comic title

 First Issue: 14th June 1975
Last Issue:  30th October 1976
Copyright: IPC Magazines Ltd
Genre: Boys And Girls Humour
Incorporated Titles:
Incorporated By: Buster
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In March 1973, IPC Magazines released their first ghoulish humour comic in the shape of Shiver And Shake. It lasted for a credible 19 months before its popularity appeared to wane and it got incorporated into Whoopee!. Eight months later, IPC decided to have another crack at the the ghoulish humour market and released the cult comic, Monster Fun. It lasted for just 73 issues but its characters lived on long afterwards in other joint publications or simply in the memories.

Frankie Stein, our freaky friend from Wham, then Shiver And Shake and later Whoopee, was the Honarary Editor from the first issue, which also saw the introduction of Robert T. Nixon's Kid Kong the biggest gorilla in the world! Kid was a fun fair attraction billed as son of the famous King Kong, but took offence when the public called him an ugly brute and horrible. The fun fair owner also called him 'the big ugly' and gave our kid his rations of just 'one' banana. This was the last straw and later, when the fun fair lorries set off for their next venue, Kid Kong broke out of his trailer and headed towards the nearest town. He broke into a department store and swiped his trademark school uniform jacket. Later that same night, he wandered along the streets and came to the home of Granny Smith, the very short sighted old lady who became the Kids adopted mother, thinking Kid was just a big schoolboy. Kid Kong lasted throughout the whole 73 issues of Monster Fun and also made the transition over to Buster.


X-Ray Specs was one of the most popular of all the stories within Monster Fun. It innocently started as Ray was walking past I. Squint the opticians in the high street. Mr Squint exited his shop brandishing a pair of spectacles. He said to Ray, "Hey, son! Try these!" and handed over the pair of X-Ray Specs. Ray soon put them to got use by seeing through an envelope that had just been dropped through his letter box - containing his (obviously bad) school report. Ray scarpered as his dad opened the envelope and read the report. By the very next issue (#2), the page count of the story was 1½ and issue #22 saw Ray in his first two page story. His next two page effort was in issue #33, which is how it remained until its amalgamation with Buster. Issue #15 saw X-Ray Specs become the first cover story of the comic which it also achieved in a couple of future issues as well. Martha's Monster Make-Up was another story which lasted the whole 73 issues and managed to survive the merger with Buster. Martha's dad worked in a film studio and came across an old container of make-up which he gave to Martha. When Martha returned home, she immediately applied the make-up in the belief that it would make her even prettier, but it had completely the reverse effect. It made her face and hands look totally freakish and frighened her mother half to death. The effect didn't last too long, just enough to have the desired effect. The make-up didn't just change living matter either, it also altered everyday items such as umbrellas, pianos and cement. I was always left wondering just how big that actual jar of make-up was, because she never seemed to get a new one!!! Dough Nut And Rusty, drawn by Trevor Metcalfe, was a 2-page affair starring "The most expensive, exclusive robot ever invented", Dough Nut, and the 'not quite exclusive' tin-pot robot Rusty. The story actually started in the year 1900 in the home of the Posh family, where the self-important butler fell foul of the master of the house by releasing mice in the house. These little rodents roamed the house for a whole century which was where the story moved on to, the year 2000. The Posh's advertised for a house-help, and two applicants applied for the job. Enter Dough Nut And Rusty. Dough Nut impressed the Posh's with his latest technical gadgetry, whereas poor old Rusty could offer nothing but squeaky joints. However, it was these sqeaky joints which helped drive the plague of mice away from the manor and so rid the house of their inherited rodents. So pleased was Mr Posh with Rusty's Pied Piper enactment, that he decided to give both robots the job. After this, we constantly had Dough Nut trying to upstage his technically-challeged stablemate, but always managing to mess things up in his over-eagerness to impress. We always knew which robot was talking, because Rusty would begin each speech-balloon with 'bleep' while Dough Nut used the more sophisticated 'whirr' sound. Although the story lasted until the very last issue of Monster Fun, it did not make the transition over to Buster. Grizzly Bearhug...Giant was a comi-adventure serial story starring the Short Family of Tichtown and Grizzly Bearhug Giant. As the Shorts were driving along the country lanes with their caravan in tow, the car ran out of petrol. Mum and Dad went off to get some more while the two kids and their dog stayed behind. Suddenly a wicked wizard happened along and said that the car doesn't need petrol, it needed some of his magic beans. Some of these he gave to the children, the rest he promtly put into the petrol tank. The car kicked into life and off he went with the family jalopy. When mum and dad returned and were told what had happened, dad went all giddy and decided to rest. The kids gave the remaining beans to the dog to eat, but the canine decided to bury them instead. Everyone went to sleep while the beans took root and produced an amazingly high beanstalk. This eventually led up through the clouds and managed to slide the caravan off its leaf and towards the nearby castle, home of Grizzly Bearhug Giant. The big G decided he was going to eat his 'meals on wheels' but not until he dolloped and massive lump of sauce onto his tinned meat. This enabled the Shorts enough time to escape down the table cloth and off to relative safety. The following weeks had G-B-G persuing the Shorts, with the Shorts using their cunning and survival skills to escape the big fella. The story lasted for just 19 issues which concluded with the Shorts escaping via a makeshift parachute and landing just behind a passing car and hooking onto the back of it. The car turned out to be there own and was driven by the wicked wizard that stole it in the first place.

