The Perils of Pushing 40


By Colin Whittock (Century Hutchinson)
ISBN: 0-7126-1290-4

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a fond look at a resolutely British cartoon compendium and indulged in a few sound and certain smirks and chuckles. This time it’s a little known collection of cartoons about the inexorable passage of time from one of our best yet criminally under-celebrated gagsters.

Of course it’s really just another excuse to bemoan the loss of those once-ubiquitous cheap ‘n’ cheerful gag-filled paperbacks which are now all-but-forgotten fossils of a once mighty industry; fast fading as the much more important-sounding Graphic Novels and Trade Collections carve a niche in our psyches and on our bookshelves.

Me, I’m still convinced that there’s a place on those shelves for some new collections of our magnificent history of graphic giggles and cartoon chortles…

…And, having again glanced at the wasteland that is daytime TV, I’m firmly of the opinion that Parliament should mandate that all new homes have at least one bookshelf built in…

None of which matters a jot or tittle as I call to your attention to a particularly fine example of a lost Artform: themed gag-books which sadly were the last commercial gasp in a tradition of pictorial entertainments that began with Punch and evolved into a saucy standby of British life for nearly a century before fading away, to only haunt bargain bins, Jumble Sales and junk shops…

Colin Whittock was born in Birmingham in 1940 and, after the traditional period of vocational wandering in the wilderness in which he worked as a shopfitter, eventually took up his brushes, pens and pencils to work as a freelance cartoonist.

In 1969 he became Editorial Cartoonist on the Birmingham Evening Mail – a position I suspect he still holds – and also worked as Sports cartoonist for the Sunday Mercury. In his spare time he produced the full-colour feature strip Kev, freelanced for Punch and Private Eye, as well as The Daily Mirror, The Sun, Daily Sketch, Tit-Bits, Weekend, Reveille and The Oldie whilst pursuing a healthy and respectable sideline in advertising, with commissions from greetings card companies, TNT, British Telecom, Jaguar and Powergen amongst others.

British readers of a certain vintage would recognises the art if not the name, as Whittock also worked for years on Buster, Whizzer & Chips, The Beano and other humour weeklies.

He succeeded Leo Baxendale on Champ, and also drew Catnap, Lazy Bones, Clever Dick & Mizz Marble amongst others. The comics work dried up in 1989 as our industry contracted to near death and he again concentrated on gag panels, although he soon began producing scripts for BBC Radio’s venerable News Huddlines and continued his series of Perils of… books such as this one.

Way back when in 1986, he was at his wry, dry best when sharply observing the pitfalls and pratfalls of the big Four Oh!, remarking with assured style on the absurdity of waning life and drained vitality…

The linked cartoons are clustered into successively trenchant chapters beginning with ‘Fit at 40’, rancorously discussing medical screening, doctors in general and particular, exercise and dieting before moving on to the reason for all that torment in ‘Sex’…

Bitter comparisons abound in ‘The Younger Generation’ and ‘Pet Pals’ describes our often double-sided relationship with things hairy, tooth-filled, unpredictable and expensive before men and women of that uncertain age are shown bearing up under the pressure of ‘The Social Whirl’ and making the unwelcome effort to ‘Dress for Success’…

There’s always the imminent threat of more leisure time, successfully countered by ‘The Sporting Hero’ and the glaring giveaway of outdated taste is tackled in ‘The Music of Time’. At least holidays are a safe subject, as (not) seen in ‘Away From it All’, but never forget that such jaunts can have unexpected repercussions such as ‘Late Arrivals’…

Even if an “Autumn” baby does occur though at least that’s a reason to keep ‘On the Job’ but those work woes won’t assuage the concerns of the world-weary middle-aged in ‘The Future’…

British cartooning has been magnificently served over the centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly smart ideas, repeatedly poking our funny bones, pricking our pomposities, stroking our happy places and feeding our fascinations, and this sort of thing used to be bread ‘n’ butter in our game. We’re all going to really miss them if they disappear forever, so why not get a bookshelf if you don’t have one yet and start filling it with magical material like this…
© 1986 Colin Whittock. All Rights Reserved.