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First Issue: | 1/5/1971 | |||||
| Last Issue: | 25/9/1971 | ||||||
| Copyright: | IPC Magazines Ltd | ||||||
| Genre: | Boys | ||||||
| Incorporated Titles: | |||||||
| Incorporated By: | Buster | ||||||
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| Covers | Characters And Stories | First Issue | Memory Lane | Annuals | ||
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Throughout British comic history there have been many short-lived titles which have gone on to become very collectable. Jet falls quite nicely into this category, with its first issue getting released on the 1st May 1971 and its final issue on the 25th September 1971, a run of just 22 issues before it got incorporated into Buster. Many of these 'brief-run' titles were no more than 'test-beds' for new artists, writers and stories, with the best later getting incorporated into a longer established publication a few months later. Some of Jet's most popular stories were "Von Hoffmann's Invasion", Leo Baxendale's "Kids Of Stalag 41" and the master of the grunge, "Face Ache" by Ken Reid. Every issue of Jet consisted of 40 pages with colour on the front, back and the two centre pages. The first issue had a free gift of two Trebor chewy bars and its first story was Von Hoffman's Invasion - At the end of the Second World War the Nazi war machine was heading towards disaster and they were seeking any assistance from their own scientists. Doktor Von Hoffman was one such man and he had developed a giant armoured centipede that was able to slither across any terrain and obstacle and then use its flame-thrower to destroy it. The test went well until a British R.A.F. squadron was flying over the area and saw what was going on. A ferocious attack ensued and the centipede was destroyed. Hoffman was livid and swore revenge on Britain. The war ended and Hoffman was sentenced to 25 years for his war-crimes, of which he served. Upon his release, he returned to his 'undisturbed' laboratories and started working on a plan he had been dreaming up for the past quarter of a century. After many nights work he had succeeded. He had developed a gas that, when absorbed by any living creature, would grow in size by many fold but more importantly, the creatures would be able to understand commands issued by Hoffman. The scientist then headed for Britain, on the back of a giant eel, to start his revenge. Over the weeks we saw him spraying his gas on many creatures including wasps, frogs and the family mutt. His nemesis came in the shape of two young brothers, Joey and Barry Drake, who knew his secret and who had stumbled on an insecticide which was able to shrink his giant creatures. This story lasted all the way through to issue #22 and managed to survive the incorporation into Buster. |
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The Sludgemouth Sloggers was a zany story set in the British seaside resort of Sludgemouth. A town that was just a few miles away from the boom resort of Brighthaven - a town where the sun never went down. Unfortunately for the residents of Sludgemouth, their town was in a cruel geographical location, where the valley of the River Sludge was just one big rain-trap. The youngsters left at the earliest opportunity, the Town Hall had leaky roofs and hotels were closing down all too regularly. Prospects were not looking too promising, until Ted Larkin, Secretary of the Entertainments Committee, came bursting in to a Council meeting with his saviour idea. He had entered Sludgemouth for the What-A-Lark competition. The wacky world cup for holiday resorts, with a top prize of £50,000. The motion was agreed and the committee set about assembling a team of people with 'special' skills who were willing to represent their town. They inducted Knocker Smith the postman who had excellent balance; Arfur Wurzel who invented unusual games; Charlie Anvil the strongman and PC Flipper Finn the excellent swimmer who, because of Sludgemouth's climate, didn't walk his beat, he swam it! The Wacky World Cup consisted of qualifying rounds where the winners would go forward into the European Zone finals. For those of you who remember the TV show, It's A Knockout, the games of the W.W.C. were of a similar vein and I can only imagine what the writers were drinking as they thought of some of these. The story was fast-paced with some excellent supporting cast members. In fact the story was so popular, it survived the merger into Buster. |
 Partridge's Patch was a police story set in the peaceful little market town of Barnleigh. Inspector Brindle had just been transferred from the city and set about making this 'back-water' police force into the most efficient in the area. Unfortunately for him, big-city practices didn't always work as well in the country, sometimes local knowledge, habits and ways-of-life were the order of the day. This is where P.C. Tom Partridge and his dog Feller come in. Tom was born and bred in the area, and when crimes were committed he used his knowledge of country wild-life, the country code and the tracking skills of Feller to solve all the cases, often at the annoyance of Inspector Brindle. Brindle slowly came round to realising that policing the country was sometimes very different to policing the city. The story was also one of those, along the lines of Zip Nolan, that challenged you to find the clues that helped Partridge solve the crime, although these clues were |