Cinders was the friendly fiery female dragon who had a crush on the 'brave' knight that was constantly trying to slay her. Every week the knight, Sir Art Throb, would venture to attack Cinders, only for her to misinterpret it as a show of affection. An interesting aside is that every speech balloon from Cinders was heart-shaped and coloured red. She occupied the full-coloured back page for the first 12 weeks and was replaced there by Draculass. Issue 12 was the last that we ever saw of her in the weekly publication. One of the most popular stories was set in Massacre Steet School and in particular, the class of 3X. These little terrors ran riot and delightd in the fact that no teacher would last for more than a couple of days. One ex-teacher of 3X became an astronaut so that he could be as far away from them as possible. Another used to tremble whenever he was confronted by any child, including babies in prams. The headmaster was just about to throw in the towel, when Mr Fume, the science teacher, stated that he had come up with the solution to the 3X problem. He led the headmaster through the underground lead-lined secret tunnels to his laboratory and introduced him to his latest experiment, Creature Teacher! Each week we would see class 3X plotting away in order to try and rid themselves of this new member of the teaching staff, but each week we would see how CT would foil their plans, usually using them to his own advantage. Good little story that lasted right the way through to the final issue, but did not make the transition over to Buster. The Invisible Monster was another humour-serial story following the adventures of a huge invisible creature as he was being persued by the authorites. He teamed up with his side-kick Tich in issue #2 and together they roamed the country in order to escape from their persuers. The creature could speak excellent english and seemed to be rather friendly, even though he would wreak havoc wherever he went. Frankie Stein offered a £1 prize to readers who entered drawings of what they thought the invisible monster looked like. There were many weird and humorous illustrations, but finally, in issue #19, we saw what he really looked like after he threw himself into Loch Ness - see for yourself. Art's Gallery was an old tudor house, that was allegedly haunted, left by Uncle Freddie to his young nephew Arthur. When Art(hur) explored the house he came across many old paintings and he decided that he would open up his own Art Gallery. However, the paintings were no ordinary paintings, they actually came to life and the characters within them didn't want their frames to be hung up on walls and have loads of people gawping at them all day, so they set about trying to sabotage the business. Their ideas were good but always seemed to backfire on them and eventually led to the benefit of the gallery, which Art always enjoyed. The story lasted for the first 34 issues and in the earlier days it ran the Art's Prize Potty Pictures competition where the readers could send in a drawing which had a play on words - have a look at some. The daughter of Dracula was introduced to us in the first issue and went by the name of Draculass. Drawn by Terry Bave, Draculass 'flew' in from Transylvania to stay with her cousin Maisie and her Mum and Dad for an extended period (about 5 years actually) and attacked every exposed neck that came her way, including those belonging to friends and family. She shared the same room as Maisie but slept in a frilly-padded coffin. She first revealed that she could fly in issue #14 when she inadvertly attacked Maisie's kite thinking it to be a strange looking man. The wind caught hold of the kite and Draculass went up with it. Just when Maisie thought Draculass was going to plummet to the ground, Draculass flew to safety. The Transylvanian Terror ousted Cinders from the full-coloured back page from issue #13 and stayed there, on and off, until Gums debuted in issue #35. Major Jump - Horror Hunter was the owner of a very large country estate who couldn't afford the upkeep of it. One day he hit upon the idea of capturing lots of animals to create a very large animal menagerie, which he would call a Monster Menagerie. When he put a job vacancy board outside his front door requesting a willing lad to help him capture these animals, Cosmo Crumpet applied. However, Cosmo was a bit upset when the Major told him that they wouldn't be hunting real monsters. The Major said that real monsters didn't really exist which was when Cosmo introduced him to his pet, Meredith - a monster. This is when the Major decides to hunt down real monsters, often with comical results, like capturing the 1003-eyed monster only to discover that he was short-sighted, so the Major had to invest in 501 pairs of spectacles for it. The story lasted right up to the penultimate issue and did not survive the merger with Buster. Tom Thumbscrew was the torturers apprentice in a story set in the middle-ages, but instead of using his pain-inducing devices to hurt people, he used them to help people. Like putting two very tired knights in their suits of armour into the iron-maiden so that they would both be wearing air-conditioned suits! There was also the time when he helped the failing basketball team (basketball - middle ages?!?!?) to win games by stretching them on the rack so they became taller. One thing I couldn't work out was, if Tom was the torturers apprentice, who was the main torturer? Tom lasted right upto the final issue, but didn't make the transition to Buster.

