Great news inside for all readers

[kiwijohn]

Hi all,

Those of us who read UK comics as they came out will understand the mixture of curiosity and dread these headlines on the front cover of a comic would stir. So, in memory of those days, here is some 'Great News' for you all. These pictures show the merger of Whizzer and Chips with Knockout in June 1973. Aside from the front cover headline and the full page announcement/advertisement for the merged comic there were also editorials in the Whizz-Kids and Chip-ites sections of the comic.

I have a few more of these kind of announcements scanned too, and if other posters here have any other examples they'd be great to see too.

[kiwijohn]

The editorials from "Whizzer" and from "Chips" in the 23 June 1973 per-merger issue.

[kiwijohn]

The editorials from "Whizzer" and from "Chips" for 30 June 1973, the first merger issue.

"incorporating Knockout" remained on the comic's masthead until the October 1974 5th birthday issue of Whizzer and Chips.

[Digifiend]

Note for next time: you can crop the extra white space out using any image editor - even Microsoft Paint can do the job.

Whizzer and Chips launched in 1969, so that was the 5th birthday issue, not 4th. Did you realise the file names of all your attachments have the wrong year? lol

[kiwijohn]

@Digifiend, thanks for the tip. I wondered how to get rid of the white, since the whole point of the page cropping in the first place was make the file smaller...

Yes, I know the dates are wrong, I got the merger year wrong initially, the information is correct, even if the actual jpg file names aren't (I didn't realise the jpg file names showed up in the actual post either...or i would have corrected them). I should have taken a bit more time before I posted everything.

And yes, Knockout disappeared from the masthead on Whizzer and Chips' 5th birthday issue,

[steelclaw]

Have a look at my Knockout site.

http://knockoutcomic1970s.blogspot.com/ ... ckout.html

[toxteth o'grady]

See this page for one of the rare occurrences where "Great News..." didn't appear on the front cover.
http://home.btconnect.com/thetopper/cracker_covers.htm

[Niblet]

See this page for one of the rare occurrences where "Great News..." didn't appear on the front cover.
http://home.btconnect.com/thetopper/cracker_covers.htm

I think as the 70s progressed, editors realised that kids were wise to the fact that 'Great news inside, Pals!' may not actually be that great if your fave strip is one that's dropped, so they began using different approaches. In the case of Cheeky Weekly, the cover of the final issue had a 'What's going on?' teaser on the cover. However, as you point out on your site, in the case of Cracker they simply didn't mention it at all on the cover, which seems rather odd, but those more knowledgeable about these things will probably tell me of other such cases.

Going back to your earlier posts in this thread - I always associate Joker and Sammy Shrink with Whizzer and Chips, so it's good to be reminded that they appeared in Knockout (and without googling, I think Sammy Shrink appeared even earlier than Knockout - someone will no doubt remind me of the details).

Please post more of these, Toxteth. I've posted elsewhere on the forum a message from the Buster editor that was printed a few weeks after Monster Fun merged into it, acknowledging that some MF readers weren't happy about the loss of their comic. That's the only time I've ever seen a comic admit that not everyone is ecstatic when a merge takes place.

[Peter Gray]

Great idea for a topic..
Whoopee and Wow was a fine merger...But Whoopee merging into Whizzer and chips I didn't like at all..loved Whoopee comic..

[stevezodiac]

Sammy Shrink originally appeared in Wham! or Smash!, I have the very first strip somewhere.

[kiwijohn]

@Steelclaw, yes, I discovered your Knockout site from your signature a while ago, I enjoyed perusing it immensely. I have all the various Whizzer and Chips issues with Knockout on the cover, so if you'd like scans of the covers you don't have, or any info about their contents, do give me a PM.

@Peter Gray, I have scans of the Whoopee/Shiver and Shake merger, (from the Whoopee side). I vaguely remember Whoopee and WOW, but I wasn't actively following the humour comics by then. I think I do have a copy of the first Whizzer and Chips and Whoopee around somewhere, I'll have a hunt for it.
I loved Whoopee too, I have the first two years worth 1974-1976 and I still love them. I'll have to look again at the pre/post S/S merger issues, see if i can venture an opinion about that merger. I bought some Shiver & Shake issues off TradeMe a while ago, and found them really tedious. I think Ken Reid's pages were the only thing worth keeping out of them... mind you, Shiver and Shake bored me when I was a kid too.
I agree with your observation about the quality of some mergers, I reckon Whizzer and Chips certainly benefited from Knockout for example; and I'll argue with anyone that the Crunch was better than Hotspur at the time they merged

@Toxteth, that was an interesting last issue cover of Cracker, funny how the info was still inside though. Off the top of my head I think Scream and Tammy may have been similar cases (I don't have copies of those though, that's just what I recall from internet reading).
EDITED to note (as we figured out in another thread of mine) that Tammy and Scream were cancelled during a strike at IPC in 1984, so presumably a merger hadn't been planned beforehand, hence the lack of a "great news, readers".

[Peter Gray]

Shiver and Shake really was good for Whoopee..also Cheeky..and Wow..
Whoopee had great mergers..

Whizzer and Chips did really well out of Krazy..
Buster did well out of Jackpot..
also loved the Buster and Monster Fun Holiday specials..a real hit..

[stevezodiac]

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Just noticed tomorrow is my 5th anniversary on comics uk forum.

[colcool007]

[quote="kiwijohn]... and I'll argue with anyone that the Crunch was better than Hotspur at the time they merged ...[/quote]
As a Crunch fan, I'll go with that, but Hotspur did have some really good series over the years V for Vengeance and Flying Fury to name but two.

[big bad bri]

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just wondering how many issues did mad actually last and was the us vesion different to the uk version as i found a few in my cupboard the other day which i can not remember buying at all although i did buy the odd one depending on the film parody when i was a kid.