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| Sergeant's Four was set during the Second World War and told the story of a unique four man commando unit who first got together after the Germans had stolen the Bulldog Banner flag. This highly treasured British flag was seen at Waterloo, The Crimea and South Africa and was now in the hands of the Germans who were using it as a table-cloth! The uniqueness of this team was due to it consisting of four Sergeants, one from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales and that there was no leader as such. Englishman Alfie Higgs was a cockney whose background seemed to have been associated with thieving, dodgy-dealings and some clever scheming; Scotsman Jock McGill always carried his bagpipes around with him and played them whenever he could, which pleased the other three; Irishman Paddy O'Boyle was the strongman of the outfit and always seemed to have a pot of Irish stew on the go; Welshman Taffy Jones was an ex-miner who also made his own explosives. Each week they would be sent on different missions using their natural skills and inspirational thinking to defeat the enemy. This story lasted until the final issue of Jet but did not make the transition over to Buster. |
Set during the Second World War, Leo Baxendale's The Kids Of Stalag 41 occupied the coloured centre pages and revolved around a German P.O.W. camp, whose prisoner were the sons of Britons who had been living in France when it had been over-run. It starts off when ex-Panzer division Kommander Schtink - nicknamed Stinky, becomes the new camp Kommandant. He wants to make this camp the most disciplined of them all so that he can get back to the fighting forces. However, he hadn't reckoned on five of the British lads attempting to escape at every given opportunity. The storyline was on-going, which was slightly unusual for a humour strip, but very well received. The gang of five consisted of Winston, the leader; Judge Jenkins, the brains; Dinger Bell - the ideas boy; Muscles Miller - the strongboy; Nipper Long - tall and thin and Blabber Briggs - the nasty informer. Each week saw the boys getting Stinky into trouble in front of senior officers, trying to escape or doing 'their bit' for the war-effort. The story was very popular and easily survived the transfer over to Buster. In fact, it took over the coveted coloured centre pages. |
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Paddy McGinty's Goat starts off in the Irish town of Boggymorra when young Paddy McGinty was helping his Uncle Shamus farm his turnips. After a while Paddy starts to make his way home through a forest when, from out of nowhere, a lurid shadowy shape appears in front of him. The shape tells Paddy not to be afraid and revealed that he is not of this world and came from the planet Ven. He also made it known that he had the ability to change shape into anything, including the animal in the nearby field, a goat. As the story progressed, Paddy travelled to England to stay with his uncle Mick with the goat in tow. When he settled down he joined a new school and made a fateful enemy in the shape of Tug Grimes. Tug and his gang were always getting Paddy into trouble, only for the space creature, who went by the name of Goat, to come to the rescue in a variety of animals and insects. The story made it to the final issue of Jet, but did not survive the incorporation with Buster. |
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Millionaire Hiram X. Spendcash had offered a prize of £100,000 to the winner of a round-Britain race for unusual cars, and so was born the story Crazy Car Capers. These drivers were not allowed to use conventional fuels to propel their vehicles. So the starting line had assembled upon it steam-powered, clockwork, gunpowder and sailing cars. |
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There were seven drivers in all, with four from each of the home countries, and one from China, Greece and Arabia. Each driver was as devious as the other and they all plotted ways of destroying or diverting the others. The English competitor, Bulldog Brown, drove the steam-powered Rosie and whenever he schemed a disaster, he would always try to factor in the time it took to play a round of golf; Mac Mactavish drove Sporran the car shaped like bagpipes and running on compressed air; Dai Williams drove his plant powered Daffodil; Paddy O'Toole drove his firework powered Shamrock; Guppenopulus drove his soap-flake fuelled car; Cheng Li drove his sail-car and Abdul Zorang competed in his clockwork vehicle. As the story went along, the three non-Brits plotted against the four Brits, while the four Brits schemed against themselves. In the end all the cars got destroyed, the three non-brits feared for their lives and fled, but Bulldog came up with an idea which was agreed by everyone. The finishing line was crossed by just one car, but it comprised of bits of all four. A happy ending and one which meant that this story never made it over to Buster. |
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Adare's Anglians was an excellent little football story that kicked off during England's final World Cup qualifying match against Sweden. With England needing just a draw to qualify for the finals an injury-time own goal sees to it that they have to wait another four years. However, all was not lost for the English supporters, because far away in the Atlantic Ocean stood an almost forgotten island. An island whose population had been founded by the British over three hundred years ago. The grey granite island of New Anglia. News of their Motherlands defeat had reached them and they had decided to do something about it. The islander's leader, Mr Adare, managed to secure a place in a World Cup qualifying group that consisted of Spain, France and Portugal. Little was known of this island and its people, so the Daily Clarion newspaper reporter, Pete Sanders, flew out to investigate. He revealed that the islanders were a throwback to Victorian times and their football was from the same era. Old fashioned boots, long shorts and rugby type jerseys were the norm and their rules of the game had also remained dormant. They also bowed after scoring a goal instead of all that kissing and hugging. The qualifying stage was fraught with problems, including