Brainy And His Monster Maker was about a young lad called Brainy, who invented a ray gun which was capable of enlarging any object, sometimes with dire consequences. Like when he enlarged an apple from a tree and didn't realise that he had also monsterised the maggot within it. But he also used it for good, when he would enlarge a toy bulldozer to assist a road-worker with pushing a mound of earth back into the ground. With the exception of a few missing weeks, this story lasted right the through to the final issue but didn't survive the transition to Buster. Mummy's Boy was a 9-year old boy who's very over possessive mother still treated him like a little baby. He was always dressed in his trademark baby-cap with its little bow and was pushed around in his pram and was still being bottle fed. He constantly tried to escape the clutches of Mumsie to do some 'menacing' but often ended up calling for her as he was being chased by the people he had just menaced. This popular story started in issue #2 and carried on all the way through to the last issue and also made the transition over to Buster where it went on for many years. March Of The Mighty Ones was Monster Fun's adventure strip and followed the story of John and Jenny Byrd who were the son and daughter of engineering expert Richard Byrd. Richard created all the monster characters for Anvil Film Productions and the story starts with a scene showing his dinosaur creations destoying a small village. When the shooting is over Richard tells his children that he's off to Tibet for a month to film the Abominable Snowman. Later the next night an electric storm was brewing up and a bolt of lightning struck the computer which controlled all the dinosaurs and sent them loopy. Suddenly the dinosaurs were thinking for themselves and proceeded to destroy the whole town and then the rest of Great Britain, only this time it was for real. The future weeks had John, Jenny and other townsfolk battling for a way to destroy the creatures. Finally, in the very last issue, we were treated to four pages of this story, which saw the monsters get destroyed by......another bolt of lightning. Then we see their dad return from Tibet, after his film crew were lost in the Himalayas for 18 months, and said he's going to set about rebuilding his monsters again. The children categorically shouted "No"! Can't think why.

Other items in the comic were the Badtime Bedtime Stories, presented by the handsome Leonard Rottingsocks, which was a 4-page pullout section containing a wacky Monster Fun version of a traditional fable or nursery rhyme. Titles like Jack The Nipper's Schooldays, Robinson Gruesome and Punch And Chewday give you some idea of the humour style. All were pretty funny and they lasted (off and on) right the way through to the penultimate issue, number 72. The Monster Hits was the jokes page and each week we were treated to 10 jokes to chortle at, which was a vast improvement on the usual one or two that most comics were displaying at the time. The jokes were displayed in a 'top-10' countdown format, of which nine received a £1 prize while the sender of the Number One joke would receive £2. Frankie's Own Freaky Fun Page was Frankie Stein's amusing account of just what our editor had been up to during the last seven days. Meanie McGenie was a half page story starring the meanest genie ever. He would exit his lamp saying things like, "Well, come on then, what d'ya want?" and would always give the cheapest possible version of the request, like a model aeroplane request would result in McGenie giving his 'master' a paper plane! The story didn't always appear in the comic, but when it did, it was really quite funny.

Issue #16 introduced us to The Little Monsters who were a Sid Burgon creation (who later created Bookworm in Whoopee) and initially appeared on the front cover. They weren't so much a comic strip, as they were a comic set of just one picture depicting chaos. They would make a play of the English language, like one of them would paint a tent black because teacher asked him to 'Pitch a tent'. In fact the whole idea was very similar to Hugh MacNeil's Little-Wallop-On-Sea front page sets from the Knockout comic in 1947, but not quite as detailed. The Little Monsters stayed on the front page (off and on) until issue #35, which was when Gums made his entrance. This event sent the Little Monsters inside to become a black and white set, but then in issue #46 it was all change again as they became a full page strip. Issue #20 saw the introduction of two new stories, namely S.O.S. (Save Our Stan) and Teddy Scare. S.O.S. (Save Our Stan) was a strip by Nick Baker (who later drew Smiler for Whoopee) which required a bit of reader participation. Stan Stilton was a secret agent who worked for D.R.A.I.N. (Department for Removal of All Infernal Nuisances). His bosses didn't want him around because he was so useless, so they used to send him on all the most dangerous and life threatening assignments. Stan had an assistant in the guise of grocery delivery boy Charley and it was Charley who was the brains of the outfit. At the end of each weeks story, Stan would find himself captured and the only way out was if us readers could solve the puzzle at the end of the story. Once solved this would tell Stan what he needed to do to escape his captors. There were constant interuptions to the story from do-gooder Festus Weeb-Cobbler who would remark on some of the incorrect 'logic' included in the story. All very zany and really quite funny and well thought out. Teddy Scare started when little Eddie Bailey was visited by his unwelcome Aunt Flo, who said that she's going to stay for a while. She then told Eddie's mum to give the kid a pound to buy a toy and she would return the money in a year or two! Eddie then went looking around the toy shops for a teddy bear, but to no avail. Suddenly, an old shopkeeper beckoned Eddie into his old curiosity shop and showed him a very special Teddy Bear that was worth a fortune. Eddie said that he only had a pound, which the old man snatched from his grasp and said "That'll do!". Eddie wondered what was so special about the bear when all of a sudden it grew into a ferocious real bear. Eddie was so shocked that he said "Cor!". As it turned out in future weeks, every time that Eddie or his friends got into trouble Teddy Scare would come to the rescue. The story lasted right the way to the final issue and survived the merger with Buster.

