Chill...

No, really - relax. It's getting cold outside, and ice creams and lolly ices are also cold, so there's a link for you. This is what's getting looked at now:

That's right, it's a comic called Chill, brought to you by Wall's ice cream. Normally I wouldn't go near superhero stuff, and the whole thing's really just a slightly-more-interesting-than-usual advert, but hey, free comic! If memory serves accurately, it came from Dickinson's Newsagents, which is now a smoothie bar of some sort. Just so you know.

It concerns the adventures (well, the solitary adventure) of the Ice Team:

There's Sparkle (similar to Storm of the X-Men), Twister (a hideous elf-jester thing), Sunsplash (like Flash Gordon?), and 'Orrible Ogre (this opening page giving away the major plot point that's revealed later in the story). Also there's your baddies - Aunty Freeze (like an manly Rita Repulsa) and the Hot Lippers (again, giving away the story before it's even started!).

Here's the first part of your story:

Having fun yet? Let's pause for a poster:

This is it - the big sell. Sunsplash doesn't get his own ice lolly, but the other three do. Twisters are still available to this day, and they're delicious (although like every food thing, they "seem" smaller nowadays). Not sure if Sparkle still exists in that form, but there's nothing interesting about them - more or less just frozen water on a stick. 'Orrible Ogre, on the other hand, is one that I really miss. An icy exterior with a gooey sugary centre. Other variations of the same lolly were also around over the years, such as a Spider-Man one (red on the outside, blue on the inside), and one based on Casper the Friendly Ghost (blue on the outside, blue on the inside as well).

Back to the silly story now:

Hey, a happy ending. The Hot Lippers refuse to fight (and pull some funny faces in the process), and Sparkle kills Aunty Freeze on the spot before she has a chance to escape. 'Orrible Ogre turns into Sunsplash with different clothes, and the gang prepare themselves for their next thrilling adventure.

And here we have Wall's seriously overestimating the popularity of their new mascots. You can send off for these "Solar Screamer" things by collecting wrappers, BUT... If you want the Aunty Freeze one, you have to be quick! "Available only to the first five thousand readers who apply". 

Another page of adverts follows:

Hey, there's Zig and Zag again! Those two really were everywhere in 1994. Loved them, I did. There's a Mario ice cream thing as well.

The back page has a competition on it:

"Win a Supercool RAD BOARD" - weren't the Nineties great? Race around looking like a superhero on something as insanely nutty looking as this:

Yeah, why not? For the sake of completing a maze and then describing why you think the Ice Team are super cool, you too can try and figure out what you're supposed to do with that thing.

Well, that's Chill for you. Comics being used to sell things - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's just plain embarrassing. Decide for yourself where this one fits in.

Oh, fourteen years after getting this comic, I got a book called The Leather Nun and Other Incredibly Strange Comics, and through that book I learned that Chill was drawn by John Richardson, artist for the likes of Scream!, 2000AD and Eagle, amongst others. So there's that at least.