a devastating earthquake on their home island, but the New Anglians’ miraculously won the group and qualified for the World Cup Finals. They lost their first match to Holland but managed to beat both South Korea and Mexico to qualify for the quarter-finals against Yugoslavia. After clawing back from 2-0 to 2-2, extra-time was played and the New Anglians were 4-3 victors. The reward was a semi-final clash against Italy and again injuries were prevalent, but again the team won through, this time 3-2 and a World Cup final against Brazil was the reward. After going 1-0 down yet again the islanders made the score level and this is what happened in the final page . This story never made the transition to Buster. Jet was the birthplace of Ken Reid's famous creation, Ricky Rubberneck, better known as Faceache, the boy of a thousand faces and master of the scrunge. Click here to see his first ever appearance. Ricky gave the reason for his uncanny ability as "being born with a bendable bonce". In his Jet days, he used his 'bendable bonce' to get something that either wasn't his or to gain some extra pocket money. He would invariably come a cropper but sometimes he would come out on top - which was nice. Although he was the inventor of scrunging, this term to describe his face gurning did not materialize during his Jet years. In fact, Ken Reid always used to refer to Faceache's contortions as scrunching and it was the IPC staff that changed it to scrunging (thanks to Dez Skinn for that snippet). In the Jet comics the first time the word scrunch was used was in issue dated 31st July 1971 (#14) and scrunge was only ever used during his Buster days. I'd be interested to know when scrunge was first coined. Faceache easily made the transition into Buster and became one of IPC's superstars. |
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Kester Kidd was a young shepherd boy that lived near the same village as ex-Olympic champion athlete Barney Grumshott. Barney was cycling home with a 'new-fangled' TV set on tow, when a stray ram ran across his path and forced him to brake so heavy that the TV set was sent spawling across a quarry. As he got to his feet, he was confronted by Kester who apologised for ole Boney and set off to retrieve the 'property'. To do this, he had to jump across the 30 foot gap to get to the other side, which he did with ease, and then he ran around the quarry, pushing the TV set, in an incredibly fast time. Kester then proceeded to pole-vault alongside a tree to rescue a cat and run to and from his farm in the time it took Barney just to cycle down the road to his home. Barney couldn't believe his luck and immediately offered to make Kester into the "greatest athletic all-rounder in history!" It was while they were out training for the decathlon that they crossed the path of their future adversary. Kester threw a javelin so far over a hill that it hit a passing car that was being driven by the Sports Director of the Republic Of Spotzania, Doktor Mutter. In the car with him was the Magnificent Superbo, his nations prized, but dim-witted, athlete. A challenge to run a cross-country mile was hastily arranged and Kester won it with ease. The Doktor was devastated and plotted a way of destroying Kester. Barney and Kester managed to get a groundsman and waiter jobs inside a snobbish athletics club where they came across the club owners nephew, Basil Hackynge-Corffe. Although he was a good athlete, he was extremely snobbish, and he got even more annoyed after Kester inadvertently beat him in the 100 metres and long jump while carrying a drinks tray. This was how the story continued, with both Mutter and Basil plotting ways to halt the progress of Kester. These plots included sucking him up in a vacuum chute while he was running a marathon; a sabotaged pole; a magnetic ray-gun; an electrified javelin; dumping them on a tropical island and eventually Australia, where he made more jealous enemies. The story concluded with both Kester and Barney buying a sheep farm in Australia and leaving the world records for someone else to achieve. This story seemed to have a premature ending and it never made it into the new Buster And Jet comic. |
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Bertie Bumpkin was a simple man who tried to help everyone, but because he wasn't too bright, he often created havoc doing so. However, this havoc usually had positive consequences and Bertie ended up rewarded. The writer of the story would always use 'country' slang with a 'key-number' beside it. The key was at the bottom of the page, but that word was also 'country' slang, so it didn't help out really. Maybe that was the joke! For many weeks Bertie appeared in colour on the back page and he managed to survive the transition over to Buster. |
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Bala The Briton was set in a time long, long ago (about the 7th or 8th century) and the story starts in the middle of a very stormy sea, with the great warrior Haral being swept away and presumed drowned. Haral's son Bala, who is also on the ship, takes command of the remaining men. When the storm subsides, the wrecked ship drifts towards land and they are taken as prisoners where they spear-head battle after battle for two years. Bala has a dream where a War-God tells him to seek his father and warns him that he is about to meet 'dangers never before seen by mortal man'. Eventually, an escape chance presents itself as a ship comes adrift, and the men cease it. This venture leads to meetings with a wise old man known as The Roon and a giant man known as The Grull who demands that this small band of men build him a ship to escape 'this accursed rock prison'. A few months passed when The Roon tells them of a perilous escape plan. The men accept it and they head for the underground jungle which is beset with huge reptilian creatures and