Plug was a British comic magazine that ran for 75 issues from 24 September 1977 until 24 February 1979, when it merged with The Beezer . It was edited by Ian Gray. [1]
A spin-off from The Bash Street Kids comic strip in The Beano , the comic was based on the character Plug who was a distinctively ugly member of the Bash Street Kids. His dog (Pug) from Pup Parade , and a new character called Chunkee the Monkey (Plug's pet monkey) accompanied him. Vic Neill mainly drew the title character's strip. The comic also had its own fan club, the Plug Sports and Social Club. The comic was inspired in part by Mad .
The Plug comic was never a big hit, possibly because, at 9 pence, it was too expensive[ speculation? ] compared to other D. C. Thomson comics at the time, which were priced at around 5 pence. According to the 2008 book The History of the Beano, for a while there were rumours of a "curse of Plug", fuelled by the fact that a number of celebrities featured in Mad magazine-style caricatures on the comic's cover died soon after, most notably John Wayne. However, the strip's use of gravure painting is still used in comics today.[ page needed ]
| Strip Title | Artist | First Appearance [2] | Last Appearance [2] | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antchester United | John Geering | 1 | 75 | The adventures of an insect football team. Survived merger with the Beezer. |
| Ava Banana | 1 | 18 | Ava was a female athlete "strong as an ox, gentle as a lamb". Her trainer was Charlton Veston, their names being plays on Ava Gardner and Charlton Heston | |
| The Bandshees | 1 | 42 | Creatures playing in a band, "fresh from their successful tour of Mars". Readers were invited to send in funny songs that they had written | |
| Bedtime Story | 36 | 50 | Text story | |
| Crazy Horse - The Nutty Nag | 19 | 75 | The adventures of a talking horse | |
| Digby the Human Mole | Gordon Bell | 1 | 75 | A prisoner who constantly failed to escape from jail by digging tunnels. He had a huge mole-like nose and an enormous appetite. |
| Doctor Rotcod and Drib | 44 | 75 | ||
| D'ye Ken John Squeal and his Hopeless Hounds | 44 | 75 | A daft celebration of fox hunting. Its title parodied an 18th-century Scottish ballad. | |
| Eddie Daring | 27 | 43 | A boy obsessed with rugby league, with Randolph, his pet rat (The Original Dirty Rat). His name was a play on Eddie Waring, a popular TV sports commentator at the time. | |
| Eebagoom | 1 | 75 | The ancient British settlement of Liverpool invaded by Julius Sneezer and his Roman legions. Survived merger with the Beezer. | |
| First Ada | Gordon Bell | 1 | 75 | Always willing to practise her first aid on any unsuspecting passer-by. Ada also had a St. Bernard dog as her companion. Survived merger with the Beezer. |
| The Games Gang - They're Game for Everything. | 1 | 43 | Starred Meltem John, Bee-Bop, Fuzz, Rocky, Mooriel, Magnus Spike and Rollerball, a gang who invented games to play amongst themselves. (Meltem John and Magnus Spike are plays on Elton John and Magnus Pyke.) | |
| Gnoo Faces | 1 | 25 | A strip about "three screwball Gnoos, trying to break into showbiz!" The judging panel was made up of Mickie Musk (the skunk), Lionel Bear, Arthur Aardvark and Tony Scratch (the tiger). The name was a play on New Faces, a popular UK talent show at the time. [3] | |
| Gulp - The Galactic Goon with the GIGANTIC Gullet | Joe Austen | 58 | 75 | Back cover strip to complement Plug front cover, Gulp (Plug backwards) ate everything in the universe. |
| Hugh's Zoo | Gordon Bell | 1 | 75 | The adventures of Hugh and his backyard menagerie. Survived merger with the Beezer. |
| The Invasion of the Plug Bugs | 26 | 75 | A strip about a group of aliens | |
| Jockey | 44 | 75 | ||
| Lumpy Gibbon | 1 | 25 | Starred Lumpy Gibbon (a huge gibbon), Colonel Podgy Whiner (a hunter), Little Gibbon and Man Eating Tiger Moth. The title was a homage to the 1975 song "Funky Gibbon", by The Goodies | |
| Luncheon Vulture | 26 | 57 | The adventures of a hungry vulture. The name echoes luncheon voucher | |
| The Nutcase Bookcase - Guidebooks for Goons | 19 | 75 | Plug would star in a 'guide' to doing something, usually with disastrous results | |
| Plug | 1 | 75 | Survived merger with the Beezer. | |
| Sea Urchin | 1 | 18 | An amphibious boy who had underwater adventures with his friend Roger, the flying fish. The main antagonist of the strip was Silas Sharke, the underwater rotter | |
| Supporting Life | Bill Ritchie | 1 | 43 | Starred Elvis, Plug's little brother, looking at a different football team each week. The first was Arsenal F.C. |
| Tony Jackpot | John Dallas | 1 | 74 | A boy obsessed with golf, whose name was a play on that of British golfer (and 1969 British Open winner), Tony Jacklin. |
| Violent Elizabeth | 44 | 75 | Her name was a play on Violet Elizabeth Bott, a well-known character from the Just William books by Richmal Crompton. |
The Beano is a British anthology comic magazine created by Scottish publishing company DC Thomson. Its first issue was published on 30 July 1938, and it published its 4000th issue in August 2019. Popular and well-known comic strips and characters include Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, The Bash Street Kids, Roger the Dodger, Billy Whizz, Lord Snooty and His Pals, Ivy the Terrible, General Jumbo, Jonah, and Biffo the Bear.
