School Fun #1

15 Oct 1983; Cover price 18p.
32 pages. Colour, tone & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.

Edited by Graham Exton.

Cover by Robert Nixon (uncredited).

Free toy snake.

Contents:

.2 A Cover is Born... Hi!! w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN. / Contents

.3 Softy Sir UNTITLED [What a Soppy Car] w: UNKNOWN; a: Jim Petrie (uncredited).

.4 Coronation Street School UNTITLED [School Tuck-Shop] w: UNKNOWN; a: Colin Whittock (uncredited).

.6 Creepy Crawler UNTITLED [Sebastian Creep, Aged Nine] w: UNKNOWN; a: Trevor Metcalfe (uncredited).

.7 School Fun Test Yourself Page Are You a Teacher's Pet? quiz; illustrated by UNKNOWN.

.8 Time Bus UNTITLED [Homework About Prehistoric Animals] w: UNKNOWN; a: Keith Reynolds (uncredited).

10 Star Schooldays Bruce Foxton photo and fact file.

11 Walt Teaser UNTITLED ["It'll be a Laugh."] w: UNKNOWN; a: Anthony Hutchings (uncredited).

12 B'Ware Caretaker UNTITLED ["What a wonderful place school is..."] w: UNKNOWN; a: Steve Bright (uncredited).

14 The School Team Our Story Starts Here... w: UNKNOWN; a: Vic Neill (uncredited).

16 E.T.T. Extra Terrestrial Teacher UNTITLED [Deep Space Holds Many Mysteries] w: UNKNOWN; a: David Mostyn (uncredited).

18 School Fun Participation Features

19 Grange Hill Juniors UNTITLED [Rowland Browning was doing what he did best - Eating!] w: UNKNOWN; a: Brian Delaney (uncredited).

22 Teachers United UNTITLED [Someone's Pranking Eric Crotchet] w: UNKNOWN; a: Jim Watson (uncredited).

24 School Signs cut-out feature; a: UNKNOWN.

25 Ho, Ho Homework puzzle page.

26 111 Stamps Free (half page) advertisement. / Sounds for Signs (half page) in-house advertisement

27 Schoolditz UNTITLED [Baker St. School Happened to be on a Tour of Germany] w: UNKNOWN; a: Frank McDiarmid (uncredited).

30 Young Arfur UNTITLED [Taxes!] w: UNKNOWN; a: Pete Dredge (uncredited).

31 Next Week in School Fun

32 School Belle UNTITLED [Irresistible Golden Locks] w: UNKNOWN; a: Tom Paterson (uncredited).

Subtitled "The Happiest Read of Your Life!" in a hopelessly optimistic manner.

Even a cursory glance through the contents is enough to discern the fundamental flaw with School Fun - an entire publication dedicated to the establishment most readers wouldn't likely wish to be reminded of in their out-of-school entertainment. Having said that, the level of work on display is remarkably accomplished in places - and highlights the weakness of the poorer strips all the more.

Softy Sir, the first strip to appear in the issue, beautifully displays Petrie's linework, with a script which contains a great reversal of expectation. The pun, and realization, in the final panel sets the tone admirably. Unfortunately, a creaky Coronation Street parody, with all manner of references, is next, and is almost impenetrable to someone without prior knowledge of the soap opera. It doesn't feel particularly substantial without the association, although Colin Whittock does his best to maintain interest.

Creepy Crawler is a one-note strip, and doesn't contain the weirdness or off-kilter humour IPC did best. Time Bus is much more in the tradition of better strips, but again falls a little way from truly great work, but the final panel is worth the space it takes up. The thinking behind the Star Schooldays feature is solid, but a better-known celebrity would have been more appropriate - someone connected to Grange Hill would have been better.

Unfortunately, Walt Teaser is an annoying character in his inaugural strip, displaying the kind of petty behaviour familiar from Joker, but without a gimmick to smooth over the roughness. It is a strip which would greatly improve, but time has not been kind to this installment. B'Ware Caretaker arrives almost fully-formed, with the first two panels summing up the character perfectly. The plot builds to a suitably outrageous climax, and holds up magnificently.

The School Team recalls older strips, with a secret meeting held by Mr. Hubbard to address Chumpion School's troubles. The trophy cabinet is empty, so he renames the school Champion School, and sets to rounding up youngsters to represent the school at every event in the school calendar. It is a simple yet bold premise, which is thoroughly enjoyable. E.T.T., however is merely okay. It should be funnier, given the premise, but there is no indication that anyone involved has seen Mork and Mindy. A waste of a good idea.

The inclusion of Grange Hill, and with so many pages given over to the strip, indicates the popularity of the television series at the time, but the casual handling of the characters, and some rough spots in the artwork, don't quite sell the notion that the strip is an especially important one. With other titles focusing entirely on television adaptations (and doing so with much more panache), this is handled especially poorly.

There's more than enough in Teachers United to make up for deficiencies in other strips, and it is my favourite strip of the title. Unlike many strips which have two groups of children as adversaries, setting teachers against pupils is a wonderful twist to often formulaic storytelling.

Sadly, although not unexpectedly, there is a war strip. Schoolditz, much like The Kids of Stalag 41, is a distasteful idea which is painfully overworked here - a group of soldiers standing beside a Beetle with 'Hermie' scrawled on the bonnet, pull over the bus containing children from Baer St. School, and place them in an internment camp. The preponderance of swastikas is the least of the problems here, and it isn't funny enough to ride out the three pages it is allocated.

The success of television's Minder is the inspiration for Young Arfur, as if spelling the main character's name phonetically in the title would fool anyone into thinking otherwise. Pete Dredge's art is good enough to give this a pass, but the strip highlights an issue with the comic as a whole - far too much reliance is placed on material directly relating to television shows.

You want to know what happens to parody strips once the inspiration have disappeared from public view? They become tired and shallow parodies of shows which aren't visible. It is a lazy way of generating material, and makes coming to this comic after so many years a frustrating experience. I want to be entertained by the creativity of the writers and artists directly involved in the title, not to see how well they appropriate material from elsewhere.

Closing the issue with School Belle redresses the balance somewhat, and, although it feels as if it owes more to the style of D.C. Thomson strips, it has a clever twist. A real mixed-bag of contents, with the school theme permeating the contents to an unexpected degree - it was never going to be the next Whizzer and Chips, but (had more care been taken in the creation) it could have lasted a lot longer.