Cor!! Buster Easter Special 2020: the return of the Swines of Anarchy (& all-new Creature Teacher) with Lee Longford & Pye Parr
10th April 2020
Once again, April brings the funny (and we really need the funny right now!) with another laugh-filled Cor!! Buster Special. Just like the first one in 2019, the Cor!! Buster Easter Special 2020 promises plenty of hilarity, loads of chuckles, and even the occasional titter and chortle.
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Alongside familiar characters from the pages of Cor!!, Buster, Krazy, and Monster Fun, there’s also the chance to catch up with those peculiar porcine pals, Swines Of Anarchy! So, expect roaring motorbikes and rip-roaring laughs with writer Lee Langford and artist Pye Parr
The Cor!! Buster Special 2020 goes on sale Wednesday 8th April 2020 from all good newsagents and comic shops (support them as much as you can everyone!) and from the 2000 AD and Treasury of British Comics web shops.
Lee, Pye – in the first Swines of Anarchy The Feek wrote a tale that he described as something ‘born out of that final joke on the last panel (The hot air baboon gag) – it’s one of those ‘so bad it’s great’ gags’.
What can we expect from the Swines this time around?
Lee Langford: Well, it’s a year on since the first story, and the Swines are preparing to celebrate their first anniversary in their clubhouse when there’s a knock on the door… I don’t want to give too much away, but expect bottled beer, bad guys, bottom burps, bad boxing, big bangs, and many, many more pig-puns!
Pye Parr: There’s no vomit this time, but there is a great fart gag! And some old school Wile E Coyote style dynamite, a big bad wolf, and some general pea-brained stupidity from the pigs.
In a comic with lots of older strips from Cor!! Buster, this is one that owes a lot more to the slightly more risqué Oink!. And you’re certainly having fun with putting more bikes, booze, and fart gags in here. Were both of you fans of Oink! at the time?
LL: When Oink! first reared its trotters in the paper shops of ’86, I was fourteen and somewhat appalled by the look of it! It looked rough and nasty and dangerous, and somehow slightly pornographic, so of course I bought it!
In hindsight, I guess it was like a junior version of Viz in style, but pig-themed, which was its best selling point; and the number of pig-puns seemed to be inexhaustible. Oink! was a naughty new kid on the comic block which didn’t last long, but for those who lived through it, we’ve never forgotten.
So when I was asked to write Swines of Anarchy, all that hidden nostalgia must have swelled to the top and swilled out onto the keyboard.
PP: Not especially. I remember it, and other similar one called… Zit maybe? that I bought a few copies of. It had a strip in it called ‘Bloody Ages Ago’ about cavemen which I thought was pretty funny. Me and my friend John knew where his dad kept his copies of Viz, so we used to sneak a read of those whenever possible and laugh at the swearwords.
Pye, Swines is also different, in that it’s one that doesn’t have that very condensed, multi-panelled look of older strips.
PP: That’s all down to my writers choosing how many panels there are when they write the script! Tbh though I think I’d struggle with the more dense style of storytelling. I have a lot of trouble knowing when to leave things out and being economical with the art, which I think you’d need to be both to keep it readable and spend less than a week on a single page.
Lee, your second strip in the Cor!! Buster Easter Special 2020 is Creature Teacher, a possibly lesser-known strip from Monster Fun, originally drawn by Thomas Williams and here in the new strip by Brett Parson. It’s a classic strip concept, Bash Street Kids with a monster teacher I suppose.
Did you already know the strip and went after it for yourself?
LL: I was already very familiar with the Creature Teacher strip, and a huge fan of its original artist, Tom Williams, and it was a story I actively pitched to Rebellion (albeit in a different story form) so when I was asked to write it as a strip for the special instead I was overjoyed.
What was it that hooked you in and gave you the ideas in here?
LL: First of all, the strip’s concept lends itself to brilliant visuals for an artist to run wild with: a paranormal monster teacher, and a gang of scruffy, gawky, mischievous kids. Secondly, it’s a war of wits between teacher and kids; sometimes the teacher may win, other times the kids may win, so there’s a lot of room to tell stories with a great cast of characters. The school environment is also a traditional British humour comic’s trait (something I was keen to introduce more in the special) which lends itself to any season or occasion; the story in the special focuses on Easter and the many gags you can play on this theme.
