About Cor!!

Cor!!

Cor!! was a British weekly children's humour comic that was published in London, England, by IPC Magazines Ltd. It was launched in June 1970 and ran until June 1974, when it was merged into Buster. Edited by Bob Paynter, it was the sixth new comic that IPC had launched in just over a year, a measure of how aggressively the London publisher expanded its children's list at the turn of the 1970s. With its double-exclamation title, taken from the mild exclamation “cor blimey”, its full-colour covers and centre spread, and a line-up of familiar British comic types given a contemporary twist, Cor!! quickly established a loyal readership. Its best-known strip, Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, proved so durable that it continued in Buster for more than a quarter of a century after Cor!! itself had closed.

Origins and Launch in 1970

Cor!! was created inside IPC Magazines, which had been formed in 1968 when IPC rationalised the Fleetway and Odhams comics divisions it had inherited. The new division launched titles at a rapid rate in 1969 and 1970, among them Whizzer and Chips and Cor!!. The first issue of Cor!! was dated 6 June 1970 and came with a free gift, a sachet of “Gulp” fruit-drink powder. The cover was drawn by Mike Lacey and featured Gus Gorilla, with the opening strip shaped to promote the free drink. Further gifts followed in the second and third issues, a standard IPC launch strategy that encouraged children to collect the opening numbers and form the weekly buying habit.

The title itself attracted comment inside the company. “Cor” came from “cor blimey”, a minced oath that was common in everyday speech and in British comics dialogue of the period. The two exclamation marks gave the masthead energy and distinguished the comic on crowded newsagents' shelves. At 32 pages, with colour on the front and back pages and on the centre spread and better paper than some older weeklies, Cor!! was presented as a modern, good-value package for its price.

Format and Editorial Character

Cor!! was edited by Bob Paynter, who also played a central role in other IPC humour titles of the period. Writers associated with the comic included Scott Goodall and Terry Magee, and its regular artists included Joe Colquhoun, Mike Lacey and Norman Mansbridge. The comic followed the classic British anthology pattern: a front-cover star strip, a sequence of one- and two-page humour features, joke and letter elements, and a colour centre spread that gave the issue a visual highlight. Most strips were complete in themselves each week, depended on a clear comic premise that a new reader could grasp in a single panel, and ended with a visual punchline.

The editorial character was traditional but not old-fashioned. Many of its characters echoed successful features from rival or earlier comics, yet they were updated in dress, speech and setting for children in 1970. School, home, sport and the street supplied most of the settings, and adult authority figures — teachers, parents and officials — were the usual butts of the jokes. That balance of familiarity and novelty was deliberate. IPC needed a new title to feel instantly understandable while still offering enough that was new to justify buying it alongside, or instead of, an established comic.

The First Line-Up

The first issue introduced much of the cast that defined the comic. Gus Gorilla occupied the cover. Ivor Lott and Tony Broke began the long rivalry between a rich boy and a poor boy that became the title's most popular feature. Andy's Ants, drawn by Terry Bave, told of a schoolboy whose distinctive whistle allowed him to communicate with ants and enlist their help. Tomboy presented a jeans-wearing girl in the mischievous tradition of earlier tomboy characters. Tricky Dicky offered a long-haired, short-trousered trickster who specialised in dodging work and outwitting adults. The Gasworks Gang depicted a class of unruly pupils at war with their teacher, while Kid Chameleon, Hire a Horror, Spoilsport and The Slimms, about a thin boy whose parents were determined over-eaters, completed a varied opening mixture of school, family, animal and fantasy humour.

Whacky also debuted in the first issue, initially sharing a half page with readers' letters. The strip followed a schoolboy who was regularly caned by his teacher, Mr Thwackery, and it later acquired the explanatory line “He's always getting whacked”. Corporal punishment was still a routine subject for British comic humour in 1970, and Whacky treated it as slapstick rather than cruelty, with the punishment as the expected final panel. The feature became one of the comic's regular attractions.

Ivor Lott and Tony Broke and Other Favourites

Ivor Lott and Tony Broke was the outstanding success of Cor!!. Ivor was the wealthy boy who attempted to use his family's money to win every contest, buy every advantage and humiliate his rival; Tony was the poor boy who, week after week, used ingenuity, luck and Ivor's own extravagance to come out on top. The premise was simple, visual and endlessly repeatable, and it carried a satisfying moral for young readers: money did not guarantee victory. The strip's popularity carried it far beyond Cor!!. When the comic closed in 1974 the feature moved into Buster, where it continued until Buster's final edition in January 2000, giving the characters a thirty-year life across two titles.