living trees. When they escaped this jungle they got confronted with soldiers that rose from their graves and a Plunder God called Orm. Giant leeches, giant bubbles, venomous spiders, fire dragons, lightning spears and demons all greeted Bala and he survived them all. He eventually found his father, who had become a slave to the ape God Og, and rescued him and many others. They were returned to their own land and Bala's quest was over. This story finished in the final issue of Jet. Carno's Cadets was set on Haley Island off the south coast of England. An advanced section of the Redburn School Cadet Force, led by maths teacher Captain Horatio Brown, had arrived on the island and were preparing to establish a camp on Haley Moor before the rest of the cadet school arrived. Australian-born Fred Carno took the cadets seriously while the others larked around. As they marched towards the moor Captain Brown slipped off the hillside and broke his leg and suffered concussion. The cadets radioed the mainland for help and a helicopter arrived and rescued the Captain. That night, fat little Duffy Lewis saw a massive ball of light fall out of the sky and crash into a nearby hill. Lewis set off to investigate it and discovered that this ball of light was in fact a spaceship and he was grabbed by a massive robot. He managed to escape the robots clutches and alerted the rest of the cadets. Lance-Corporal Carno ordered a radio message to be sent to the mainland to explain what had happened and they actually believed him. An air-attack ensued but the aliens had erected a force field over the whole island and the missiles simply bounced off it. The land-based commander simply gave the order that it was up to the cadets to defeat the aliens. The townsfolk had all been subjected to a massive hypnotic ray and were taken prisoner. All that was, except for WW1 veteran and museum curator, Gabriel Gudgeon, who kept reminiscing about his time in WW1. The aliens attacked the islands top security prison and freed all the inmates. Some of whom boarded the spacecraft and were soon used to attack the cadets. The cadets had to face spiders that weaved giant webs; the fork of shivering doom; laser pistols and atom bombs. All of which the cadets overcome. They destroyed the islands force field and eventually the alien 'brain' that was controlling the robots. They were awarded the highest military honours that Britain could bestow. The story lasted right up to the final issue of Jet and went no further. |
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The Dwarf was the self-labelled 'King Of Crime', who stole from the rich and kept it for himself. However, the 4-foot high criminal, did not steal for profit, he simply enjoyed the thrill of the chase. His whole existence revolved around disguise and gadgetry. His hideout was in a fake block of luxury flats in a London suburb. This 8-storey building, called Gallows Court, hid his enormous workshop. The Dwarf's arch-enemy was the highly decorated, conqueror of crime, Police Superintendent Smarmy. And the Dwarf got immense pleasure from conducting all his crimes right under the nose of P.S.Smarmy, especially as he always publicly announced what crime he was about to commit. His main mode of transport were life-like mechanical figures, which the Dwarf easily controlled from the inside. After each publicly executed crime, his fan-base would grow and the same rate as P.S.Smarmy's anger. On one occasion, Smarmy got called into conduct interviews of all the tenants of Gallows Court, but the Dwarf had seen to it that each flat contained just one room, and they all had their own mechanical figure inside. Each figure also had a built-in voice modulator. Sometimes he would catch other criminals and embarrass Smarmy even further. An unusual ingredient to this story was that the Dwarf often spoke directly to the 'Jet readers', which sort of made you like him. Especially as P.S.Smarmy lived up to his name! Each week we would see some very clever contraptions, my favourite is the ingenious four-winged, four-tranversely-mounted engined aeroplane that could land on roofs. The Dwarf story lasted for 21 issues (it started in issue #2) and, surprisingly, never made the incorporation into Buster. |
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There were other short-lived stories throughout Jet's life. Bonehead was a dog that was always being sold from a pet shop, because each week he would destroy or annoy the new owners. He made irregular appearances. It's A Weird World started in issue #2 and lasted until the final issue. These one, and sometimes two, pages were a true-life illustrated text story detailing acts of heroism, strange encounters or historic events. Jest-A-Minute was Jet's joke section that consisted of a generous amount of illustrated gags, where each published entry received £1. Sometimes there were two pages worth of them in this 3p comic. Overall, the stories were typical of the era and once you read each of them in their entirety, they became far more absorbing. Jet is famous for introducing us to Ken Reid's Face-Ache and given us Leo Baxendale's 'Kids Of Stalag 41'. I particularly liked Adare's Anglians, a story I would not have known had existed if I hadn't researched for this overview - a pleasant surprise. Jet also asked the question of. 'Was Bertie Bumpkin to become a Billionaire three years later in the Whoopee comic?' Jet has become one of those collectable comics because of its short run, but they're not always readily available, even on eBay. Jet became the fifth incorporated comic into Buster on the 2nd October 1971 and so ended another 'Fleeting Fleetway'. |
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If you would like to add something to this overview of Jet, or write a story overview, let me know via the contact page - Al |
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