History of British comics timeline: The 1980s

1980

The Beano celebrates its 2,000th issue.

Nutty is launched. It’s most memorable story, Bananaman quickly moves to the front page.

The first Judge Dredd annual is published. In 2000AD, Judge Death and Judge Anderson both appear as characters in the Dredd strip.

Speed comes and goes, merging into Tiger.

Mergers: Misty merges into Tammy. The Crunch merges into Hotspur. Penny merges into Jinty. Cheeky merges into Whoopee!

Doctor Who Weekly goes monthly

Buddy begins.

Smudge debuts in The Beano.

1981

A new version of Girl is launched.

The TV-themed Tops begins.

Mergers: Scoop merges into Victor. Jinty merges into Tammy. Hotspur merges into Victor.

The Nemesis the Warlock saga begins properly in 2000AD. The war also begins for Rogue Trooper while Judge Dredd battles an outbreak of Blockmania.

1982

High quality monthly Warrior begins. It is not especially war-like and features V For Vendetta, Marvelman (later Miracleman) and Laser Eraser and Pressbutton.

A new version of The Eagle begins. Dan Dare (or rather his great-great-grandson) appears as do the photo stories Doomlord and Joe Soap.

Judge Dredd fights the Apocalypse War.

Wow! begins.

Jackpot merges into Buster. Milly O’Naire and Penny Less merge with Buster’s Ivor Lott and Tony Broke strip (as the duo’s girlfriends) disappearing from the story in the late 1980s.

Cheeky merges into Whoopee!

The first Beano comic libraries (smaller, monthly comics, featuring one extended story) appear. Other comics follow suit.

1983

Nutty’s Bananaman gets his own TV series.

School Fun begins lessons (briefly).

Spike kicks off.

Mergers: Buddy merges into Spike. Wow! merges into Whoopee! (becoming Whoopee! and Wow!). Debbie (est: 1973) merges into Mandy.

Slaine goes into battle in 2000AD. Extra-terrestrial Skizz also debuts.

The galaxy’s greatest computer comic, Load Runner begins and ends after a short run.

What will happen next? Cliff Hanger begins in Buster.

1984

High profile horror comic Scream! begins and ends. It merges into Eagle. The Thirteenth Floor is amongst the stories to move across.

Champ begins.

The Ballad of Halo Jones begins in 2000AD (it ends in 1986). Female-led strips are still a rarity in the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. Nemesis is joined by the ABC Warriors in The Gothic Empire.

Mergers: TV Comic (est: 1951) switches itself off. Tops merges into Suzy. Tammy (est: 1971) merges into Girl. Spike merges into Champ. School Fun merges into Buster. School Belle is amongst those joining Buster.

Dennis’s pet pig, Rasher gets his own strip in The Beano (until 1988).

1985

Adult comic Viz featuring Roger Mellie the Man on The Telly, Billy The Fish and Sid the Sexist goes nationwide.

Whoopee! (est: 1974) merges into Whizzer and Chips. Warrior gives up the fight. Tiger (est: 1954) merges into The Eagle. Some strips move into Roy of the Rovers. Champ merges into Victor.

Judge Anderson gets a story of her own in 2000AD.

Nutty merges into The Dandy. Bananaman continues on TV until 1986 and continues to thrive in The Dandy. Bananaman appears in several of his own annuals in this decade too.

Ivy the Terrible debuts in The Beano.

Computer Warrior goes into battle in The Eagle.

Captain Britain Monthly, Hoot and Nikki all debut.

Beeb begins (and ends).

1986

The anarchic Oink! launches. ‘Edited’ by Uncle Pigg, stars include Pete and his Pimple, Burp The Smelly Alien From Outer Space and Hector Vector and his Talking T-Shirt.

Diceman, an RPG version of 2000AD runs out of luck quickly and ends.

Hoot merges into The Dandy. Cuddles and Dimples unite in one strip.

Captain Britain Monthly ends.

Warlord (Est: 1974) merges into Victor.

Calamity James begins in The Beano. Gnasher briefly goes missing in a high profile Dennis the Menace storyline. He soon returns with a litter of puppies including Gnipper. Gnasher and Gnipper now replaces Gnasher’s Tale as a story.

1987

Nipper begins then merges into Buster.

Zenith begins in 2000AD. Now ten years’ old, the comic adopts a more ‘mature’ approach.

