Advert for Cracker no. 1

[stevezodiac]

I like it when i pick up some comics from a flea market and find a nice advert inside as a bonus.

[SID]

Thanks for that, Steve.

I loved the comic as a child and was sad that its life was so short.

[DavidKW]

A very underrated comic.

I was recently reading a site fdedicated to the Cracker & the short-lived Buzz comics. It talked a bit on issue 66 of Cracker- I still remember having that one & used to re-read it a lot.

I remember the strips it talked on - the Winder Wellies where he goes to buy a new pair of boots, but dithers & gets booted by the assistant, and Simple Spyman where he dreams of getting a new spy-car buts gets a bike instead.

I myself, remember the Dunder 'Ed strip it had - Ed has filled his wall with pop-star posters, but still has more so he decides to pin then up all over the other house rooms using hammer & nails! (not heard of blu-tac?!). He first uses the bathroom, but hammers thorugh a pipe then it another room, he nail wrecks a vase on the opposite wall. So his father pins him up - on a wall coathanger!

I don't remember the Curly's Commandos strip, but "Classics" reminded me what a good strip it was!

I remember that Young Foo & a more adventure strip based Joe Soap covered 2 pages. letting the stories breathe well (the front cover was of Young Foo about to play table tennis with Basher).

I was reading the Beezer by the time it merged into the said comic - I'll give my opinions on that next time (clue: Dunder 'Ed & Curly should've gone over with that merger! Could've been done better).

[stevezodiac]

There was a well drawn strip by John Geering in Cracker wasn't there. Something to do with squirrels? I wrote one Hector the Collector script. Mentioned it before but its my only claim to fame (apart from a cartoon in the Weekly News) so excuse me from name dropping myself.

[blaing]

It was the Nutters.

I'll have a look later on and post a strip from my collection.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

The Nutters was beautifully-drawn, I agree, almost Disneyesque. If only DCT had paid their top artists enough for top-quality material like this, maybe the future of comics may have turned out differently?

[blaing]

As promised, here are the Nutters

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

just as good as I remember it---cheers, blaing!

[DavidKW]

Thanks for that Nutters strip.

I was just remembering there was also some strip about a Caretaker who the comic's "mascot" Sammy knew of.

One who remembered it said "Cracker" very much went for all-out anarchy in its strips.

Has to be said that Sammy looked very punky rockery, and this was before Punk rock had started to trickle into the maionstream!

[DavidKW]

Soem critics have said there was too much of Sammy in the comic and blamed that for its lack of success. Is debateable.

He often used to appear as space filler at end of strips telling jokes or making comments.

It's often remembered that at the end of a "Young Foo" strip he pulled his eyes up as slits saying more next week. Very un-PC.

The next time I saw something like that was in VIz's hilarious picture strip on Prince Philip (does so in title mast - does it to a Chinese VIP rep).

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Sammy appears on nearly every page in those comics, and it's annoying... But what's more annoying is with the exception of the "slitty-eyes" thing, he ALWAYS has the exact same facial expression! Cut-and-paste, almost.

[Digifiend]

It probably was mostly stock art.

[DavidKW]

Yeah too much of Sammy spoiled it & may have contributed to its lack of success. He always had the same sneering smile expression.

He did have a few more expressions when "Jest A Minute" moved onto The Beezer - the only trouble was he now was in colour. I always thought he looked hideous (others say scary) in colour especially when he showed his jammy red mouth.

I can't understand why cracker had to be all-colour in its Beezer pullout as it wasn't colour originally (and this move meant the "Smiffy" strip in the Beezer lost its colour status).

In fact I sometimes can't understand why "Jest A Minute" made the move over (a contact to draw Sammy perhaps?) as The Beezer already had it's successful "Mo's Mail Bag" (previously "Pick A Prize"), which sometimes featured one frame picture jokes.

[Dunder Ed]

I too think that Sammy was pretty horrible, wheras Dennis and Desperate Dan are relatable, Sammy just seemed an ugly kid. Im surprised DCT kept him til the last issue.

[DavidKW]

Handy Many The Janitor - that was the caretaker I was trying to think of...

Found that out on Toonhound website - also had picture of Sammy - he was hideous looking & was not a likeable character - and looking terrible in colour in the Beezer insert.

The thing about Jest A minute was how much some of it copied/stole from the one frame humour of "Crooked Smiles with The Badd Lads", which often appeared in the annuals (and comics occasionally).