COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Buster Book 1985
I won’t kid you, Buster Book 1985 is pretty much ‘meh’, but seeing as how it’s a late entry Fleetway Annual that means “reprints and lots of them” so there are one or two points of genuine interest. Point one, Ken Reids Faceache, a shape changing kid who can literally “pull faces”.
While being treated with a radioactive serum 13 year old Billy Farmer gets scratched by an escaped leopard and becomes The Leopard of Lime St. Well, technically he becomes “Leopardman” but the editors clearly thought that “Leopardman” was a little too close to Spider-Man. And the character really was a British, slightly younger skewing , lower class Spider-Man; but in a pretty cool way.
— Steve Bennett
Interestingly, none of those Faceache strips are by Ken Reid. It wasn’t unusual for the annuals to get other artists to draw strips when the regular ones weren’t available for whatever reason.
Oops! Tell a lie. I should’ve enlarged all of them before commenting. The last one is by Ken.
Oh dear, do I have egg on my face. Scratch all that and start again. The first one isn’t by Ken, the other two are. Funny how someone’s style can look so different in a reduced format. From now on I’m clicking to enlarge before I put finger to key.
I feel compelled to redeem myself. The Leopard From Lime Street is drawn by Ron Turner.