Wonder Weekly

Publisher: Esso

Format: Weekly anthology

First Issue: Wonder Weekly #1 (5th July 1968)

Last Issue: Wonder Weekly #52 (27th June 1969)

Absorbed: None

Absorbed into: None

Strips: The Adventures of Wonder Boy and Tiger, Bossy Boots, The Castaway Circus, Chop Chop the Karate King, Gulliver Travels, The Holy Terrors, Hovercraft Patrol, The Nitwits, Scatters, Work Shy Willie

Comments: Wonder Weekly was a promotional comic produced by petrol company Esso and available at their garages (gas stations, for the Americans in the audience). If you click on the link in this paragraph, you can watch a television advert for it.


The Adventures of Wonder Boy and Tiger was the cover strip of Wonder Weekly. Whenever someone was in danger Tiger's whiskers would waggle to direct their flying "super space carpet" to the problem, and upon landing "Boy" as he was generally known would seek to resolve the problem while the every hungry cat would race off in search of food. However, when Boy inevitably found himself in over his head and called for help, then Tiger would sense this (even if well out of earshot) and automatically transform into the far bigger and more muscular "Tiger Cat" to come to Boy's rescue. Their recurring foe was the yellow-skinned and villainous Doctor Fang.


Bossy Boots was a young girl who constantly tried to tell everyone around her what to do. Her reputation was so bad in her home town that people fled when they heard she was approaching. However her schemes always ended with her receiving a just comeuppance.


The Castaway Circus were a troupe of circus performers who had been shipwrecked on the remote Crocodile Island. Their members included Bippo the clown, twin child acrobats Billy and Bunty, strongman Samson, human cannonball Zero, animal handler Tarzan, and Slim the stiltwalker.


Chop Chop the Karate King was a Chinese master of the martial arts with a penchant for chopping things. Nothing was impervious to his lethal hands, not even tree trunks or pillar boxes; he even chopped the getaway car being used by a group of bank robbers clean in half lengthways. Since he appeared in the late 1960s he also had some unfortunately stereotypical speech mannerisms.


Gulliver Travels was about a young boy by the name of Gulliver who carried around a small army of tiny "Mini-Men" in a matchbox as he made his way from country to country.


The Holy Terrors were a group of troublesome school children who constantly made their teacher's life miserable, in the vein of the Bash Street Kids.


Hovercraft Patrol was an adventure strip that ran in the colour centre pages of Wonder. It starred two operatives, Storm (black hair, flying HC-2) and Hardy (blond, flying HC-1), who flew missions for the Crime Combat Force (a government agency - though it's abbreviated CPC and CPP in different issues), rescuing people in trouble and catching spies. They reported to Colonel Barton.


The Nitwits were extremely dim and inept criminals. From left to right in the adjoining picture, they were Slim (a.k.a. Lefty), two I've yet to identify (wearing the cap, and the portly one in the sleeveless jacket), getaway driver Maxie and their boss, Slick Nick.


Scatters was a man obsessed with safety, officiously stepping in to warn others of dangers while simultaneously causing disasters in his wake.


Work Shy Willie was a young boy who just wanted to laze his days away, resulting in an ongoing battle with his father, who kept trying to find ways to get his son to do some work. Willie's efforts to avoid work often ended up taking more effort than would have been needed to simply do the jobs his father asked him to.


First Posted: Circa 13/10/2019
Last updated: 05/11/2023

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