On this day, 5 June 1982: Wow! — GREAT NEWS FOR ALL READERS!

Jun 5

Jun 5 On this day, 5 June 1982: Wow!

On this day, 5 June 1982 … Wow! It’s another fantastic first issue day as IPC’s first new humour comic of the 1980s launched 34 years ago today. Wow! was just a little after my time so I’ve only discovered it in the last couple of years as a collector. It’s a good comic, packed with plenty of fun strips, puzzles and competitions. Stand-out stories include: Shipwreck School, about a class and their teacher stranded on a South Sea island, which would go on to become the comic’s regular front-page strip; Tom Paterson’s Team Mates, about a misfit team of park footballers; Spare-part Kit, about a young lad with a super-powered bodybuilder’s prosthetic suit; Barney’s Badges, about a boy with a collection of enchanted badges; Creepy Comix, about a boy with a collection of enchanted comics (from which the very first ghoul to escape appears to be the classic The Hand from Shiver and Shake); KBR – Kids’ Band Radio – a strip supplemented by a weekly-updated glossary of special KBR terms; and Adam and his Ants, about a boy with a collection of enchanted talking ants. Adam and his Ants is good fun – all the little ants make for some entertaining artwork – and when I first saw it it reminded me of the old Jiffy and the Glyphs stories that I read in The Topper when I was very young. But I’ve since realised that the story has a more direct influence. Come back to the blog tomorrow to find out what it is …

Wow!’s other most noteworthy aspect can be found in its centre pages. Can you guess what it is yet? The colour spread is devoted this week and for several weeks to come to celebrity artist and (now) convicted paedophile Rolf Harris, whose cartoon adventures in I’m Jake the Peg (‘… with my extra leg!’) and Rolf’s Magic Brushes are awkward to revisit today, to put it mildly.