Jet #1

01 May 1971; Cover price 3p.
40 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.

Cover by Eric Bradbury. (uncredited).

Free Trebor Bumper Bar fruit chews.

Contents:

.2 Von Hoffman's Invasion w: UNKNOWN; a: Eric Bradbury (uncredited).

.5 The Sludgemouth Sloggers w: UNKNOWN; a: Douglas Maxted (uncredited).

.9 Partridge's Patch w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Western (uncredited).

12 Sergeants Four w: UNKNOWN; a: Fred Holmes (uncredited).

16 Jest a Minute! pocket cartoons. w: Miss L. Hawkins [Lollipop], G. Downs [Car Wash], M. Campbell [Road Up], B. Smith [Long-Distance], R. Warwick [Exercise Book], I. Frazer [Removals], N. Duffield [Psychiatrist], and D. Eatwell [Marriage Guidance]; a: UNKNOWN.

17 Free in Next Week's Jet in-house advertisement.

18 Paddy McGinty's Goat w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.

20 The Kids of Stalag 41 w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey (uncredited).

22 Crazy Car Capers w: UNKNOWN; a: Solano López (uncredited).

26 Adare's Anglians w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.

29 Faceache w: UNKNOWN; a: Ken Reid (uncredited).

30 Kester Kidd w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.

33 Bertie Bumpkin w: UNKNOWN; a: Terry Bave (uncredited).

34 Bala the Briton w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.

37 Carno's Cadets w: UNKNOWN; a: Solano Lopez (uncredited).

40 Cola Rola Lyons Maid ice lolly advert.

A year before giant rabbits hopped their way across cinema screens in Night of the Lepus, giant animals were terrorizing Britain in Von Hoffman's Invasion. Both were, of course, inspired by movies of the fifties, but Jet's strip went a step further and added a mad Nazi scientist intent on revenging himself on Britain. While the story is all a set-up for the invasion, we do get to see an eel transformed into a sea-monster. It isn't Jörmungandr, but it is fairly impressive.

The quirky setting of The Sludgemouth Sloggers brings to mind Ealing comedies: thanks to a cruel geographical quirk, which is never explained, the valley of the River Sludge is a rain-trap, with a detrimental financial effect on the town of Sludgemouth. Desperate to revive the fortunes of the town, Ted Larkin, secretary of the Entertainments Committee, proposes to the council that they should enter the "What-a-Lark" competition, which offers a grand prize of fifty thousand pounds. "What-a-Lark" being, of course, a poor man's It's a Knockout.

Introductions are brief: Knocker Smith (a postman with balancing skills), Arfur Wurzel (likely named after the band, as he's a walking turnip-tossing stereotype), Charlie Anvil (the blacksmith, if you didn't guess by his name, who happens to be a strongman), and Constable 'Flipper' Finn (take a wild guess) are rounded up and sent off to compete in the first qualifying round. It is a thin script, aided some by the attractive art, but ultimately rather unremarkable.

Partridge's Patch takes place in the "peaceful little market town" of Barnleigh, to which we are introduced by way of a bank robbery. Peaceful? By what standards, the lack of giant eels eating people? The robbery happens to have taken place on Tom Partridge's beat, and he goes about solving the crime with his knowledge of rooks, salmon, and foliage. It is a decidedly rural strip, though it has the feel of the Zip Nolan stories to it.

In 1940, the British Bulldog Banner, which flew at Waterloo and the Crimea, and which is one of the British army's most treasured possessions, has fallen into the hands of German soldiers, though four soldiers have taken matters into their own hands to rectify the situation. Alf Higgs (an Englishman), Taffy Jones (a Welshman), Jock McGill (a Scotsman), and Paddy O'Boyle (an Irishman) are... Sergeants Four.

In returning the flag to British soil, they are rewarded (or given cruel and unusual punishment) by being made an independent commando force to tackle special top-danger missions. The thinking, most likely, being that if they can't be courtmartialed, then they can at least be shot by the Jerries. Sergeants Four is the narrative equivalent of a joke, though handled with a smidge more sensitivity than Bernard Manning. Barely. Even the Germans are hideously stereotyped, so at least it is equal-opportunity in its' targets.

Paddy McGinty, a young boy living in Boggymorra, wants a pet. The problem is that he can't afford to look after a pet, which is a sensible enough plot point to raise. Animals are expensive. Then he happens upon a blurry creature in the woods which claims to be from the planet Ven, and which can change shape. As you do. It may sound like the opening of a low-budget horror film, but this is the infamous Paddy McGinty's Goat, and any comparison to mainstream media is both pointless and inadequate.

Nothing about the story makes a lick of sense. We don't know how 'Goat' got into the woods, or managed to get to Earth for that matter, nor do we learn if others of his kind are around. There's no explanation of why this alien being feels most comfortable as a goat (disturbing suggestions aside), nor - given the final panel of the story - how Paddy is going to find the money to pay for Goat's voracious appetite.

But it isn't that kind of a story. It is the kind of story where a young boy takes an obake home to live with him, and hopes that its' tastes don't run to human flesh as well as raw turnips.

The Kids of Stalag 41 is exactly what the title would lead you to expect. Rationally it is obvious that the popular US comedy Hogan's Heroes played a part in the creation of the strip, but finding comedic elements in the notion of a group of children stuck in a concentration camp takes some doing. The strip is basically The Bash Street Kids with the trappings of WWII as scenery dressing, and while the artwork is perfectly serviceable it never overcomes the distasteful set-up.

