The Ghost of Christmas Comics Past

Ho fucking Ho chums. Have I got a treat for you. 

Yes, dragged from the back of LLC's moth infested wardrobe I bring you an example of yellowing yuletide badness...

This abomination is what passed for Eagle's Christmas edition back in the bleak midwinter of 1982. It's jam packed with mediocre British talent burbling on about the festive season and engaging in grossly unfunny high jinks...

Yes, back in the day, comics could get away with filling their pages with shots of C celebs in shite Santa outfits decorating trees with other c celeb ornaments. What the fuck were kids meant to make of that? 

If The Game for a Laugh team weren't depressing enough for readers who had really turned up for Dan Dare, then there was always unfunny duo Little and Large to spoil things...

Click for a terrifying list of abysmal pantos

Festive Fun my arse. Not as annoying as ubiquitous 80s sports type and all round smug cunt Daley Thompson though. 

Thompson was HUGE in the 80s and appeared in The Eagle every bloody week prattling on about his tedious training regime. The Christmas issue was no different, although he did at least pull a Santa outfit over his Adidas top before proceeding to to bore the kids with talk of orgies and self-sacrifice...

My heart bleeds. 

To be fair, it wasn't all dull personalities. There are a few strips to be had including a sort of Bad Santa prototype done as monochrome photo story... 

Billy Bob Thornton it ain't. No point boring you with scans of the whole story, suffice to say the bloke dressed as Santa steals loads of toys from the department store he works in but eventually gets fucked over by the real Santa who loads up his sack with so much stuff that the crook falls down the stairs and is forced to give the majority of his swag away to needy children so that he can get out of the building. 

Yeah, made no sense to me either.

Apart from that there are some house ads for IPC's other depressing celeb based Xmas comics... 

I bet Ian Botham's "Cricketer's Christmas" was a bundle of fun eh chums? 

The only saving grace in the whole issue is the Dan Dare story which features an awesome panel of The Mekon relaxing in a giant goldfish bowl of nutrients... 

It has precisely nothing to do with Christmas which in the context of all the other gubbins makes it even greater than it actually is.  But the joy is short lived and we are quickly back to the festive theme with Eagle's ridiculous ideas for party games...

What a fucking elaborate wheeze eh? My mum would have looked at me blankly had I asked her for that lot. Bah Humbug! No wonder I was so quick to turn to the slick world of American comics whenever the chance presented itself.