The Nipper Index

by George Shiers

Nipper and all associated comics and characters are copyright © Egmont U.K.All images used in this book come from the author's own collection.Published by Novo Media.

IntroducingNipper

School Fun was IPC's finalattempt at a traditional humourweekly comic. Based around aschool theme, the comic ran for33 weeks before folding intoBuster in the summer of 1984.With such a quick end to thecomic, and falling sales acrossthe entire medium, IPC decidedthat traditional humour comicssimply weren't popular enoughanymore - they neededsomething new. This decision ledto the launch of Oink in 1986, acomic completely different to anyother kids comic of the day - apioneer, you might say. Thecomic was aimed at a slightlyolder audience than thetraditional weekly, with its grossjokes and older humour (whichyou'll easily notice if you glanceinside an issue) filling a gap inthe market few other comics haddone so before it. Sadly, thisteenage humour led to somebodycomplaining, and the comic was moved to the adult's section of thenewsagents, out of the reach, and eyesights, of kids. Inevitably, this led to thecomic folding - a sorry end for a great comic.

But IPC persevered, launching another in the middle of Oink's life.This time, insteadof aiming thecomic at an olderteenage audience,the went for ayounger one. Theresult was Nipper- a comic thatlived up to itsname!

Below: The cover for Nipperissue one.

Bottom right: A welcomemessage from Nipper.

A COMICis born

Nipper hit the newsstands in1987, with the first issue beingdated 31st January. As withmany previous comics it gotpromoted in other publications -in this case a free 24-pagesample comic was given away infellow titles Buster and Whizzerand Chips.

The sample comic came with aselection of a few of the strips inNipper, advertisements for thefirst issue and gave a generalfeel for the new title. And what afeeling that was, for Nipper comicwas just that - a nipper comic!Instead of a big A4 cover thecomic had a tiny A5 one, similarto that of the various comiclibraries going around.

Top right:The Nipperpreviewcomic.

Left: Anadvert forthe firstissue.

Next page:An advertfor the freepreviewcomic in thefollowingissue ofBuster.

The launch day finally came and on 31st January 1987Nipper no. 1 was released! For just 28p you got 48pages, half of which were in full colour, and a free bagof sweets! It was printed on a higher quality paperthan other comics, with glossy magazine style pages,and unlike the similar sized comic libraries which hadtwo - three panels per page there were often as many

as five, six or even seven! Nipper was abargain, and would have felt like it wereit not for it's size.

Nipper went on being a nipper for justunder two months before it's sizebecame it's downfall. The name Nipperhad four meanings - the name of thecomic, the name of the main character,the comic's target audience and ofcourse, the size of the publication!However, despite it's high qualityprinting and large page count becauseNipper was so small it simply wasn'tnoticeable on the shelves, hiddenbehind competitive rivals, big tabloidnewspapers and various magazines, andall this would have been seriouslyaffecting sales. Obviously IPC must havefelt the same way, because after just amere five issues Nipper undertook a bigrevamp - it went big!

Previous two pages - TheBrad Break strip from thepreview issue.

Below: An advert for Nipperfrom Buster.

Bottom left: An advert forthe new look Nipper.

Above - a comparison of how the early Nipper looked next to someother choices.

Previous page - An advert for the new look Nipper in Buster.

Bottom left - Nipper issue six - the first big issue.

nipper

grows

upNipper went big with theissue dated 11th April1987, boosting it's coversize from the tiny A5 tothe bigger and better A4,giving it more chance ofbeing spotted on theshelves. The comicunderwent a revamp that

all of IPC's comics wereto do so later on. Thefirst to follow Nipper tothis higher qualitynewsprint was Busteron the 30th May 1987,and Whizzer and Chipsfollowed soon after on13th June. WhereasNipper downgraded inpaper quality theseother comics upgraded.

The revamp alsointroduced some newcharacters, as well askeeping all the oldones. There were threenew charactersintroduced in issue #6:Handy Andy (by SidBurgon), Hit Kid (by SidBurgon) and Big GameHunter (by TrevorMetcalfe), and theywere all reprints fromKrazy comic.

The team behind Nipperalso decided to keep

the same price that thecomic had before - 28p. For48 pages 28p was very goodvalue for money, especiallyconsidering that half of themwere in full colour, but whenthe comic downgraded inpaper quality, lost pages andcolour it doesn't seem asgood. And don't forget -Buster only cost 26p andyou got the same amount ofstuff! Of course, the newbigger size is the mostobvious change, so the pagecount wasn't as noticeable -and they probably picked upsome fresh new readers withthe revamp as well.

