The Strangest Yeti

In the issue of the Beano dated 2nd January 1993, a terrible monster made its debut. No, it wasn't Hot Foot, it was the first edition of a story that was, for its first week only, called The Yeti, drawn by stalwart artist Robert Nixon:

This was the only edition to run to two pages (at least in the weekly comic), and with the status quo set up, future editions carried the full title of The Yeti with Betty:

There is a small but noticeable amount of serialisation to the story, especially in its early days, with the first strips looking at what Betty's parents made of her new friend and how all parties coped with him:

Once things had settled down, much of the story revolved around the Yeti not knowing his own strength or understanding human customs.

Whilst 'child looks after a fantastical pet' is a familiar concept which British humour comics would use before and after this story's original run, TYwB is particularly similar to Polar Blair, which Nixon had drawn for the short-lived Hoot, and notched up another four-and-a-bit months in the Dandy following Hoot's closure. The Yeti, at least as drawn by Nixon, was to be similarly short-lived: having been a sporadic presence in the comic for much of their tenure -- which was probably down to Nixon's workload for D. C. -- Betty and the Yeti's last appearance was in the issue dated 2nd April 1994, just fifteen months after their debut.

In 2012, however, the Beano added the Funsize Funnies section, which featured two or three bite-sized strips per page. