| Scorcher | |
| Schedule: | Weekly |
| Ongoing: | y |
| Sport: | y |
| Publisher: | IPC Magazines Ltd |
| Startmo: | January |
| Startyr: | 1970 |
| Endmo: | 5 October |
| Endyr: | 1974 |
| Issues: | 248 |
| Main Char Team: | Pete |
| Editors: | Dave Hunt |
| Subcat: | Fleetway and IPC Comics |
| Sort: | Buster |
| Nonus: | y |
Scorcher was the name of a football-themed British comic magazine published by IPC between January 1970 and October 1974. Scorcher featured various well-known comic strips, such as Billy's Boots, Bobby of the Blues and Lags Eleven, a story about a prison football team. In addition, the Nipper strip was absorbed from the Score comic, and Hot Shot Hamish made its first appearance after that. Some of these stories later found homes in Roy of the Rovers and in Tiger.
IPC Magazines, the publishers of Scorcher, always referred to it as a "paper" rather than a comic in its editorials, to distinguish it from more child-oriented publications such as The Beano or The Dandy. In addition to its realistic and comedic football-themed stories, it contained factual items about British professional football, and advertisements not only for contemporary toys, games and confectionery, but also others aimed at an older readership, such as for the Charles Atlas body building method, and recruitment advertisements for the Police, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.
In July 1971, Scorcher joined with another football-themed comic, Score (initially called Score 'n' Roar, launched in September 1970), to form Scorcher and SCORE, before finally merging into Tiger to become TIGER and Scorcher. The word Scorcher started with almost equal prominence to TIGER on the title page, but as usually happened with such mergers the title size was reduced in November 1975, and again in February 1978 before finally being dropped from the title of the comic after the issue dated 30 August 1980.
In total, 548 weekly comics were published with Scorcher in the title, with the following cover dates (the comic usually appeared for sale one week before its cover date, and capitalisations are as they actually appeared on the title bar of the comics):
14 editions of Scorcher Annual were published from 1971 to 1984, and Scorcher or Scorcher and SCORE Holiday Specials each summer from 1970 until at least 1980.
Issue No. 1 of Scorcher was dated 10 January 1970 and contained the following features and stories:
long-running story about a boy who finds a pair of antique football boots in his gran's attic which seem to make him able to play better. Although one or two of the other picture stories had some single colour in the drawings, this was the only multi-colour story, and had an excellent drawing of an old fashioned pair of football boots in the title banner.
This issue contained 32 pages, included a free-gift wallchart which allowed readers to plot their favourite team's progress in the League over the last 20 years, and cost 7d. All photographs in the first issue were black and white.
The weekly editorial column was featured on the Goal Post page, subtitled Pete's Page, and under the byline of Pete was usually around 200-300 words in a jokey, friendly style, describing recent amusing or chaotic events in the Scorcher office, or upcoming features in the paper. Pete was depicted in a line drawing in early issues as a male in his 20s with a short Bobby Moore haircut, sitting at a desk with a typewriter (although on one occasion when he was unwell he was depicted sitting up in bed with his typewriter on his lap), but in later years changed to just a grinning face, with a longer Kevin Keegan hairstyle and waving a football scarf.
It was revealed over the years that Pete was a West Ham United F.C. fan who attended their matches home and away, had spent some of his youth living in South Africa, had a sister, and played football regularly as a striker for his local club, scoring 22 goals in one season, although he had previously played as a goalkeeper until conceding 6 goals in one match.
Other office characters whose antics featured regularly were Ian the Office Junior (possibly Ian Vosper, future editor of Roy of the Rovers magazine), a Portsmouth F.C. fan who played for the same club as Pete, and the paper's editor (Dave Hunt), a.k.a. the Old Man, a Tottenham Hotspur F.C. fan who was regularly portrayed as a minor tyrant who became angry if Pete didn't make him 48 cups of tea every day. Various other members of the editorial or art staff were mentioned from time to time.
Each week, Pete answered a handful of readers' questions on any aspect of football, often settling bets or other disputes over matters of football fact, and paid £1 to the reader for each letter featured. Despite all this, he often had to reassure concerned readers that he was a real person and not just an invented cover-all name for whoever's duty it was to answer the letters that week.
After joining with Tiger Pete's function was to select a dozen of the readers' best jokes to feature as cartoons on his page, and no longer answered questions.