Your All Time Favourite Comic: a Poll (category 8: British Newspaper Strips part 1)

Just because Mel Horton Asked: category 8, British Newspaper strips part 1. I've divided this category into two as there are so many worthy choices. If your favourite isn't listed here or in part two, vote 'other' in part 2. Oh, and my choice? The sublimely silly 'The Perishers'.

Easiest choice ever!

Garth rules. Frank Bellamy's work from almost FORTY years ago still stands as some of the greatest British strip/comic artwork ever.
Sadly, Garth is like the Doctor: another British character the 'owners' don't know how to use...Tony, it's a mistake to mix the category. Garth just shouldn't be compared with the Perishers. it's like saying who's better - Spiderman or
Andy Capp?!!

GBF wrote:Garth rules. Frank Bellamy's work from almost FORTY years ago still stands as some of the greatest British strip/comic artwork ever.
Sadly, Garth is like the Doctor: another British character the 'owners' don't know how to use...Tony, it's a mistake to mix the category. Garth just shouldn't be compared with the Perishers. it's like saying who's better - Spiderman or
Andy Capp?!!

I did think of separating humour and action but it would simply have made things more complicated. Sorry...

Thanks for adding this category Tony, my perishing vote is now in!

Mel Horton wrote:Thanks for adding this category Tony, my perishing vote is now in!

Have to admit, it was a toss up between the perishin' kids and Axa, for me-but the kids' longevity just swung it for them (I guess I could have cheated and put one of them in the second section so I could have voted for both, but that would have felt rather unsporting, somehow.Vote rigging and all that.).

Can't say I'm much of a fan of any of these - or newspaper strips in general I suppose.

But Bill Tidy's obsession with tripe gets The Fosdyke Saga a tick.

Sandhopper wrote:Can't say I'm much of a fan of any of these - or newspaper strips in general I suppose.

But Bill Tidy's obsession with tripe gets The Fosdyke Saga a tick.

Is this an obsession you share, Sandhopper? I've never seen the appeal, myself. Must be a northern thing...

I don't think I'd even want to be in the same room as the stuff!

But somehow the tripe thing has always stuck with me. And I remember Bill Tidy fondly from his days on Countdown. Now all we get on that show is Rachel Riley in dresses which look like they've been painted - oh. Some things do get better then.

Sandhopper wrote:I don't think I'd even want to be in the same room as the stuff!

But somehow the tripe thing has always stuck with me. And I remember Bill Tidy fondly from his days on Countdown. Now all we get on that show is Rachel Riley in dresses which look like they've been painted - oh. Some things do get better then.

I misread your post, initially, and was assaulted by a mental image of Bill Tidy in dress which lookedlike it had been painted on. I may need counseling...

Never heard of the Perishers, what ate they about?

Hourglass wrote:Never heard of the Perishers, what ate they about?

The Perishers was a comedic strip which ran in the Daily Mirror from 1958-2006, and basically revolved around a group of schoolkids living in a kind of timeless, archetypal Britain. The main characters were: Wellington, a deep thinking orphan who lived in a disused railway station getting by on his wits; Boot, Wellington's old English sheepdog companion, who believed himself to be the reincarnation of an 18th Century nobleman under a gypsy curse; Marlon, an idiot who eats inch thick ketchup sandwiches; Maisie, a fearsome female who considers Marlon to be her boyfriend (Marlon disagrees, but this is irrelevant to Maisie) and Baby Grumpling, Maisie's chaos causing little brother. Other regulars included Boot's canine companions BH Calcutta (failed), a bloodhound with an Indian accent who claimed to be a newspaper reporter, and Tatty Olbitt the sailor's friend, a randy female Basset hound, as well as the Marxist tortoise Adolph Kilroy and his henchmen (a workshy bowler hatted beetle and a chain smoking caterpillar), The Poor Girl, a patently very rich girl who continually tried to swindle Wellington out of his Christmas presents with her litany of 'I'm poor, my butler's poor, my maid's poor...', the revolting Dirty McSquirty and his cousin Worsoff, and the crabs in the rock pool, who would reappear each summer when the kids went on holiday to the seaside, and who had built a crazed religion around the curious Boot-or, as they knew him, 'The Eyeballs in the Sky'. It was by Maurice Dodd and Dennis Collins, relied heavily on recurring gags, and was possibly one of the funniest and most intelligent comic strips ever created. There was also a cartoon version in which Boot was voiced by Leonard Rossiter.

Spiff_B wrote:Easiest choice ever!

Absolutely!

I even lived in Wellington for a few years....and I have several boots. It's like fate, or karma, or me being silly.

"Come down at once, Baby Grumpling, don't you know what you're doing is impossible?"


"But Maisie, this isn't a conversation, it's just you talking!"
"What's your point?"

My role model! (Well, after Sarah Jane Smith, Lisa Randall and Alice in Wonderland.)

Hourglass wrote:Never heard of the Perishers, what ate they about?

Well they once ate some sausages that were the result of a factory inspector getting too caught up in his work.

And they eat "Peanuts" for breakfast.

Liz R wrote:

Hourglass wrote:Never heard of the Perishers, what ate they about?

Well they once ate some sausages that were the result of a factory inspector getting too caught up in his work.

And they eat "Peanuts" for breakfast.

I am really surprised that you're familiar with The Perishers, Liz! I didn't realise they had an international following.

tony ingram wrote:

Liz R wrote:

Hourglass wrote:Never heard of the Perishers, what ate they about?

Well they once ate some sausages that were the result of a factory inspector getting too caught up in his work.

And they eat "Peanuts" for breakfast.

I am really surprised that you're familiar with The Perishers, Liz! I didn't realise they had an international following.

Time to come clean. Not that I was deliberately hiding this, but people tend to assume...

I haven't always lived in New Zealand.

Ah, that makes more sense...

tony ingram wrote:Ah, that makes more sense...

Well, anybody can make sense!