Shock Horror

Back in September, I wrote a brief history of Number 13 -- the comic strip that was in many ways a British take on The Munsters and The Addams Family which appeared in the Beano, drawn by John Geering, between 1987 and 2002.

There was one little mystery I couldn't clear up at the time: according to The Official History of the Beano, the story only appeared three times after 1997 (and, from my own research, had only been appearing sporadically since around 1995). The Official History only gives a date for the very last strip -- the issue dated 14th December 2002. Which was kind of noteworthy as it was almost three and a half years after John Geering died. Having a specific date meant it was easier for me to track down that final edition:

But I didn't know when the other two post-1997 strips ran at that point. A month and a half later, though, I tracked one of them down to the 19th June 1999 issue:

And, as you might have already guessed, my time searching through boxes of comics in charity shops has not been in vain: I have the final post-1997 Number 13, and am prepared to make a guess about what happened.

From the issue dated 6th February 1999:

As you can see, this edition ran as a 'guest spot'. This was a short-lived feature that ran from late 1998 to early 1999, where old strips that had been retired a few years ago were resurrected, with a view to permanently reinstating ones that proved popular. (Other stories that ran in this spot were another Geering creation, Smudge, and The Germs with Ill Will.) Suddenly things make a bit more sense.

The June 1999 strip was probably also intended to run as a 'guest spot' -- but by that point the feature had been removed, and so it ran as a guest spot in all but name. The rogue 2002 edition may have been intended as the first of a full-time return, which would account for the new logo, but it was all that John Geering completed before he died. Either the publishers weren't sure what to do with it or they just forgot about it (at least a dozen Puss 'n' Boots strips, probably around the same number of Dean's Dino strips, and a single Bananaman strip, all drawn by Geering, were published posthumously between August 1999 and June 2000, as well as a Bananaman story that ran in the Dandy Book 2002), but eventually they were reminded of its existence somehow and they decided to run it.

I must stress this is only a theory, but it seems to fit everything we know. Perhaps more importantly, I am absolutely certain that all three of these are new strips and not reprints. So one last new story by John Geering did indeed run a few years later.