As well as some new stripsand a new size, the revampmade the comic moreinteractive and reader-friendly by introducing aletters page, called 'NipperBitz'. Although Nipper'sregister had been in thecomic since the first issue

this was the first time readers had been able tosend letters, drawings, jokes, fun facts, requests,

Above - Nipper's registeradvertisement from the firstissue.

Bottom left - A reminder for theNipper Bitz letters page.

Next two pages - An advert tosend in your letters, and thefirst one.

puzzles or whateverelse into their favouritecomic. Of course,pages like this hadbeen in comics foryears. They were aneasy way of filling up a page and were verypopular with readers. As with many other comics,Nipper offered a £2 reward for anything heprinted. This feature was introduced a bit lateunfortunatley, as the first letters didn't getpublished until issue nine, meaning that lettersonly appeared in eight of the sixteen issues.

A Special

Summer

With a

Summer

SpecialNipper had just one holiday special,which came out in May 1987. Thecomic was 64 pages and came with aprice tag of 65p. The holiday specialonly introduced us to one newcharacter - Pete and the Poacher, aone-off strip drawn by Mick Daines.

The holiday special was thesame price as most other IPCholiday specials, but was awhole 7p more than D. C.Thomson's Beano and Dandysummer specials. But for yourmoney you did get a highquality comic printed on glossypaper, and eight pages wereprinted in full colour.

Unlike other holiday specialswhich long outlived the weeklycomic they came from this wasNipper's one and only special.Summer specials were sadly adying tradition by this point Top left - The cover to the Nipper holiday special.

Above - A panel from Pete and the Poacher.

Below - A small advert for the Nipper holidayspecial.

Next page - A Nursery Crimes strip from the special.

anyway, with only a few specialssurviving through the 1990's andeven less beyond then.

A

TreatChristmas

Nipper was also fortunate enough tohave an annual out for the Christmas of1987. As with all annuals it was datedfor the year ahead and so is known asthe 1988 annual, but it actually cameout in September 1987, with the firstadverts appearing as early as August.

The annual introduced us to three newNipper characters. The first was Kidder,who made just one appearance in theannual, followed by The Mini-Monks andfinally Animal Army. The Mini Monkswere the only new characters whoappeared more than once in the book,

Top right - The cover of the annual.

Above - A panel from The Mini Monks.

Left - An advert for the annual.

Next three pages - A Mini Monks stripfrom the annual.

with four strips all illustrated byMike Higgs (which were originallyintended to appear in the regularcomic in full colour). The bookcost £2.95, a very similar priceto IPC's other annuals for thatyear. For your money you got 80pages, 32 of which were in fullcolour and a further 16 printed inred ink.

All good

things

Must come

to an end

Sadly, Nipper's revamp wasn'tenough to save it, and after 16issues it came to an end, amuch shorter run than itdeserved. Instead of comingwith the classic strapline 'GreatNews Inside' the cover camewith the line 'Wonder BoyStory... And Funderful News...Inside!'. The team behindNipper had tried their hardestto lift the comic up off theground by coming up with anoriginal idea, a fresh targetaudience and a quick revamp,but their efforts were in vain.The comic folded into Busteron the 11th September 1987.A surprising number ofcharacters survived the merge,including My 'Dad' Mum (byAnthony Hutchings), DoubleTrouble (by Terry Bave) and ofcourse the most popularcharacter Ricky Rainbow (byJimmy Hansen).

Readers who followed Nipperinto Buster would also besaving 2p, as Buster was 26pand Nipper was 28p. However,over a very short time it wouldhave worked out as moreexpensive, since Nipper cameout once a fortnight and Busteronce a week.

Above: The last issue of Nipper.

Left: A message from Buster to hisreaders, reminding them to order nextweek's copy of Buster and Nipper now!

Next page: Advertisement for firstcombined issue of Buster and Nipper,from Whizzer and Chips dated 19thSeptember 1987.

The Buster issue the week before the news came with a bright centre spreadadvertising the merge happening in the following issue. The page showed all thenew characters who were to be appearing, and also offered the chance forBuster readers to sign up for the 'Lucky Register'. This register is is basicallyNipper's Register but under a different name.

The centre spread for the last Nipper was very similar, except this one showedall the new characters that readers would be meeting in Buster.

Top: The center spread from the Buster issue before themerge

Bottom: The center spread from the last issue of Nipper.