The Bash Street Kids is a comic strip in the British comic magazine The Beano. It also appeared briefly in The Wizard as series of prose stories in 1955. The strip, created by Leo Baxendale as When the Bell Rings!, first appeared in issue 604. It became The Bash Street Kids in 1956 and has become a regular feature, appearing in every issue. From 1962, until his death in 2023, David Sutherland drew over 3000 strips in his time as illustrator.
Pup Parade is a British comic strip that features in the comic magazine The Beano. It is a spin-off to The Bash Street Kids, following the lives of their dogs, and appeared in several issues for over two decades. The comic strip has been rebooted frequently, from the comic magazine it debuted in, to other comic magazines created and owned by DC Thomson.
Joseph Leo Baxendale was an English cartoonist and publisher. Baxendale wrote and drew several titles. Among his best-known creations are the Beano strips Little Plum, Minnie the Minx, The Bash Street Kids, and The Three Bears.
The Topper was a UK comic published by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd that ran from 7 February 1953 to 15 September 1990, when it merged with The Beezer.
The Belles of St. Lemons was a British comic strip in the UK comic The Beano, first appearing in issue 1495, although the characters themselves had first been introduced in the 1968 edition of The Beano Annual. It was drawn by Gordon Bell and ran from 1971 to 1972.
Lord Snooty is a fictional character who stars in the British comic strip Lord Snooty and his Pals from the British comic anthology The Beano. The strip debuted in issue 1, illustrated by DC Thomson artist Dudley D. Watkins, who designed and wrote Snooty's stories until 1968, but the stories would continue featuring in Beano issues until 1991, with occasional revivals and character cameos.
Biffo the Bear is a fictional character from the British comic magazine The Beano who stars in the comic strip of the same name, created in 1948 by Dudley D. Watkins. He was the mascot of The Beano for several decades.
Big Eggo was a British comic strip series about an eponymous ostrich, published in the British comic magazine The Beano. He first appeared in issue 1, dated 30 July 1938, and was the first cover star. His first words in the strip were "Somebody's taken my egg again!" It was drawn throughout by Reg Carter.
Jonah is a comic strip character published in the magazine The Beano. He made his first appearance in his eponymous comic strip in 1958, illustrated by Ken Reid. Although his comic strip sporadically appeared throughout the magazine, it has been published in other DC Thomson comic magazines.
Gordon Bell was a British cartoonist, best known for humorous strips for D. C. Thomson's weekly comics, including "Pup Parade" in The Beano and "Spoofer McGraw" in Sparky.
Classics from the Comics was a British comics magazine, published from March 1996 until October 2010. Published monthly, it was D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd's third all-reprint comic. It replaced The Best of Topper and The Best of Beezer, which had reprinted old strips for some years.
David Sutherland was a Scottish illustrator and comics artist with DC Thomson, responsible for The Bash Street Kids (1962–2023), Dennis the Menace (1970–1998), Fred's Bed (2008–2012) for The Beano, and the second version of Jak for The Dandy in the early 2000s.
The Fun Size Beano and Fun Size Dandy were small-format, full-colour children's comics, originally published four times monthly by DC Thomson and Co. Ltd between 1997 and 2010. They replaced the Beano and Dandy Comic Libraries, originally printed in red, white and black and published from 1982 to 1997. The Beano Comic Libraries lasted for 368 issues and their Dandy counterparts lasted for 344 issues. There were also comic library specials, The Beano Comic Library Specials being puzzle books and lasting for 87 issues (1988–1994) and the Dandy Comic Library Specials being cartoon books, featuring a number of single page comic strips and these lasted for 88 issues (1987–1994).
Dennis the Menace and Gnasher is a long-running comic strip in the British children's comic The Beano, published by DC Thomson, of Dundee, Scotland. The comic stars a boy named Dennis the Menace and his dog, an "Abyssinian wire-haired tripe hound" named Gnasher.
Vic Neill was a British cartoonist who drew for D.C. Thomson and I.P.C.'s comics. His first notable comic work was on Sparky strip Peter Piper. In 1969, he replaced Dudley Dexter Watkins on Topper cover star Mickey the Monkey after Watkins' sudden death. Neill was a big admirer of Watkins' artwork. He made his debut in the Beano with The McTickles in 1971. In 1974, this was replaced by another Scottish-themed strip, Wee Ben Nevis.
Ian Robertson Gray (1938–2007) was a British comics writer and editor.
Mike Pearse is a cartoonist notable for the work he has drawn and written for The Beano comic. His first multi-page strip, debuted in August 1999 and was called "It's A Funny Old Game." It was 24 pages in length and it is the first time in Beano's history to be the only featured story. Since then he has created work for The Bash Street Kids, the Three Bears, and other Beano characters. Mike Pearse is recognized for his unique and highly detailed artwork, animated characters and quick-witted storylines. Nowadays he's working for Studio Beer, an advertising agency in the Netherlands.
