Continuing with our Christmas comic covers selection, here's a few from one of the last long-running great humour publications to be released by IPC - WHIZZER & CHIPS. Ol' W&C lasted about twenty-one years before the plug was pulled and it was merged with BUSTER. One of my greatest thrills was when BOB PAYNTER (who was then group editor of the IPC Humour Dept) asked me - at the end of a busy day - to letter the SID'S SNAKE and SHINER strips on the respective covers of both sections of the comic when I was down in London on one of my regular visits back in the mid-'80s. After an eight or nine hour journey without sleep on a coach and then working for eight hours, I was probably too fatigued to do my absolute best, but they turned out okay. Anyway, soak up the atmosphere of these fab festive favourites from years gone by.
I must've lettered quite a few strips for Whizzer & Chips - in fact, my first published strip-lettering (CAP'N KID & THE PIRATES) for IPC appeared in the comic. It wasn't the first strip I lettered for IPC (that was a THARG'S FUTURE SHOCKS story for 2000 AD), but because of scheduling, the W&C one (which was the second one I worked on) appeared first. I remember once lettering a SAMMY SHRINK strip (drawn by TERRY BAVE) and being amazed at working on a character I had read as a child. And I'm sure I did quite a bit of lettering for Annuals and Summer Specials, plus I was a regular re-size artist on the W&C comic libraries. In fact, I remember seeing the very first issue of the regular title advertised in SMASH! back in 1969, and getting up about seven in the morning the following week to run over and buy it from the newsagents across the road.
Ah, if only it were still with us - as well as a long list of other comics.
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