultra-homely Bash Street Kid. Plug ran for just 75 issues between September 1977 and February 1979, after which it merged into the Beezer; its demise is often blamed on its considerable production values such as use of gravure painting, higher-quality paper, and more pages in technicolour than other D. C. titles, which made it almost twice as expensive as other comics of the time. (The paper used did seem to make this an easier scanning job, at least.)

Plug has been considered an attempt by D. C. to ape the style of the wackier comics published by rivals Fleetway (something they would later manage more successfully with Nutty), which probably accounts for the use of an existing D. C. character; many Fleetway titles had a character serve as the comic's 'host' (the most salient comparison being the eponymous Buster). I suppose the exact sequence of events that led Plug to be the lead is lost to time, but it's easy to imagine D. C. wanted the role to go to a pre-existing character, it made sense to promote a member of an ensemble, and Plug was the most distinctive character in that window.

The issue of Plug I have scanned in today to add to my growing collection of mayflies is one of the final ones -- the Christmas 1978 issue, number #67. So let's go!

Nip and Tuck

At the end of January 1987, Fleetway Publications launched what would be their last new humour anthology comic for children. Apart from being published on a fortnightly schedule, Nipper had a gimmick of being printed in A5 size, compared to the A4 used by every other comic at that point (allowing it to claim it contained 48 pages), and it continued this theme by having most of its strips feature protagonists younger than those of other titles.

Just six issues in, the 'pint-sized' ploy was dropped, and henceforth the comic would be printed in A4 size. Another ten editions on, and it would all be over -- the sixteenth and final issue was on newsstands before August was out, after which it met the fate of so many of its stablemates when it merged into Buster. Although it managed to squeeze in a Summer Special and even a Christmas annual, Nipper is the ultimate mayfly of its genre's short-lived titles. This is perhaps best summed up by the fact that there were nineteen issues of Buster branded as Buster and Nipper -- three more than Nipper itself.

Beyond being stuck with the dubious honours of being the final and shortest-lived Fleetway title of its kind, did Nipper retain any kind of legacy? It's time to scan in an entire issue and find out.

Fruitcake

Well, I've managed to get a Sabrina Carpenter reference into the title of a post about British humour comics from the 1980s, what more do you want?

Ahem. Nutty -- often described as D. C. Thomson's attempt to create a more anarchic comic, more like some of those published by rivals Fleetway -- racked up a pretty respectable run of 292 issues over five and a half years, and birthed one of D. C.'s most iconic characters of all time. In The Ultimate Book of British Comics, Graham Kibble-White dubs it "arguably the best-ever contender for becoming that elusive third 'big' humour comic", alongside the Beano and the Dandy. Even if its other characters were somewhat overshadowed by its cover star, many of them lasted for quite a while after the comic merged with the Dandy in September 1985, and of course Bananaman himself survived not only the closure of his original home, but also that of the Dandy in 2012, becoming the only strip from that comic to move to the Beano. (If the characters need to visit another town, or Beanotown United are playing a football game, then very often the scriptwriters will go for "Nuttytown".)

The issue we'll be dissecting today is number #49, hailing from January 1981; should it prove possible, it'll probably be worth scanning in one of the final issues to compare at some point down the line, but we are at the mercy of the big pile of comics in the local charity shop for that. But here we go.

B&T

In 1990, two of D. C. Thomson's remaining weekly humour titles, the Beezer (running since 1956) and the Topper (running since 1953) merged to form a publication which was called, not unreasonably, Beezer and Topper. The nature of the combined comic was a little different to other comics mergers -- usually the 'junior' title would merge into the 'senior' one, but these two titles got equal billing in a publication which was essentially considered a new comic in its own right, starting the numbering back at issue 1.

The Topper and the Beezer had arguably not moved with the times in the way D. C.'s other publications, the Beano and the Dandy, had, and this joining of forces saw several long-serving stories -- some of which had been running since the beginning -- get quietly retired. Amongst the stories not carried forward were Ginger, who had been the Beezer's cover star for some 28 of its 37 years, The Badd Lads, The Hillies and the Billies, Hungry Horace and Figaro, whilst several others would be retooled to better appeal to a modern audience, and a variety of entirely new strips also appeared.

Beezer and Topper would last for 153 issues and just under three years, and then both titles disappeared from weekly newsstands for good, although the Beezer Summer Specials and Christmas annuals would continue to be issued until 2002 (and the quarterly reprint titles The Best of the Beezer and The Best of the Topper until 1996 when they were supplanted by the all-purpose monthly Classics From the Comics); several of the 'legacy' characters moved over to the Beano and Dandy, but for others B&T would prove to be their last chance saloon.

The original plan here had been to scan in one issue from early in the run, to cover all the characters who'd crossed over from Beezer and Topper (some of them were phased out later on, whilst other new stories were chopped and changed). It wouldn't have been anywhere near as representative of the whole run as our look at Hoot was, and it'd probably have been worth scanning in one of the final issues later on to compare.

However, upon unearthing the issues in my possession I discovered that B&T had such a large roster of stories that most of them didn't appear every week, so I went for a different approach: from across five different issues, here's one example of each 'legacy' character, and a selection of notable strips that were unique to the merger.

Give a Hoot

Hoot was, to date, the final attempt by D. C. Thomson to launch a new weekly humour comic for children, and proved to be the shortest-lived of all their titles: it lasted for exactly one year and a total of 53 weekly issues (the first dated 26/10/85, and the last dated 25/10/86) before it was merged into the Dandy. So short was its run that the tagline "Britain's Bubbling New Comic!" was used for all its life. (A few titles by rival publisher Fleetway can claim an even shorter run; the record may be held by Nipper, which managed just 16 issues.)

Hoot is arguably the most obscure of all D. C.'s titles; not just because of its short run, but very few characters survived the merger and, as we'll see, its best-known star joined the Dandy in a rather unusual way. It was not featured in the publisher's reprint titles such as Classics From the Comics for a long time, although they eventually relented near the end of CFtC's run. (Plug was also excluded, but that at least had its wacky concept to make it memorable.)

Although a few new strips were added in the last few weeks (including one that only appeared in the final issue!), the comic's lineup was pretty static for its all-too-brief life, and you can get a pretty good sense of it just from one edition... so here we go. The issue I've scanned in is number 43, hailing from near the end (there would be just ten more instalments after this one).