Sam's Spook first appeared in the first Monster Fun Summer Special earlier in 1975 and due to popular request the story made its debut in the comic proper in issue #21 (1/11/1975). Sam was haunted by a ghost who was only visible to him and often assisted Sam in his quest to have a lark and get revenge on the baddies. This story was short-lived and only lasted until issue #38. Freakie Frankie was a welcome addition to the comic from issue #14 featuring the editor himself. It was a three framed strip based along Norman Thelwell's Chicko character from Eagle, where Frankie would be confronted with a problem in frame 1, the thought processes working in frame 2 and finally the comical conclusion in frame 3, which always used Frankie's crude strength to solve the problem. The front page of issue #35 saw the introduction of Gums - A Shark Worse Than Its Bite. Drawn by Robert T. Nixon (as well as Kid Kong), Gums was a killer shark with one tiny problem, he had no teeth! The first installment showed Gums roar from the sea on the Australian coast, sink his menacing teeth into two surfboards, which had a young lad called Bluey sandwiched between them, only for us to discover that his teeth were false. The remainder of the saga showed how Gums would regain his teeth via a cunning (sometimes not so cunning) plan or the story would show how he would lose them again. A very popular story which occupied the front and, sometimes, back pages right up to the final issue. Gums also survived the incorporation into Buster. Freaky Farm debuted in issue #40 (13/3/1975) and started with a Monster Fun reader walking through the forest reading his copy of Monster Fun when a voice suddenly boomed out, "STOP!". The unknown owner of the voice insisted that this reader follow him to Freaky Farm. Once there, the voice told the lad that he was on his own, and scarpered. This left the lad at the entrance to a farmhouse where he was met by a very irate, and huge, farmer. "I'm Freaky Farmer! And why aren't you scared, 'cos I'm frightening!" he bellowed. Suddenly, the actual farmhouse sprang to life and threatened the farmer! This is when we realised just how zany this story was going to be. From then on all visitors to the farm would be subjected to talking pigs, hungry flowers and giant dogs. The strip was signed by an artist called Elphin, but that's all I know. Freaky Farm lasted right to the very last issue but did not make the transition over to Buster. Terror TV, drawn by Ian Knox (who also drew Dreamy Den in Buster), made its first appearance in issue #50 and it introduced us to Magnus Murkysome the channel presenter, Uncle Cyclops and Sir Dan Doom the producer amongst many others. This channel would only ever be seen if someone pressed the 'fourth' button on the television. Remember, back in 1976 there were only three TV channels to choose from, but most TV's had a fourth button! So, whenever that button was pressed we were presented with programmes which started off harmless enough, but once they got going we would see the 'comi-horror' twist to it. Each week we would see a hapless soul enter the studios and get subjected to all sorts of life-threatening situations. Most of the stories were based upon actual TV shows of the time, like 'That Was Your Life', 'Hag-pie', 'Grave News At Ten'. Each story was two pages long and proved to be so popular that it survived the transition to Buster later that year.
Although, by the middle of 1976 the comic was coming to an end, it still produced a second Summer Special and, what was quite strange, it produced its FIRST annual AFTER it had amalgamated with Buster. The first annual was dated 1977 and it kept on producing annuals right up to the 1985 one.

Issue #73 (dated 30th October 1976) was the very last one. The front page told us that there was Important News Inside, which usually meant just one thing, an amalgamation. And when we turned to the centre pages we were presented with a colourful advert telling us that Monster Fun will be joining forces with Buster next week. The characters that were to make the transition were Kid Kong, X-Ray Specs, Teddy Scare, Terror TV, Martha's Monster Make-Up, Mummy's Boy, Draculass and Gums. I was quite surprised that Dough Nut And Rusty didn't make it - I quite liked them.

It only lived for 16 months but it did create some popular characters that were to survive in Buster for many years afterwards. And now Monster Fun has become one of those popular collectable comics because of this short run. It may not be remembered by everyone but all those that did read it were always entertained!

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