In Buster, Nipper characters completelytook over the center spread. Threecharacters appeared on it in full colour -Flapper (by Gordon Bell), Nipper (byGordon Bell) and Ricky Rainbow (byJimmy Hansen). In total ten characterssurvived the merge into Buster, animpressive number for a comic withsuch a short run.

Amongst the characters that didn'tsurvive the merge was Felix thePussycat (by Tom Paterson). ObviouslyTom knew this was the last Felix strip,so ended it with a "Ta-ta!" to thereaders in the last panel.

With the exception of Kelpie's Kingdom in #15 (Nipper's only adventure strip)none of Nipper's strips had proper endings. The closest one came to an ending inthe final issue is Will and Bill (by Frank McDiarmid), where Will and Bill (twoidentical boys) trick the gardener into thinking he's seeing double so chooses toignore them, but it isn't really a proper ending as there is potential for moreepisodes to follow.

Top right: The last Felix the Pussycat panel from #16.

Above: The last panel from the final Kelpie's Kingdom in#15.

Next page: The Will and Bill strip from the final issue.

It's a shame Nipper had to go, it didn't have thefull run that an original comic like it deserved.After the merge the Nipper logo stayed on thecover of Buster for just over four months, its finalappearence was on the cover of the issue dated23rd January 1988. Of all the characters thatNipper created the most popular were RickyRainbow and Double Trouble, who both lasted allthe way up to the final issue of Buster in 2000.Double Trouble was even fortunate enough to geta proper ending on the back cover of that finalissue, with the two becoming best friends.

Top: Thefirstcombinedissue ofBuster andNipper.

Left: Apanel fromthe backpage of thelast Buster.

The NipperCharacterIndex

Animal Army

Annual onlyArtist: UnknownDidn’t survivemerger

Animal Army was a one off strip that appeared in the Nipper annual. A group ofanimals made up of a gorilla, a zebra, an elephant, a tortoise and a bird allescape from a train into the forest. In the forest, they find a group of distressedchickens who need their help!

Big GameHunter

#6 - #12Artist: TrevorMetcalfeDidn’t survivemerger

Big Game Hunter only made six appearences in Nipper (he appeared in issues#6 - #12 except for #10), and all episodes were reprints from Krazy comic. Eachepisode Big Game Hunter would help a group of kids get more out of their game- by supersizing it! Examples include playing darts on the moon, giant croquet atStonehenge and noughts and crosses - 30,000 feet up!

Blaster and BigNoise

#0 - #16Artist: CliveManningDidn’t survivemerger

Blaster was an ordinary boy with a very special toy - a radio called Big Noise thatcould turn into anything with the help of a special tape! The pair went aroundfighting crime, stopping bullies or whatever other adventures came their way.

Brad Break

#0 - #16Artist: SteveBrightSurvived merger

Brad Break was an unlucky kid who was permanently in hospital - not that hewas too disappointed. He was always having fun in the wards, often at theexpense of the poor hospital staff.

ClassicsIllustrated

#10 onlyArtist:UnknownDidn't survivemerger

Disaster Des

#6 - #16Artist: MikeLaceyDidn't survivemerger

Disaster Des was a Jonah of the high street, a boy who jinxed anything andeverything he came across. He quickly became famous for his bad luck, andpeople would do all they could to avoid him. Often though, it was the attemptsto escape him that brought the bad luck in the first place.

Double Trouble

#0 - #16Artist: TerryBaveSurvivedmerger

Duck Turpin

#8 - #16Artist: MikeLaceyDidn't survivemerger

Felix thePussycat

#1 - #16Artist: TomPatersonDidn't survivemerger

Felix was an ordinary boy by day, but by night he was - Felix the Pussycat!Inspired by his television heroes, Felix would walk around either in or with hiscat pjyama case, leaping into it whenever the assistance of a masked superherowas needed. The strip was Tom Paterson's contribution to Nipper, and sadlydidn't survive the merge into Buster.

First-Time Fred

#1 - #16Artist: DavidJonesDidn't survivemerger

Fred's adventureswere a very simpleidea - a story about aboy who was alwaystrying things for thefirst time. Whether itwas a food, activity orsomething else, wewere alwaysguaranteed a goodlaugh!

Flapper

#0 - #16Artist: GordonBellSurvivedmerger

Poor Flapper couldn'tfly - and the otherbirds always mockedhim. As of then hedecided it was his dutyto learn, and wasalways seen walkingaround with an 'L'plate strapped aroundhis neck.