Other strips built strong followings. Teacher's Pet, Kid Chameleon and Tricky Dicky remained closely associated with the comic, and Tricky Dicky in particular was remembered as one of its signature characters. Jasper the Grasper, a miser presented in Victorian dress, arrived in the New Year issue of 1972, alongside Frankie Stein — Teenage Werewolf, a younger version of the monster theme that Ken Reid had made famous in the 1960s. Football Madd drew on children's obsession with football, while Jack Pott, Chalky, Donovan's Dad, Fiends and Neighbours and Wonder Worm showed the range of the anthology, from lucky winners and chalk-drawn characters to supernatural neighbours and sporting worms.

Changes, New Arrivals and The Goodies

The first significant changes came in the Bonfire issue of late 1970, when five new features debuted, a reminder that IPC editors refreshed even a new comic quickly. Further newcomers arrived at New Year 1972, including Jasper the Grasper and the teenage Frankie Stein. The most prominent later addition was The Goodies, a double-page strip based on the BBC television comedy trio of the same name. Drawn by Joe Colquhoun, who was better known as the original artist of Roy of the Rovers, the feature ran through 1973 and linked the comic directly to a popular television programme that its readers watched. Licensed and television-based features were a growing part of British comics in the 1970s, and The Goodies gave Cor!! topical appeal that purely fictional strips could not supply.

Later arrivals included Nightmare, an unruly horse, and a succession of short-lived features that were tested and replaced as editors judged reader response. Hire a Horror, in which monsters could be hired for comic effect, proved durable enough to be revived later in Shiver and Shake and Monster Fun, an example of how ideas circulated within the IPC humour stable for years after their first appearance.

The British Comics Market in the Early 1970s

Cor!! appeared at a turning point for British children's comics. The post-war generation of story papers had given way to picture-strip weeklies, television had become the main rival for children's attention, and publishers responded with colour, free gifts, television tie-ins and frequent launches. IPC's strategy of launching many titles and merging the weakest into the strongest meant that few comics of the period were expected to last indefinitely in their original form. A run of four years was respectable, and the survival of a title's best strips inside another comic was treated by the publisher as continuation rather than failure, even if readers regretted the loss of the masthead.

Cor!! also belonged to a recognisably British humour tradition. Its school gangs owed a debt to The Bash Street Kids in The Beano, its tomboy heroine to Minnie the Minx, and its dodging schoolboy to Roger the Dodger, all D. C. Thomson creations. IPC's London titles competed by offering their own versions of proven character types, drawn in a slightly looser, more contemporary style. Contemporary commentators noted those parallels at the time, and they explained both the comic's instant familiarity to new readers and the limits of its distinctiveness.

Closure and Merger with Buster

Cor!! ended in June 1974. The final issue was dated 15 June 1974, and the following week, on 22 June 1974, the combined Buster and Cor!! appeared. The merger was announced to readers in the familiar IPC language of exciting news, and selected Cor!! strips, above all Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, continued in Buster. The closure formed part of a wider contraction in 1974, the year in which the long-running Lion and Scorcher also disappeared. Rising costs, a shrinking child readership for print and competition from television all pressed on weekly comics, and IPC concentrated its resources on fewer, stronger titles, with Buster as its principal humour survivor.

Counts of the run varied slightly between reference sources, with most listings giving 210 or 211 issues for the four years from June 1970 to June 1974, a discrepancy that reflected differing treatment of the final and merged issues rather than any doubt about the start and end dates themselves. What was not in doubt was the shape of the run: a weekly that had held its place for just over four years and had produced at least one strip of exceptional longevity.

Annuals, Specials and Afterlife

The Cor!! name was kept alive after 1974 by summer specials and hardback annuals, the traditional extensions of a British comic's life. Annuals were published for the Christmas market and contained a mixture of new material and reprints, and Cor!! annuals and specials continued to appear until 1986, twelve years after the weekly had closed. Strips from the comic were also reprinted in later IPC and Fleetway specials, and characters such as Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, Tricky Dicky and Hire a Horror resurfaced in other titles over the following decades.

In the twenty-first century, after Rebellion acquired the rights to much of the IPC archive, Cor!! material returned in Treasury of British Comics collections and combined humour specials that placed its strips alongside those from Buster and other titles. Those reprints introduced the comic to collectors who had been too young to buy it in 1970 and confirmed that its best features had retained their appeal.

Legacy

Cor!! was remembered fondly by its readers as a bright, fast-moving humour weekly of the early 1970s, and readers' recollections consistently singled out Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, Whacky, Kid Chameleon, Tricky Dicky, The Gasworks Gang and Teacher's Pet as the strips they had turned to first. Its historical importance rested less on innovation than on execution: it showed IPC at its most efficient, assembling proven comic ingredients, strong artists and topical television material into a package that sold steadily for four years. Its merger into Buster, the survival of its leading strip until 2000, and the continuation of its annuals until 1986 gave Cor!! an influence that lasted far longer than its short weekly run suggested.