Cheeky and his Pin-up Pals: a gallery
Pin-up Pal: Cheeky (artist Frank McDiarmid), 22 October 1977
Central to the concept of Cheeky the comic was the huge supporting cast that populated Cheeky the character’s home town. Each issue of the comic was structured around the days of Cheeky’s Week, in which he would tread a familiar path around Krazy Town – delivering the newspapers, popping into the local newsagent, attending school and the Saturday morning movies – trading gags with all his buddies.
Over the course of Cheeky’s 117 issues, 31 of these colourful characters featured as back-page Pin-up Pals. To mark the cover date of the comic’s first issue, I’ve scanned the lot of them. I wonder how many of us cut these out posters and blu-tacced them to our bedroom walls. The collection serves not only as a lovely dollop of nostalgia, and testament to the incredible talent of artist Frank McDiarmid whose zany, irrepressible style is inseparable from our memories of Cheeky, but as a snapshot of the sense of humour, hobbies, stereotypes and attitudes which surrounded kids of the late 1970s. Some great, some not so great: from skateboards, TV and calculators to sexism and casual national stereotyping, it’s all here, chums!
Sadly the Pin-up Pals collection doesn’t cover the entire cast of Cheeky’s Week. The masterful curator-blogger of Cheeky, Niblet, has counted 87 named characters, listed here.
Pin-up Pal: Lily Pop (artist Frank McDiarmid), 18 February 1978
Pin-up Pal: Jogging Jeremy (artist Frank McDiarmid), 25 February 1978
Pin-up Pal: The Vicar (artist Frank McDiarmid), 11 March 1978
Pin-up Pal: Baby Burpo (artist Frank McDiarmid), 18 March 1978
Pin-up Pal: Buster the Busker (artist Frank McDiarmid), 25 March 1978
Pin-up Pal: Auntie Daisy (artist Frank McDiarmid), 1 April 1978
Pin-up Pal: Sid the Street-sweeper (artist Frank McDiarmid), 8 April 1978
Pin-up Pal: Louise (artist Frank McDiarmid), 15 April 1978
Pin-up Pal: Constable Chuckle (artist Frank McDiarmid), 22 April 1978
Pin-up Pal: Ursula (artist Frank McDiarmid), 29 April 1978
Pin-up Pal: Six-gun Sam (artist Frank McDiarmid), 13 May 1978
Pin-up Pal: Granny Gumdrop (artist Frank McDiarmid), 20 May 1978
Pin-up Pal: Posh Claude (artist Frank McDiarmid), 27 May 1978
Pin-up Pal: Do-good Dora (artist Frank McDiarmid), 10 June 1978
Pin-up Pal: Yikky-boo (artist Frank McDiarmid), 17 June 1978
Pin-up Pal: Bump-bump Bernie (artist Frank McDiarmid), 29 July 1978
Pin-up Pal: Libby (artist Frank McDiarmid), 5 August 1978
Pin-up Pal: Teacher (artist Frank McDiarmid), 12 August 1978
Pin-up Pal: Herman the Traffic Warden (artist Frank McDiarmid), 19 August 1978
Pin-up Pal: Petula (artist Frank McDiarmid), 26 August 1978
Pin-up Pal: Disco Kid (artist Frank McDiarmid), 16 September 1978
Pin-up Pal: Snoozin’ Susan (artist Frank McDiarmid), 23 September 1978
Pin-up Pal: Flash Harry (artist Frank McDiarmid), 9 December 1978
Pin-up Pal: Crunching Chris (artist Frank McDiarmid), 13 January 1979
Pin-up Pal: Baker’s Boy (artist Frank McDiarmid), 10 February 1979
Pin-up Pal: Square Eyes (artist Frank McDiarmid), 17 February 1979
Pin-up Pal: Dr Braincell (artist Frank McDiarmid), 24 February 1979
Pin-up Pal: Dan-Dan the Lavender Man (artist Frank McDiarmid), 3 March 1979
Pin-up Pal: The Commissionaire (artist Frank McDiarmid), 17 March 1979
Pin-up Pal: Uncle Hamish (artist Frank McDiarmid), 24 March 1979
In addition to the regulars of Krazy Town, Cheeky ran nine other Pin-up Pals featuring the stars of the comic’s standalone strips (drawn by other outstanding IPC artists). I’ve included scans of these wonderful creations too – not strictly part of the regular cast, some of them (Skateboard Squad, Calculator Kid and Paddywack) were residents of Krazy Town and did appear in Cheeky’s Week from time to time). Frustratingly, I’m missing one Pin-up Pal, that of Mustapha Million from the issue dated 5 November 1977. EDIT: Now complete - thank you Bruce Laing and Peter Gray!
Pin-up Pal: 6 Million Dollar Gran (artist Ian Knox), 29 October 1977
Pin-up Pal: Mustapha Million (artist: Reg Parlett), 5 November 1977; many thanks Bruce Laing for the scan.
Pin-up Pal: Calculator Kid (artist Frank McDiarmid), 16 September 1978
Pin-up Pal: The Elephant, from Elephant on the Run (artist Robert Nixon), 6 January 1979
Pin-up Pal: Disaster Des (artist Mike Lacey), 20 January 1979
Pin-up Pal: Paddywack (artist Jack Clayton), 27 January 1979
Pin-up Pal: Tub (artist Nigel Edwards), 3 February 1979
Pin-up Pal: Dad and Son, from Why, Dad, Why? (artist John Geering), 10 March 1979
Pin-up Pal: The Skateboard Squad (artist Frank McDiarmid), 31 March 1979