The Dandy’s 50th birthday.

1988

Crisis, a more political and grown-up sister title to 2000AD begins featuring Third World War and The New Statesmen.

Deadline comic/magazine starring Tank Girl begins.

The Beano’s 50th birthday.

Mergers: Battle (est: 1974) merges into Eagle. Oink! merges into Buster.

1989

Nikki merges into Bunty. It’s Wicked! begins and ends.

The ‘original’ Dan Dare returns to The Eagle.

Fast Forward, a much-publicised TV-themed comic/magazine launches.

Whizzer and Chips (now struggling) celebrates its 20th birthday.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines including Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (amongst other things). He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He was also wrote the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars annuals as well as the 2015 Transformers annual.

History of British comics timeline: The 1960s

1960

Buster comic begins. The title character is originally described as ‘the son of Andy Capp’ although this is soon forgotten about.

Pre-teen girls’ comic/magazine Judy begins.

Corporal Clott enlists in The Dandy, just as National Service comes to an end. He serves the comic loyally until 1970.

1961

Winker Watson ‘the world’s wiliest wangler’ debuts in The Dandy.

The Dandy and The Beano both celebrate their 1,000th issues.

The Victor is launched.

Commando War Stories in Pictures is launched, later known as Commando. It is still going today.

June comic begins.

Send For Kelly (about an inept special agent) begins in The Topper.

1962

The Numskulls debut in The Beezer.

Valiant begins.

Film Fun (est: 1920) ends. Radio Fun (1938-61. merges into Buster) and TV Fun (1953-59) all end during this period.

1963

A Dandy-Beano joint Summer Special appears. The first separate Dandy and Beano Summer Specials appear in 1964.

The original Knock-Out ends. having started in 1939. The title is revived in the 1970s.

Swift merges into The Eagle.

The Hornet begins.

1964

Billy Whizz races onto the pages of The Beano.

‘Rollicking robot’ Brassneck debuts in The Dandy.

Girls’ comic/magazine Jackie is launched.

The Big One is launched, merging into Buster the following year.

Girl ends, after fourteen years, merging into Princess (1960-67). It is revived in the 1980s.

1965

Sparky comic ignites. Keyhole Kate (once of The Dandy) is amongst those appearing.

TV21 begins.

School Friend (est: 1950) merges into June.

1967

Bully Beef and Chips first clash in The Dandy.

Pup Parade, a canine version of The Bash Street Kids, arrives in The Beano.

The long-running Mandy begins.

Giggles starts. Like an actual giggle it only lasts briefly, merging into Buster in 1968.

TV Tornado comes and goes quickly, becoming absorbed by TV21 in 1968.

The Eagle is by now in clear decline. New Dan Dare stories stop appearing in the weekly comic.

1968

Dennis the Menace gets a new pet dog, Abyssinian wire-haired tripe hound, Gnasher

Twinkle is launched.

Jag is launched. It merges into another big cat, Tiger in 1969.

Buster’s Diary is replaced by Buster’s Dream World.

1969

‘Two-in-one, two times the fun!’ Whizzer and Chips launches with an unusual double-headed format. Sid’s Snake stars in Whizzer, amateur pugilist Shiner in Chips. Wear ‘Em Out Wilf, Champ and the long-running Odd Ball are all in the first issue.

Robin ends, after sixteen years. It was the most enduring of The Eagle’s sister titles.

After a decade of decline, The Eagle itself ends, merging into Lion. It is the end of an era.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines including Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (amongst other things). He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He was also wrote the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars annuals as well as the 2015 Transformers annual.

Comics of the Eighties: Whizzer and Chips

Whizzer and Chips was an unusual comic in many ways. For one thing, it had a strange dual status. Whereas Whoopee! and Wow!, another comic of the Eighties, was the result of two comics merging together, neither Whizzer and Chips had ever existed as separate entities (there was, in fact, a very old comic called Chips but this was wholly unrelated). Whizzer And Chips was always Whizzer and Chips from the moment it started in 1969 until right until the point it finally merged into the more enduring Buster in 1990.