Hopefully, we’ll see more of these kids specials coming from The Treasury of British Comics. And thinking ahead, what other characters would you love to get your hands on in the future from the massive archive at The Treasury of British Comics?
PP: I always quite liked The Thirteenth Floor, but I can think of several people who where BORN to draw that strip, and would do a far better job than I.
LL: It’s a very big list, but here are a few: Elephant on the Run (Cheeky Weekly), Barry & Boing! (Knockout), Cheeky (Krazy, Cheeky Weekly), Captain Condor (Lion), Boy Boss (Wow! Whoopee!), Fiends and Neighbours (Cor!!), Bumpkin Billionaires (Whizzer & Chips), Janus Stark (Smash! Valiant), The Super Seven (Knockout), The Robot Maker (Cor!!), The Leopard from Lime Street (Buster), 12½p Buytonic Boy (Krazy), Eagle Eye, Junior Spy (Wham!), The Spider (Valiant), The Pirates (Buster).
You weren’t wrong – that was quite a list!
The Cor!! Buster Specials are all about bringing these classics to (hopefully) new readers as well as those readers picking it up with nostalgic memories. Have you had any feedback from people indicating that we’ve seen new readers picking the comic up?
LL: I’ve actively seen kids browsing the newsagent shelves, and choosing last years’ Cor!! Buster Special to buy, because it stands out amongst the licensed children’s magazines, and unbagged, so it can actually be looked through before purchase; it seems like the traditional format of a comic is so old that it’s now a new looking concept to the kids of today, so no toys and gimmicks works to its advantage.
Also, the younger readers I’ve spoken to within friend and family circles have really enjoyed it, and openly want more of the same; which can lead them back to the original collections, to form a circle of sales, which is great for our corner of the industry.
What do you think is the way forward for kids comics?
LL: I think all forms of graphic storytelling are the way forward for any strip throughout the history of The Treasury of British Comics library. The Cor!! Buster Specials are an annual treat (as are the other specials such as Scream! & Misty, Tammy & Jinty, Action 2020, etc) in their traditional floppy comic home, but the potential to expand the strips to longer narratives such as graphic novels (or illustrated prose books) is an exciting possibility, and we know that this format has proven successful in the past as digest books (Starblazer, Commando, Beano Comic Library, the varied Fleetway Picture Libraries).
On the world bookshelf, British comics and their characters are unique, which I believe is their selling point in gaining a wider popular readership; from slapstick to sci-fi, they’re all witty, clever, dramatic, exciting and anarchic.
PP: I really have no idea, but maybe it needs to come out more often. One or two copies a year is a start, but it needs to be followed up with something more regularly, or else how is anyone going to know it exists or find it again in the future? My guess is most of the kids reading it will have been bought a copy by an older relative who’s aware of it through 2000 AD.
And what about the future for both the Treasury of British Comics reprint collections and these new re-workings of classic characters in the Cor!! Buster Special?
PP: On an entirely self-serving note, I hope they do more of the big high-end collections of classic stories, (and that I get to put them together!) as I like working on them. I’ve designed both The Trigan Empire and Charley’s War collections and I loved spending so much time giving them a treatment they deserve! Especially Trigan Empire when I actually started looking at the quality and quantity of the art. It’s incredible. Love it now.
LL: Please, please continue! A few short years ago, I never thought it would be possible to read the collected adventures of Faceache, The Thirteenth Floor, Bella at the Bar; or experience brand new Sweeny Toddler, Roy of the Rovers, and Hellman of Hammer Force. They were dead characters from a dead era. There are decades of similar characters left to be unearthed in collections, as well as continuing new adventures, and it doesn’t end with comics: animation, television, film and games are also mediums these characters can run around and misbehave in. Also, further volumes of those collections already begun, such as Faceache. So more new and more old, wherever possible.