Frankie'sFlashlight

#1 - #16Artist:UnknownDidn't survivemerger

Handy Andy

#6 - #16Artist: Sid BurgonSurvived merger

Hit Kid

#6 - #16Artist: Sid BurgonDidn't survive merger

James Pond

#1 - #16Artist: BarrieApplebyDidn't survivemerger

Kelpie's Kingdom

#1 - #16Artist: UnknownDidn't survivemerger

Kelpie has been wrongfully banished from his home by a group of people called"The Elders" and appears in 1987 where he is discovered by a group of kidsgoing camping. Kelpie befriends one of them called Ross, who he needs to helphim get back to his time and prove his innocence!

Kidder

Annual onlyArtist: UnknownDidn't survive merger

Magic Trainers

#1 - #16Artist: UnknownDidn't survive merger

Mighty Mouth

#1 - #16Artist: Terry BaveSurvived merger

Mighty Mouth is the son of aventriloquist, and is just as good. Healways throws his voice to have alaugh, often getting other people introuble, or just totally confused!

The Mini-Monks

Annual OnlyArtist: Mike HiggsDidn't survivemergerThe Mini-Monks appeared onlyin the annual, and lived in themagic land of Ping-Pong-Po.There's only one thing they hate- noise, and will try anythingand everything for silence!

My 'Dad' Mum

#0 - #16Artist: AnthonyHutchingsSurvived merger

Nipper

#0 - #16Artist: Gordon BellSurvived merger

Of course, the star of the comic is Nipper himself.Nipper was an ordinary young lad who wasalways looking for fun - a younger version ofBuster, in a way!

Nursery Crimes

#0 - #16Artist: FrankMcDiarmidDidn't survive merger

Pete and thePoacher

Summer specialonlyArtist: Mick DainesDidn't survivemerger

Ricky Rainbow

#1 - #16Artist: JimmyHansenSurvived Merger

Ricky Rainbow was a strip that really took advantage of the use of full colour.After he stood under a rainbow Ricky had the ability to change colour, much tothe annoyance of Bruiser, the local bully.

Roy's Toys

#1 - #16Artist: Sid BurgonSurvived MergerRoy needed to get rid of hisold toys to make more space,but his toys didn't want to go.He didn't know it, but theywould often made plans sothat none of them got thrownaway!

The Savers

#1 - #16Artist: MarkBenningtonSurvived Merger

School FUNds

#0 - #16Artist: Sid BurgonSurvived Merger

Strongarm - CommandKart

#0 - #16Artist: Mike LaceySurvived Merger

Space Oddity

#15 onlyArtist: Ed McHenryDidn't survive merger

Sweeping Beauty

#2 - #16 (missed#15)Artist: Ian JacksonDidn't survive merger

Will and Bill

#2 - #16Artist: FrankMcDiarmidDidn't survive mergerWill and Bill looked identical and wereidentical, except that Will was a royalprince and Bill was a commoner (oh -and Will had a birthmark on him bum)!The pair were always swopping placesright under the noses of the unknowingparents, with Will trying out thecommon life and Bill the royal one!

Wonder Boy

#1 - #16Artist: Roy MitchellDidn't survive merger

Wonder Boy was always wondering. Italways began rather simply but endedout in some huge extremes - only forthe lad to be put off the idea forever!

Tub

#7 - #16Artist: Nigel EdwardsDidn't survive merger

Facts and stats

First Issue - 31st January 1987

Last Issue - 29th August 1987

No. of Issues - 16

Price - 28p

No. of Pages - Nos. 1 - 5: 48 - Nos. 6 - 16: 32 - Preview Issue: 24

Frequency - Fortnightly

Free Gifts/Supplements:

No. 1 (31st January 1987) - Anglo Bellamy Wilkinson Children's Mix (mixedsweets)

No. 2 (14th February 1987) - Anglo Bellamy Wilkinson Midget Gems

No. 6 (11th April 1987) - Anglo Bellamy Wilkinson Comfits

No. 15 (15th August 1987) - Pull-Out Kelpie's Kingdom Poster

No. of Holiday Specials - 1 - May 1987 - 64 pages - 65p

No. of Annuals - 1 - 1988 (released September 1987) - 80 pages - £2.95

Significant Issues:

No 1 (First Issue)

No 2 (Free Gift)

No 5 (Last Small Edition)

No 6 (First "Big Size" Edition and Free Gift)

No 15 (Free Gift)

No 16 (Last Issue)

Merged Into - Buster

Date of Merger - 19th September 1987

Last 'Buster and Nipper' - 23rd January 1988