When you're reading a comedy strip and thinking "I hope there isn't an Anne Frank joke in this," you know something has gone terribly wrong with the building blocks the strip is built on.

We aren't done yet. For such a thin comic, Jet is a wealth of tone-deaf strips.

Crazy Car Capers is loosely based on the 1968 US cartoon Wacky Races, though if that isn't enough to put a reader off, the script helpfully provides a slew of stereotypes and casual bigotry to the mix. Hiram X. Spendcash, a mad millionaire, has organised a round-Britain race for cars of an unusual design. and rather than truly original vehicle designs (such as The Addams Family's mode of transport) the designs seen are lazy and obvious jokes.

Because IPC had a rule that every title had to have a sports strip, whether it made sense or not, Adare's Anglians wastes three pages full of beautifully-drawn yet vapid nonsense about a small island's football team. New Anglia is a small island far out in the Atlantic, and the people there have decided to enter the World Cup to avenge England's defeat. If you are wondering how well this sits alongside the other strips, then fear not - there is the same mockery of foreigners present and correct.

The islanders exist in some strange time-warp, where everything looks a hundred years out of date, for no apparent reason. We don't find out how New Anglia enters the World Cup without participating in any of the qualifying rounds, which must have taken place prior. Everything about the strip is just a little bit off, and it is difficult to see why the choice to place Adare's Anglians in the title had been made. Did someone lose a bet? Was it a dare? In fact, these questions apply to Sergeants Four, Paddy McGinty's Goat, and Crazy Car Capers as well.

Thankfully there is one undisputed classic among the bunch - the first appearance of Faceache, masterfully handled by Ken Reid. The opening installment is a slight tale, yet no less amusing for that.

Kester Kidd is firmly in the tradition of Wilson, The Wild Wonders, and Master of the Marsh, with the titular character exhibiting amazing prowess at running, jumping and other athletic feats. Kester Kidd comes to the attention of Barney Grumshott, a former athlete considered the best all-rounder in his day, through assisting him fetch a television on a cart which has rolled away (which makes some sense in context). It isn't an inspiring start, and doesn't radically improve.

Watching the athletics on television, Grumshott is disappointed to see world records go to foreign athletes, and he decides to turn Kester into the greatest athletic all-rounder in history. You don't have to be a genius to fill in the blanks of what will come, but the story is handled with fine (if unambitious) art, and sympathetic dialogue. There's nothing revolutionary in the strip, but it does what it does well.

Bertie Bumpkin is a sustained joke about a country gentleman with a strong accent. Yep. That's the extent of the strip's ambitions, and reading the story now is uncomfortable at best. It isn't quite as bad as Paddywack, but there's nothing which raises so much as a wry grin. Terry Bave is so much better than this strip, and it feels as if Bertie Bumpkin is a placeholder until something more suitable can be found. It doesn't so much have a punchline as have a limited amount of space in which to expand upon a vignette.

Bala the Briton sits uneasily beside the rest of the contents - a historical epic, treated seriously, with classical undertones such as messages from the Gods, an epic sea voyage, and (in the final panel) evidence that Jason and the Argonauts has an undue influence of the scripting. While the bare bones implies Anabasis may have been the initial foundation (appropriately relocated for a British audience), the fantasy elements loom large over the strip. Not that this is, in any way, a detriment to the story.

It may be the beautifully clean art, or the clear and emotionally-pure desires of the main characters, which makes the strip stand out amidst the lesser material, but Bala the Briton truly is a refreshing read - the pacing is perhaps a little too slow, and the characters remain undefined save for their roles in the narrative, but it works despite everything. If there was a "readers favourites" box to pick highlights, my ball-point pen would be hastily scribbling in "Bala the Briton" (if, that is, I was born earlier).

Despite the (almost-)namesake of the strip having died in the early forties, Carno's Cadets wears its' influence large. I've made gags about Fred Karno before, and had to explain what I was talking about, so seeing that he had some influence on Brtish comics beyond custard-pie gags is amusing. Did children in the early seventies know who Fred Karno was? Or that the title was a play on Fred Karno's Army? I remain unconvinced that the cultural legacy was being appropriately maintained.

And this is the perfect example (alongside the Val Doonican reference) that the writers weren't appealing to the children reading the comic, but were actually writing from their own childhood favourites - a full generation separating the humour from its' intended audience, thus ensuring that the emotional immediacy of the material was once or twice-removed.

And yes, for the record this is about actual cadets. Zero exertion was made in coming up with the outline. The dialogue is peppered with lazy shorthand ("Fair dinkum" and "Hoots mon" appear within two continuous panels), and even the artist can't rise to the challenge of engaging or original ideas - a spaceship rendered as a giant disc looks more like a WWII helmet, and a giant robot has the appearance of cheap, stiff, plastic toys of the fifties.

Alien invasions have been done many, many times in British comics, and is almost a cliché through repetition, yet most manage to raise at least a couple of interesting twists. This feels like a strip which was held over from a decade previously, and offers nothing new or (crucially) engaging. I don't care about any of the characters, and the mild peril of a character falling down a cliff didn't raise any questions save for why these children were placed in peril in the first place.

As first issues go, this isn't all bad. There are too many shortcuts taken in getting to the story at hand, and some of the ideas are ridiculous, but there is charming artwork and a (little) touch of inspired lunacy (from Bala, primarily), but as a cohesive package the comic falls flat. The casual bigotry and reliance on tired ideas truly mars the good, and it feels rushed in a way that is hard to pinpoint.