Unplugged

No, it wasn't some weird dream you had, D. C. Thomson really did produce an entire comic based around the ultra-homely Bash Street Kid. Plug ran for just 75 issues between September 1977 and February 1979, after which it merged into the Beezer; its demise is often blamed on its considerable production values such as use of gravure painting, higher-quality paper, and more pages in technicolour than other D. C. titles, which made it almost twice as expensive as other comics of the time. (The paper used did seem to make this an easier scanning job, at least.)

Plug has been considered an attempt by D. C. to ape the style of the wackier comics published by rivals Fleetway (something they would later manage more successfully with Nutty), which probably accounts for the use of an existing D. C. character; many Fleetway titles had a character serve as the comic's 'host' (the most salient comparison being the eponymous Buster). I suppose the exact sequence of events that led Plug to be the lead is lost to time, but it's easy to imagine D. C. wanted the role to go to a pre-existing character, it made sense to promote a member of an ensemble, and Plug was the most distinctive character in that window.

The issue of Plug I have scanned in today to add to my growing collection of mayflies is one of the final ones -- the Christmas 1978 issue, number #67. So let's go!

Violent Elizabeth was added mid-run; we're missing a few early strips here, but I think you get a pretty good overview of the comic from one issue. The appearances from the title character in the background here look really sloppy, in a strip that is -- to be blunt -- not a high point for comics artwork, and it's very strange to me that this was approved. (A lot of Plug artists remain unidentified, which in cases like this might be for the best...)

Hugh's Zoo (Gordon Bell) is the first strip we come to that survived the comic's end and merger with the Beezer.

For some reason a lot of Plug was based around sports. (A special Bash Street Kids strip in the Beano announcing Plug's forthcoming spin-off, which tried to make sense of this idea, can be seen here.) Plug himself was drawn for this comic by long-serving D. C. artist Vic Neill, who drew strips from Peter Piper to Mickey the Monkey. After Plug ended he had a spell at Fleetway, drawing strips including Top of the Class and Nightmare on Erm Street, but returned to D. C. in the late eighties; he was still drawing Billy Whizz and Tim Traveller at the time of his death in December 1999.

Most sources attribute Digby to Gordon Bell, but it doesn't look enormously like his work to me; the UK Comics Wiki says it's Fleetway artist Graham Allen. Despite appearing in the comic from start to finish, it did not survive the merger with the Beezer, and in fact was the only such strip not to be carried forward. (Another really bad example of shoehorning Plug into a strip...)

Although Plug himself was hosting the readers' jokes page by this point, in previous issues it starred Max Bygraves (and was titled "I Wanna Tell You a Boom Boom"). Not even a cartoon version of Bygraves, he was represented with photographs.

I suppose a comic made in the late seventies could have made far, far worse choices.

Far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far worse choices.

Eebagoom, drawn by Albert Holroyd, chronicles the adventures of a scouse boy resisting the Roman occupation of Gaul Liverpool, and also survived the merger.

Tony Jackpot, a boy obsessed with golf, was drawn by Ball Boy artist John Dallas; it debuted in issue #1, but did not appear in the final one, and didn't resurface following the merger. (All the merger survivors had appeared from the very first issue, and the traditional 'Great News for All Readers' page in the final edition listed exactly who would be appearing in the combined Beezer and Plug, so it seems possible Tony missed out on the final issue specifically because he was being retired.)

Jockey was another strip introduced mid-run.

John Geering's Antchester United is one of the comic's stronger offerings; it survived the merger with the Beezer. It also resurfaced in the Dandy for one or two issues in early 1999, and I'm unsure if these are reprints or new material; if they're the latter, then it seems the comic decided not to proceed with a full-time revival even before Geering's death later that year.

First Ada is another Gordon Bell joint, and also survived the merger.

D'Ye Ken John Squeal And His Hopeless Hounds? (named after a hunting song written in 1824; Plug was truly up-to-date with what children were into) is quite something, but I'm just not sure what. This did not survive the merger, but did appear in one or two Comic Libraries further down the line.

The Nutcase Bookcase (sometimes introduced by Plug's Uncle Ebeneezer, but not in this case) was a 'how-to' feature starring Plug.

The final new strip to be added to the comic (he had debuted just ten weeks before), Gulp (Plug spelled backwards) is the work of noted artist Joe Austen, who also did celebrity caricatures (mostly sportspeople) for several of the comic's front covers.

I mean seriously what the hell is this

Who is any of this meant to be aimed at

Hold on, we're almost at the end

Plug's own strip -- which appears here in a rather unusual form owing to the Christmas theme -- also survived the merger, of course, leading to an odd setup for quite a few years where Plug could be seen as part of the Bash Street Kids in the Beano, and at the exact same time headlining his own strip in the Beezer. (His pet monkey Chunkee was invented for Plug, but his dog Pug -- already starring in Pup Parade in the Beano -- also made appearances.)

Whilst there's a lot of baffling stuff here, some other strips had already been filtered out and considerably brought the comic's average up by their departure; you can go here to see most of an early issue, which includes the absolutely appalling Ava Banana, surely the worst-drawn strip ever to appear in a D. C. Thomson publication. Other strips that had been dropped by this point include rugby-obsessed Eddie Daring; The Games Gang ("They're Game for Everything"); Supporting Life starring Plug's little brother Elvis, which profiled a different football team every week; and Luncheon Vulture, the adventures of a hungry vulture.

As mentioned, Plug folded into the Beezer upon its closure, where it appeared as a separate, 8-page pull-out section (since the Beezer was at the time printed in A3 and Plug was A4); the comic was branded as the Beezer and Plug for a full two years. In 1981, the Beezer changed size from A3 to A4, the Plug supplement was discontinued, and it was dropped from the title. Of the five strips that had survived the merger, only Plug himself and Hugh's Zoo carried on beyond this point, both taking their final bows in 1986; all in all, Plug managed to survive as the star of his own strip (if not his own comic) for the better part of a decade which, for all my doubts about how much the world needed Plug, isn't a bad innings.