Numskull Valley

The Numskulls, a comic strip about the microscopic humanoids everyone has living inside them who control all your bodily functions, launched in the Beezer in 1962, some six years into the comic's run. (The above strip hails from the Beezer Book 1975, but you can see one of the very first editions here.) If you've picked up a copy of the Beano at any point in the last thirty years, you'll probably be aware that the strip is still running there to this day -- indeed, it is the only strip to originate in the Beezer that has survived to the last of the weekly humour anthology comics still going. The route it took to the present, however, isn't exactly straightforward.

When the story launched in the Beezer it was drawn by Malcolm "Mal" Judge; barring a five-year break at the start of the eighties where Tom Lavery replaced him, Judge would draw the strip up until his death in 1989. John Dallas would then take over, but only a year after that, the Beezer received a major shake-up: it and D. C. Thomson stablemate Topper were merged to form the Beezer and Topper. Rather than one merging into the other, as usually happened, the new combined comic was considered a separate entity in its own right with both titles being given equal billing, but more significant changes were afoot.

Many Beezer and Topper strips featured adults as the protagonists, including The Numskulls; up until 1990 the titular tiny people were operating an adult man, only ever referred to by them as 'Our Man', but when the merger happened several adult characters were de-aged into children or replaced completely, and the Numskulls would henceforth be in charge of a preteen known only as 'Our Boy'. Partway through this incarnation, Dallas would be replaced, with Steve Bright taking over (I think the above example is Bright doing a very good job of ghost-drawing Dallas' style).

The Beezer and Topper concluded in 1993, and having launched in unusual circumstances, it ended in rather unusual ones too: instead of being merged into another comic, the strips deemed strong enough to survive were divvied up between the last two of their stablemates still going, the Beano and the Dandy. The Beano won custody of Brainy, Blinky, Radar, Snitch and Cruncher (as they were now known, having usually had 'normal' -- and sometimes inconsistent -- names beforehand), of course, who first appeared in the comic in its first full-colour edition in late '93. The strip changed artists again, with Tom Paterson providing a more up-to-date look, and for the first time the human they were in charge of was given a name, Edd Case. (Please also enjoy the bonus Biffo strip on the above example; this incarnation of the former cover star featured no dialogue and relied on surreal visuals.)

Although the Beezer and Topper had ended, the Beezer Christmas annual would continue to be published until 2002, and a 'retro' version of The Numskulls featuring the return of Their Man appeared in those. A number of different artists provided these, but I can't not use one by John Geering as an example:

Meanwhile, as Paterson's workload for D. C. continued to rise, the weekly incarnation underwent several further changes of artist in the early 21st century, although they quite closely followed Paterson's style; the most prominent of these is Barry Glennard, who drew most of the strips from 2003 to 2013. With regards to how closely he was following the established designs, Paterson did the occasional strip during Glennard's run and the comic seemed quite happy to switch back and forth between the two artists; an example of Glennard's work can be seen here, along with some Numskulls-imitating strips that appeared in other comics over the years. (There was also a version in the short-lived digital version of the Dandy after the print version concluded in 2012, drawn by Jamie Smart, but out of consideration for any ten-year-old current-day Beano readers who may be reading, I won't tell you exactly what I thought of that whole enterprise.)

Anyway, in 2013 Nigel Auchterlounie took over as artist and writer, and for a period early in his penmanship the strip would instead feature the Numskulls of a different celebrity each week (including Ant & Dec in the 75th anniversary issue); however, the original format would resurface in 2014, and it continues to this day. Barring the two-month break between Beezer and Topper ending and the relaunch in the Beano, the strip has run more or less continuously since 1962, and of all the stories in the Beano today only the 'big four' of Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger and The Bash Street Kids can boast longer runs.

The strip also made a couple of headlines around the world in 2015 when the Pixar film Inside Out was suggested to be a rather similar concept. (Whilst no evidence exists to corroborate this, it is tempting to think that the original inspiration for the comic strip was Thomas Edison's belief that humans had particle-sized 'people' in their heads that made up their memories and experiences.) Perhaps safe in the knowledge that they can't get sued, The Numskulls seems to have picked up a few ideas from the movie since then...