Preview – ‘Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular’ – Time For The Special Scares!

by Richard Bruton

A brand-new Brit humour comics special from the Treasury of British Comics AND the introductory issue for a brand-new ongoing title… the Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular is a BIG deal!

Oh yes, this has now gone from being a great little special, bringing us the best from the Brit humour comics of old coupled with all-new creatives in a Halloween Spooktacular to being the opener in Rebellion’s first new ongoing comic in a lot of years.

We had the announcement a few weeks back, that Monster Fun was going to be a brand-new kids humour comics, published every two months, starting in April 2022. And that’s absolutely a huge deal. New comics for kids? We haven’t had one of those for the longest time, certainly nothing this big, not since the launch of The Phoenix Comic, and that’s now up to 500+ weekly issues.

Frankie Stein – editor extraordinaire! – art by John Lucas

But the regular Monster Fun is a few months away yet, but the Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular Special is right here, right now, 52 pages packed with eerie entertainment and Halloween hi-jinks, coming your way on 6th October.

Sweeny Toddler on the trail of some Ghosties – by Tom Paterson

As for what can you expect inside – well, there’s plenty of familiar names from the long history of British humour strips – Frankie Stein, Kid Kong, Sweeny Toddler, Martha’s Monster Makeup, and many more.

But there’s also a fine collection of new characters sprinkled amongst the familiar names. And plenty of familiar creator names as well, many of whom have already worked on the previous Treasury of British Comics Cor! Buster Specials.

Kid Kong suffers his worst nightmare! Art by Tiernen Trevallion

And, as befits this sort of humour comic, most of the strips run short, single-pagers up to four pages at most.

The one exception to both the page count and the humour theme is the welcome return of the classic Leopard from Lime Street, the one adventure strip here, running to six pages.

The Leopard From Lime Street – art by Laurent LeFeuvre

As you can see, there’s a wide range of styles and strips coming from Monster Fun, but there were a few of the brand-new strips that really caught my eye when having a read of the Halloween Spooktacular, strips I’m really hoping we’ll get to see much more of in the ongoing Monster Fun comic.

First of all, there’s only half a page of it, but Harry & Gary by the unlikely named team of Rocky Roads, Tinbott, and Chris P Bacon, is a wonderful little thing, two gargoyles setting their world to rights…

Then there’s Tokoloshe by Ned Hartley and Juni Ba, a spooky little tale of those nasty little spirits living on fear and jealousy, managing to completely mess up Lisa’s late night at her social media job. It’s another great strip, just two pages long, but full of some wonderfully kinetic and fun art from Ba.

And finally, for the trio of new tales, have a look at Hell’s Angel by Chris Garbutt. Another short, just a single page this time, but there’s bags of potential in this one… one lil’ demon daughter having fun in hell…

And that’s just a little of the delights to be found inside. There’s plenty of fun to be had in the Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular, with loads of strips that I’d love to see more of in the ongoing Monster Fun. But for now, it’s time to enjoy this spooky special!

So, here’s your fuller preview of what to expect inside the Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular.

But we’re not going to show you all the strips – there’s way too many, and we really don’t want to completely spoil all the fun of some of the shorter strips for you. But here’s plenty to be getting on with before the Special gets released!

Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular – published by the Treasury of British Comics – 6th October

FRANKIE STEIN – MONSTER OF THE YEAR – Cavan Scott and John Lucas, colours by Gary Caldwell, letters by Amber Cee