YOU ARE WRONG.
cover of Look-In (1971 series) #3/1983 (ITV, 15 January 1983)
Look-In was a British companion magazine ("for young people") to TV shows that ran on the ITV commercial TV channel — only the third channel in the United Kingdom and its first commercial station (the fourth, the aptly named "Channel 4," premiered only a month or so before this magazine). It ran celebrity spotlights, pop star interviews and bios, comic strips and features on the stars and shows that they broadcast. Their "Madness" strip had been running about a year and a half by this point. Spring of 1983 was when my Pal John was studying in London for the semester, so he bought a lot of these (20p! Cheap!) including this very issue, but sadly lost them in one of his many moves before he adopted me. But I was able to find a few scans of one Madness strip online. Here's some excerpts.
from "It's Madness" in Look-In (1971 series) #5/1983 (ITV, 29 January 1983), script by Angus P. Allan, pencils and inks by Harry North
Sadly, the Madness strip was replaced by one about Bucks Fizz later in '83 (boo!), but there's at least one other place to find Madness Comix...within the pages of Nutty Boys, an official Madness fanzine that circulated for two issues in 1981.
from Nutty Boys: Madness Comix #1 (Madness Comix, 1981), creators unidentified
Learn all about those cheeky blokes of Madness! Say, Chas. Smash's birthday is tomorrow! Well, just read this post again.
And that's all of the Suggs I can find in comic books, 'less'n you count that one Ditko story where he was a low-down dirty yeller-bellied varmint in the Ollllllllld West.
from "Bonanza" in Outlaws of the West #81 (Charlton, May 1970), script by Joe Gill (?), pencils and inks by Steve Ditko, letters by Charlotte Jetter
Happy birthday, Suggs!
Madness! The Pogues! Gosh, how I love 'em. There's no two more quintessential London bands for this little stuffed bull, and you can betcha their music is always in heavy rotation on my iPod. There's nothing, however, to compare with seein' 'em live (after all, Shane MacGowan won't last that much longer—then again, I've been sayin' that for years). I'm not complaining, oh no no. I'm over-the-hill chuffed to be in London at Christmastime just on its own, and I've got a ticket to see something else I've been really looking forward to (Spamalot on Boxing Day, starring Tim Curry!), so no sour grapes from Bully here. After I, I've been lucky enough to see 'em both live over here in the UK: Madness twice (once in 1983 and at the Madstock concert in 1987, The Pogues in 1992). And there's s'posed to be the new Madness single "Sorry" out this month, so I'll definitely be looking for it at HMV on Oxford Street during my sure-to-be-thrilling pilgrimage there later this week. And I have been busily pencilling in so many things to do in London on my holiday calendar that I'm sure I will have more than enough to do this week. But in spirit, at least, if you were at Wembley on Wednesday you heard me singin' along with "It Must Be Love" or at Brixton on Tuesday, swaying back and forth and bellowing out "London You're a Lady." I will drink a pint of ginger beer this week to Messrs. Suggs and MacGowan and company, and hoist a special toast to the memory of Tom McManamon, and I will stumble home from the pub to my warm hotel bed, warbling
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