Buddy No.1 came with a free 'Buddy's Pop Pistol' with 2 plastic bullets, Buddy No.2 gave away the 'Banshee Wailer' (a duck whistle kind of thing) and No.3 had 'Buddy's Super Zoomer' a ballon that 'soars and swops and loops the loop'.

BUDDY was quite a mild adventure comic - a backlash I suppose to the harder titles such as ACTION and Thomson's own WARLORD and BULLET. Its meek content was probably the reason for its eventual cancellation, but at least it featured a revival of the old BEANO strip "The Iron Fish" in new adventures. - Lew Stringer

Buddy started on 1 February 1981 and ran for 130 weeks until 6 August 1983 (thereafter joining with The Victor (13 August 1983 No 1173 to 15 October No. 1182)). It was aimed at boys and consisted of a broad range of action/adventure stories featuring sports, historical adventures, science fiction etc. It also ran contemporary stories usually dealing with hard done by orphans, working class heroes or partially handicapped boys who overcome insurmountable odds to save the day etc. A number of re-hashed Beano action characters appeared but the Buddy had limited humorous stories. Each week a biography of a famous sports man, TV star or personality occupied the centre pages. When I was 10 years old it was actually very good. - Phil Johnson

Connected with the 'Bushwhacker', which as I recall was not a helipcopter, but a sort of land yacht that was able to travel underwater as well, was the 'Spacewhacker' - the story involving this vehicle was based on the three characters who appeared in the 'Bushwhacker', but this time on a journey to the 'Purple Planet'. This new world was a beautifully drawn, colourful place with aliens (one of which they befriended - he also gave them the tip about using pods for travel), giant skeletons, flying vegetable pods which the explorers eventually used for travel, and all manner of other wonders which I may recall if I think about it long enough. I've not met anybody over recent years who remembers this story at all, but it was my favourite for some time as I've always been interested in science fiction.

Do any of you remember this story? I apologise for the hurried nature of my email, but I'm just writing it down as it springs to mind.- T J Snell

If you have any information on Buddy please drop us a line.