Cliff Hanger (comic strip)

Cliff Hanger is the name of two different 1983 comic strips, one published in the United Kingdom and the other in the United States.

The British Cliff Hanger was written and drawn by Jack Edward Oliver. It first appeared in the 25 June 1983 issue of the comic Buster.

Watching a television show called 'Now Get Out of This' (a parody of Now Get Out of That), Cliff remarks that he thinks he could get out of everything. This is overheard by the Evil Spies, agents of M.E.S.S. (the Mysterious Evil Spies Society). They tell Cliff that he's now a guinea pig in their traps, and if he doesn't survive, they'll know the traps will be good enough to use against secret agents.

From then on, the premise of the strip every week would be that Cliff is suddenly transported into a dangerous situation by the spies, using the Atomic Matter Transmitter. Three options would be presented to the readers, who would select one by ticking one of the boxes, and turning to another page to see whether their choice was correct or not. For example, in the first strip, Cliff is stranded on a moving artificial desert island. Just as it's about to hit the shore, the current changes and Cliff is driven back into the shark infested sea. The choices were 'Take off his shoe and use it to paddle the island to the shore', 'Pull out the tree and use it as a raft' and 'Climb the tree'. A and B were incorrect- using the shoe as a paddle simply sent Cliff round in circles, and pulling out the tree revealed it was plugging a hole, causing the island to sink. The correct answer was C, as Cliff's weight caused the tree to bend over onto the shore, lifting Cliff to safety.

The strip featured several minor background details that would occur in every issue, including a box with a handle, a plaster, the word 'Acme', an arrow with another (backwards facing) arrow inside it, a warthog, the initials 'JEO', a worm, and a sign saying "Abolish Tuesdays". A running gag would feature one of the Evil Spies' constant wondering why his counterpart would frequently call him "Ray" even though that wasn't his name, when in fact he was simply referring to one of the gadgets ("Fire the Transporter Ray!"). Another thing of note is that Cliff's jumper often featured the strip number on it, starting with a "1" in the first, and going on well into the hundreds at the end. Over the years, several continuous storylines emerged featuring parodies of popular film and television series of the day, including James Bond, the Star Wars Trilogy, Back to the Future and Transformers. The strip ended in 1987, replaced by Vid Kid.

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