Comics UK

The mighty Frank McDiarmid is rightly lauded as the definitive Cheeky Weekly artist. However, as Frank mentions in his interview in Crikey! issue 12, other artists occasionally depicted the toothy funster.

I've been trying to identify the artists on a few non-Frank issues, and here are my guesses...

Tom Paterson


Mike Lacey


Barry Appleby


Dick Millington

What a great post...never even noticed that before..

Yes re Mike and Dick, no re Tom and Barry. The one you think is Barry could possibly be Ian Knox, but I doubt it.

Cheers for the feedback, Andy. I originally considered Ian Knox, but thought the style in places looked similar to Barry's Terror TV pages.

If anyone else has views on my guesses, please post 'em.

Hmm, been puzzling over this one for a while. We have here a 'Laugh and Learn' feature from Cheeky Weekly. The thing that's puzzling is that it's signed by Brian Walker, and the cross-hatched illustrations are clearly his, but the depictions of Cheeky, the teacher and the classmates don't look like Brian's work to me. I would have said they're the work of Barrie Appleby (who I suspect was one of the regular ghost-artists on the comic). Maybe Brian's illustrations were cut and pasted into this Cheeky strip.

If anyone has any opinions on my assumptions, please let me know 'cos I'm trying to identify the artists in all the issues of Cheeky.

That one I'd immediately say was Barrie Appleby (and on second thoughts, it was Barrie for the third one in the OP)

Speaking of such things, I got some Cheeky books recently, as I'm sure I mentioned elsewhere. 1979 and 1981 had twelve Cheeky strips, drawn by Jim Petrie and Barrie Appleby respectively.

Wonder if Kashgar can identify the first one?

Cheers, Andy. Yep, I'm fairly confident that it's Barrie A working alongside Brian W.

And I still think the first scan in my original post on this thread is Tom Paterson, but I'm willing to listen to any other opinions...

Thanks for the info on the annuals - when I've finished my attempt to assign artists to the weekly Cheeky Weeklys, I'm moving on to the summer specials and then the annuals.

I hope to post the results here if I ever finish the 'cheeky artists page by page' project

Niblet wrote: And I still think the first scan in my original post on this thread is Tom Paterson, but I'm willing to listen to any other opinions...

I don't see any of Tom Paterson's style on that page. Perhaps it's all by Frank McDiarmid? Frank is quite versatile.

Yes, it could VERY easily be Frank. I think the grin on Nora's face seals it.

That teacher needs Head and Shoulders...

Cheers, folks, but I'm convinced it's not Frank. Whoever it is (and I think I know who it is), the artist in question ghosted Cheeky's pages very regularly with a style that's noticeably different from Frank's.

Tom Paterson employs varying styles (which is the main requirement for a ghost artist, of course). To me, that Cheeky page looks so much like Tom in his 'Clarence Stringbean'/'Crowjak'/'Horace and Doris' mode, with a nod towards Frank's style.

It's been remarked elsewhere on the forum that Tom has a liking for giving characters liberal beads of sweat. In my first scan on this thread maybe we would expect Jogging Jeremy to exhibit excessive perspiration, but Posh Claude?

Also, the lettering in the captions in panels 4 and 5 is in Tom's hand in my opinion (see example of Tom's Sweeny Toddler below, in which Tom employs a Baxendale-ish style, so I'd point you to the lettering of the captioning - or notes on the panels or whatever one calls them - rather than the art style).

So I'm still convinced that it's Tom. Unless someone can offer some examples of another artist who might fit the bill.



Or maybe I should take a break from my examination of old comics and sit down in a darkened room for a while

Yes, I see what you mean Niblet. The lines radiating from Cheeky in panel 7 look like the sort of thing Tom does too.

Tough one. Made difficult by British comics not allowing signatures back then.

Lew Stringer wrote:
Tough one. Made difficult by British comics not allowing signatures back then.

Funnily enough, IPC comics did allow them at that point - I'm sure McDiarmid's signature was often in Cheeky Weekly.

Further on the topic of IPC allowing or not allowing artists to sign their sets: apparently, in some cases not only did they allow to sign, but also encouraged the young reader to pay attention, as illustrated in this page from Whoopee dated Dec. 17th, 1977.



Besides, in one of his interviews Robert Nixon said that there had never been any problems with him signing his work. He said he approached the editors about it and without the slightest hesitation they said yes, if he wanted to.

So the policy of not allowing artists to sign must have been scrapped by mid-70s. For some reason, many artists still kept to the old tradition of anonymity.

I can say categorically that is not Tom's work. He was not alone in using the perspiration lines, but the artwork is completely wrong for Tom and bears no resemblance to any of his other work I have ever seen.

Ray?