Whoopee!, cover date 4 September 1976

Whoopee! is the comic I most wish I’d read regularly as a kid. It had so many great characters who still make me SNORT! SNIGGER! CHUCKLE! today at the grand old age of CREAK! GROAN!

Including Bumpkin Billionaires, drawn here by Jimmy Hansen.

The Billionaires were obsessed with ridding themselves with an absolute pools-won fortune, but somehow always ended up with more than they started with. I wonder whether the ‘Cor! What a tiny rocket!’ joke was intended as a nudge-nudge adult gag.

By the way some sources say Mike Lacey was the Billionaires artist at this stage, but I *think* this is Jimmy ‘ghosting’ Mike’s style. It’s hard to be sure with the unsigned pages; I hope I’m right, but many apologies if I’m wrong.

Other favourites include Scared-Stiff Sam (I’m pretty sure this IS Mike Lacey) here representing plenty of Brits abroad, Frankie Stein (Bob Nixon) and his ‘dad’ who wants to kill him, Lolly Pop (Sid Burgon) and the demon baby Sweeny Toddler (Tom Paterson).

There’s an absolutely outstanding punch-up panel in that Frankie Stein strip, by the way, as Frankie accidentally PULVERISES, SMULVERISES and EXPUNGERISES his dad. Top, top comics.

Sweeny makes a second appearance in this week’s issue, doubling up with Smiler. Who has quite clearly been possessed by the demonic entity from the movie Smile. Comic art by Nick Baker.

There was a rich seam of fun-horror running throughout Whoopee!, especially since its merge with Shiver and Shake a couple of years previous. Evil Eye and Creepy Car (both Reg Parlett), Fun-Fear (Nixon) and Brian Walker’s brilliant Scream Inn were all spooky regulars.

And best of all was usually to be found on the back page: Ken Reid’s wonderful World-Wide Weirdies – a gorgeous piece of artwork produced once a week in response to a lucky reader’s suggestion. This week Matthew Knight of Merstham won £2 for The Frightening Lightning.