It's A Nice Life
    
                             
   This was a take on tv's "The Good Life", that hugely
   popular BBC sitcom about a middle-class couple turning
   "green"and becoming self-sufficient in suburbia - much to
   their chagrin of their snooty neighbours...
     
   In this version, the Nice family consisted of father Stan, wife
   Barbara ("Babs") and their two kids.They upped-sticks from
   their safe suburban lives to go live in a gypsy caravan.
   Next door were the Jones - Oliver ("Olly"), Maddie and
   son Roddy. The Jones couldn't bear the sight of the Nice
   family who kept pigs and livestock in the garden and used
   their billy goat - called Dustbin - and a wagon as their "car".
   But of course, this was a Fleetway strip so the tables were
   always turned on the old snobs, leaving them with their
   upturned noses out of joint.

  

   It's A Nice Life was a somewhat lazy concept, coming as
   it did, straight from tv. But it actually proved rather popular,
   surviving right through the three-year run of Jackpot and on
   into the pages of Buster. Up until mid-'86 the strip was a
   double-page affair too. Towards the end of its appearances,
   however, things got messy.

   You see, when Nipper merged with Buster in September 1987,
   It's A Nice Life disappeared one week prior to the event. Then
   on the week of the merger, the strip was one of the four
   featured in a promotion announcing it to be in the comic
   "next week". Only now, It's A Nice Life was being promoted
   as just plain Nice Life, and - well - suffice it to say, the writing
   was on the wall and the strip disappeared altogether within
   a few scant weeks. Mind you, reprints then began to appear
   in Buster Monthly and the rest of those Fleetway repeats -
   Sheesh!...

   Oh-oh - there's a sneaky reference here. It's Stan Nice and
   Ollie Jones, right? Stan and Ollie. And Ollie was always
   getting himself in a fine old mess, courtesy of Stan.
   Well okay, it's not particularly exciting, but this little
   guide exists to point out all the info, small or large,
   exciting or slight...