The New Year SCHOOL FUN (1984)

School Fun was one of IPC's "theme" comics that they were so fond of publishing. In this case, every strip was set in school. The cover here is by David Mostyn, who supplied many covers for this weekly. Unusually for British humour comics, the covers were often wraparounds, which added to the unique aspect of the comic...

One drawback to the theme perhaps is that as the strips are all school-based, hardly any of the stories in this New Year issue are set on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day (as kids would be at home then). Still, the comic managed to provide some references to the New Year. Here are some examples...

The comic's fictional editor, Junior Ed, had his own strip, drawn by Paul Sample...

Coronation Street School featured young versions of some of the TV regulars! Art by Colin Whittock...

Possibly the most popular character in the comic was School Belle, drawn by Tom Paterson...

The centre pages featured a calendar for the New Year... but the artwork was old! It was an enlarged panel from a 1960s Tiddlers strip from Wham! 

Grange Hill Juniors was a prequel to the TV series, with the characters in their junior school days. Art by Brian Delaney...

Finally from this short selection, Time Bus, with art by Keith Reynolds...

Sadly, School Fun didn't even last a full term, ending after just 33 weeks to merge into Buster.

There'll be another New Year comic later today, and a final one tomorrow, so come back again soon to see which years we visit!

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