was limited to providing a list of titles and situations for the humour strips, together with brief written scenarios (script ideas for the individual weekly issues), which he gave to Wallace to be farmed-out to other artists.

Grimly Feendish by Leo Baxendale About a creepy but amusing comic book villain whose goal is world domination, which he attempts to achieve using various monsters and outrageous plot devices such as exploding treacle.

The Tellybugs by Walter Thorburn and George Parlett, with later contributions by Cyril Price About a crew of tiny creatures wreaking havoc inside the Goggs family's television set.

The Legend Testers by Jordi Bernet Science fiction adventure strip about two time travelers from the future — Rollo Stones and Danny Charters — assigned to various points in history to test the authenticity of museum artifacts, which leads to deadly danger every week.

1966) Moon Madness by Alf Wallace and Brian Lewis Adventure strip where professor John Silverlight combats a bizarre monster awakened by a Russian space probe.

The initial lineup of humour strips included three originally by Leo Baxendale — The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E.,[15] Bad Penny, and Grimly Feendish — as well Percy's Pets by Mac (Stanley McMurtry); The Nervs by Graham Allen;[16] Ronnie Rich by Gordon Hogg;[16] Queen of the Seas by Ken Reid; Space Jinx by Brian Lewis; The Tellybugs by Walter Thorburn and George Parlett, with later contributions by Cyril Price; and The Swots and the Blots, initially by Mike Lacey.

By the time he began working on Bad Penny his drawing style had matured, with an equal concentration on developing a zany but tight storyline, less emphasis on close-ups of facial expressions, but retaining the essentials needed to put over a character's own personality traits.

At one point, the strip occupied a prestigious position as the full-colour back cover feature each week, and it survived throughout the entire run of 162 issues published by Odhams (even though, after giving up its back-cover status, it was sometimes ignominiously reduced to only a quarter-page "filler").

[19] Under Reid's direction, The Nervs turned into an extremely surreal, even visceral, strip; achieving a rare level of hilarity and bawdiness, in a subversive presentation of comical horror – and in the process alarming IPC's management.

[20] Space Jinx was replaced in issue #16 (21 May 1966) by The Incredible Hulk reprints; Lewis soon returned with Charlie's Choice, about a boy with a magic television set who can bring the characters in the programmes out from the TV screen into his world.

The strip's debut, for instance, featured Robert Vaughn and David McCallum of the top-rated secret agent show The Man From U.N.C.L.E., maximising their appearance by splashing them across the front cover.

Notable adventure series in the first hundred issues include Moon Madness by Alf Wallace with art by Brian Lewis, and The Legend Testers by Jordi Bernet.

[22] Initially, this syndicated newspaper strip adopted the camp style of the television series, with appearances by humorous guest stars such as American funnyman Jack Benny.

And he has a secret underground hideout beneath the statue erected in his memory, from which he covertly and unexpectedly emerges, or disappears into, under cover of an artificial fog, to give the impression he is coming and going from the spirit world.

Increasing the cover price of the Power Comics titles to compensate was impossible because of stiff competition (with sales on a sharp downward spiral, as circulation fell victim to the ever-increasing popularity of television); so the fall in the value of sterling made the American strips unaffordable.

The Incredible Adventures of Janus Stark by Tom Tully and Francisco Solano López An escapologist in Victorian London who appears to be simply an unusual act on the music hall stage, but who privately used his extraordinary abilities to battle against injustice.

[42] IPC had waited three months to relaunch Smash!, because, on the one hand, it needed some lead-time in which to ready new strips, and, on the other, in the publishing industry spring was traditionally considered a good time to launch a new comic.

Many of the ostensibly more serious offerings were, in reality, humour strips: in particular, His Sporting Lordship and The World Wide Wanderers, but there was also a strong humorous undercurrent in the new lead serial, Master of the Marsh.

and continuing in its successor, Valiant and Smash, with some fill-ins by Les Barton), by adopting a new style, one which influenced many others in the comics field, just as his earlier The Beano work had done; and in the process attaining a new, deliriously daft, high standard, one rarely approached by other strips.

Possibly feeling the strip was suffering in the credibility stakes, the new editorial team made a decision to change the name of King's manager, the aforementioned Blarney Stone.

Send For... Q-Squad by Eric Bradbury [reprinted from Buster] The adventures of a handpicked group of six specialists who were assigned to unusual missions that required special expertise both in the air and on the ground.

Morgan begins to rebuild the team by "framing" ex-criminals who he'd known while working in various prisons, forcing them to sign on with the club in order to make use of their dishonest skills as footballing talents.

The Touchline Tearaways by Mike Lacey[51] Football-themed strip featuring three mad-keen supporters of Grimshot United, a totally useless English Football League team perpetually in danger of being relegated, as it is made up entirely of ailing and decrepit players.

[l] New strips: Birdman from Baratoga, Consternation Street, Ghost Ship, The Haunts of Headless Harry, The Kid Commandos, Monty Muddle – The Man from Mars, Nick and Nat – The Beat Boys, The Pillater Peril, Sam's Spook, The Thirteen Tasks of Simon Test, Threat of the Toymaker Canceled strips: Cursitor Doom, King of the Ring, Rebbels on the Run, Send For... Q-Squad, Sergeant Rock — Special Air Service, The Touchline Tearaways, Tri-Man, Wiz War The Thirteen Tasks of Simon Test by Angus Allan and Eric Bradbury Simon Test undertakes a quest for immortality by attempting the thirteen tasks of the Pharaoh Thot, believing this to be the only way to save his life, having been deceived into believing he has only a few months to live.

When an English sailor is castaway on the island, called Baratoga, they escape together on a raft and set out on a series of adventures in the Pacific, beginning by hunting down the desperado who has stolen the man's pearl-fishing yacht, Enterprise.

The Snobbs and the Ardupps, Colonel Curry and Caesar (his dog), Miss Primm and her pets, Cutprice the Grocer, and Roger the Lodger are watched over by the dim-witted Constable Clott.

The Warriors of the World covers had run into a problem, in that war stories were no longer a strong element of Smash!, which had dropped the humour strip Nutt and Bolt the Men from W.H.E.E.Z.E.

Henceforth until the merger with Valiant, each week's cover featured a full-page splash advertising the task that adventurer Simon Test would undertake in a new strip on the inside pages.

Subsequent comics would survive only by ruthlessly focusing on narrow, sectional interests: such as all-sports, all-war, or all-humour;[p] just as the American market had already specialised into all-funnies, all-horror, and all-superhero titles.

included Bad Penny, Brian's Brain, The Cloak, Cursitor Doom, Grimly Feendish, Janus Stark, Rubberman, Tri-Man, and the cast of Queen of the Seas.