14 DECEMBER 1991, Page 38

Farewell Punch, welcome Matt

Richard Ingrams

All one can say in favour of this year's Christmas funnies is that for once we have been spared Scarfe and Steadman. Those looking for something a bit savage and satirical will have to be content with Funny Old World by Steve Bell and the New Statesman's veteran rhymester Roger Woddis (Methuen, £9.99). Bell's large full- colour paintings are more striking and effective than his rather too pokey strip in the Guardian and there are a number of memorable images, like that of a mad Mrs Thatcher being escorted out of Number Ten in a straitjacket by a posse of white- coated policemen. It is a pity that Bell and Woddis themselves operate in a leftist straitjacket which occasionally results in absurdities like damning the Bishop of Oxford as a vicious and hypocritical war- monger just because, in the context of the Gulf War, he delivered himself of the classic Rev. J.C. Flannel line: 'We cannot allow the high human cost of war totally to inhibit the use of armed force against aggressors'.

It is strange that while Punch obviously does well out of marketing material from the back numbers — the latest is Punch Lines (HarperCollins, £16.99), a handsome volume of pieces by Wodehouse, Noel Coward etc — the magazine itself has been turned into a messy hotch-potch, bearing little or no resemblance to the famous dentist's waiting-room original. Most of the new look seems to be cribbed from Private Eye (I noted an undisguised rip-off of the Eye's Rocky Horror Service, as well as an Iraqi menu). The other major inspiration is the New York magazine Spy, which specialises in stunts like sending million- aires a cheque for a minuscule amount of money and then seeing how many of them bother to cash it. The idea of revealing the contents of famous people's dustbins here the victim is Andrew Neil — was originally invented by Spy. Pick of Punch (1991, HarperCollins, £14.99) is the only magazine annual I have come across which credits the advertising manager and the sales executive.

Confronted by this hotch-potch of badly laid out plagiarism, I feel positively nostal- gic for the good old days of Punch when practised jokesmiths could spin out 1,000 words before elevenses on such exciting themes as how they couldn't get the lawn mower to start. Come back Alan Coren! His latest risible compendium, A Year in Cricklewood (Robson, £11.95), makes one realise what has been needlessly destroyed by Lord Stevens' demolition men.

How long ago it seems now, the launch of the Independent. All the innovations (not Many, it has to be said) have gone — those literary foreign correspondents (Fenton, Marnham, Chancellor) and most recently the highly original strip cartoon 'Alex' by Beattie and Taylor. At the time Alex, a Yuppie merchant banker glued to his VDU, seemed like a parody of the typical Independent reader, a symbol of the new paper's refreshing approach. However, his creators made the fatal mistake of taking Alex out of his office and putting him in any number of settings with jokes about the Gulf War and weekend cottages. The result has been a loss of direction, similar to that suffered by Reggie Perrin when he was sacked by Sunshine Desserts. Alex has lost his way (Alex IV, Penguin, £4.99).

It may seem extraordinary, but I am reliably informed that no less than six publishers turned down The Best of Matt before it was finally accepted by Chapman's (£3.99). This only proves that publishers are as dumb as ever, since Matt is undoubtedly the most promising talent now operating in the field of th'e pocket Cartoon. It is certainly not overdoing things to compare him to the late Osbert Lancaster in his ability to sum up a situation with a sharp one-liner. I always thought the best comment on Mrs Thatch- er's downfall was Matt's barman holding out a collecting box and saying 'There's a 10p fine for every time you say "It's the end of an era"'.

As an old person, I find I derive the greatest pleasure from reprints. This year I recommend the late Charles Addams, Whose brilliant work is reprinted for the nth time in The Addams Family Album (Hamish Hamilton, £10.99) — a nicely Produced hardback which, for once, is reasonably priced by the standards of today. I had forgotten the bald little man in the shower with three faucets — Hot, Cold and Scalding, or the woman in the subway calmly knitting a child's jumper with two necks.