“Two in one: two times the fun!” was the slogan. Although, in fact, no more pages in total than any other comic of the time, Whizzer, (although labelled ‘Whizzer and Chips’ on the cover, never just ‘Whizzer’) began from the first page onward, while Chips, in theory, a separate comic with its own title page, began about a third of the way in. Whizzer would begin again (with no real fanfare) at some point towards the end, something I didn’t even notice for a while as I assumed everything after a certain point was counted as Chips territory. I seem to remember the comic vaguely encouraged you to detach the Chips segment from Whizzer. I never bothered. At the same time, the two comics were “not to be sold separately”. I doubt anyone ever tried: they would have been two very short comics.

Incidentally, as I remember the annuals never had a separate Chips section. On the other hand, the short-lived comic library series would take turns being either Whizzer or Chips: never both. The annuals tend to look better on screen, incidentally, hence why I’ve mostly used them instead of images of the regular weekly comics here.

Although there was no real difference in the type of content provided by the stories in each section, a fierce rivalry was encouraged between the two comics. Readers who favoured Whizzer were known as “Whizz kids” while those who preferred the other bit were less attractively known as “Chip-ites”. I think I was both at different times although like everyone else I suspect, I always read both to get my money’s worth (Whizzer and Chips did, after all, cost 22p in 1984). Occasionally, one story would ‘defect’ from Whizzer to Chips or vice versa. Eagle-eyed readers could also try to spot “raiders” from the other comic on a weekly basis. For example, Sammy Shrink might appear in the background of the story, Fuss Pot.

The lead story in Whizzer was called Sid’s Snake (titter ye not!) about a boy who had a pet snake called Slippy. Shiner, the main story in Chips had an ever less promising premise, focusing on a boy called Shiner who repeatedly received ”shiners,” that is, black eyes.

As with many comic stories, I can only admire the ingenuity of anyone who could make such a flimsy premise endure, in this case, for over twenty years. Given a week to think up as many scenarios about a boy receiving “shiners” as I could, I think I would struggle to come up with even one. Yet the author or authors of Shiner must have come up with over a thousand. And who in the world has ever received multiple black eyes anyway? Surely his eyes would have been ruined? Shiner was, in fact, supposed to be an aspiring boxer. I suspect the strip rather glossed over the realities of boxing as a profession.

What other stories were there?

(I admit, I now have no idea which of these stories were in Whizzer and which were in Chips):

Joker: A boy obsessed with practical jokes. He always wore a buttonhole which squirted water at passersby. This story made me briefly obsessed with the idea of going to a joke shop. This was difficult as there were few of these anywhere by the Eighties, at least none that I could find. Certainly not in my hometown of Peterborough anyway.

Fuss Pot: One of the few girl characters. Began every sentence with “I am fussy about…” e.g. “I’m fussy about getting the right shoes”. This actually quickly grew tiresome both for the other characters but also for the reader, at least if the reader was me.  Like Joker and Sammy Shrink, she first appeared in the Seventies comic, Knockout.

Junior Rotter: A juvenile parody of J.R from the TV series, Dallas.

Sweet Tooth: A boy with one prominent tooth. He loved confectionery but was constantly being menaced by an obese bully known as Greedy Greg.

Pongo Snodgrass: A beautifully-named strip about a disgustingly rancid boy. I think this had ended by the time I started reading the comic (1984) but I remember him from the monthly Best of… anthologies.

Sweeney Toddler: Another great name for a story about a malevolent infant. Sweeney terrorised his family and dog Daft Henry. He spoke in a weird babyish fashion e.g. “Me’s having lots of fun today readers!”

He actually joined the comic from Whoopee! Which merged into Whizzer and Chips in 1985 but (Wikipedia tells me) had actually first appeared back in Shiver and Shake comic in 1973. He should really have been a teenager by the time I was reading.

Worldwide School: A weird one about a travelling international school presided over by a Mr Pickwick-style headmaster and peopled by a class of national stereotypes.

Lazy Bones: Fairly self explanatory. A very lazy boy.

Sammy Shrink: Again, a bit obvious. A tiny boy.

For whatever reason, I lost interest in being either a Whizz-kid or a Chip-ite by the time I reached secondary school age in the late Eighties. A lot of other children must have been the same, as the comic ended after twenty-one years in 1990. By that time I was so immersed in 2000AD, Viz, The Eagle and trying to produce my own comics with friends (as well as schoolwork obviously) that the comic I’d been so mad about when I was seven, died without me even noticing.

But let’s not forget it today, eh readers?