A strip from The Victor

See The Victor:- 620 - 673; 1975 annual.

Writer:- The Victor editorial team. Artist:- Michael Barratt.

Main cast:- Different recurring characters each week.

Time period:- present day, but the locals have been cut off from the rest of the country by marshes and still dress, think and act as in Oliver Cromwell's time.

The tall tale from this series that has always stuck in my mind is the story of Jonathan Sniff and the chips. (Issue 625). I should explain that the title of this series, Toad-in-the-Hole also refers to a classic English food dish, which consists of sausages (which are the toads), cooked in a Yorkshire pudding type batter. And very tasty it is too with mashed potato, peas and lashings of hot onion gravy. Hmm. Where was I? Oh yes.

Note - no toads are used or harmed in the making of this food dish.

Unfortunately, this amusing strip sadly suffers from having too many panels scrunched up onto one page. Probably due to the pressure of not having enough page space available in The Victor every week. This was also the fate for other humorous one page strips. Which is a shame. Not a problem for youngsters with keen eye sight, but more than likely a problem nowadays for those same now much older readers! The panel count for these tales is approximately sixteen per page. Other strips in The Victor only had on average eight or nine panels per page. So what would the strip look like if it was spread over two pages? Well, please click on the first two images below to find out.

The following one page Tall Tales From Toad in the Hole stories are from issues 625, 631, 633, 635, 637, 638, 639, 640 & 645.