The Best of The Rest

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Launched: 22nd October 1983

Ended: 26th May 1984

Merged into: Buster

Annuals Released: 1985

My resources: The Toonhound Review of School Fun & The 1985 Annual.

The characters that made it to Buster: Young Arfur, School Team, B'ware Caretaker, School Belle, Teacher's United, Slowcoach, and Walt Teaser.

The Best of the Rest:

School Fun didn't have a star, as such, but lead with many great school strips. Most made the switch, but there were some that were sadly left behind, including:

Grange Hill Juniors - School Fun launched off the back of Grange Hill, and tried to cash in on the name too
Time Bus - Instead of learning maths, why not travel to the past of future on the Time Bus
Schoolditz - Teachers and their pupils continuing lessons in a Nazi Prison camp
Creepy Crawler - Known as the snitch from Young Arfur in Buster, he initially had his own strip
Old Boy - Britains Oldest Student he's been trying to learn for years!

The Award for Most Promising Strip:

Having now read the 1985 annual I can say School Fun was actually quite good. Dogsbodies Academy was fantastic, essentially a dog school, but very good. Spy School was also quite good the teacher trying to teach the kids how to be good spies! But possibly the best was ETT (Extra Terrestrial Teacher). In Monster Fun I slammed Creature Teacher for not quite being realistic. ETT gets around this as nobody knows teach is an alien.....this just makes it more amusing as we watch him get to grips with Earth life.

For instance, he bids farewell to his landlady as he heads for school, she says "Aren't you going to take your coat?" and rather bewildered he replies "Certainly, if it needs the excercise!"

The Award for the Most Disappointing Strip:

Willy Wonty is near the bottom. He is completely unable to make his mind up about anything. It's not a bad strip, it's just difficult to see how much longevity the strip could have. But he's not the worst. That award is reserved for Softy Sir, who just doesn't work. I can't put my finger on what I don't like about the strip, but it's nice to turn over and read something else. Possibly there were just plenty of strips better then Softy Sir.

Have Your Say

Were you a School Fun reader? If so, tell us what you thought about the comic. E-mail schoolfun@bustercomic.co.uk with your views. We'll print the best comments here!

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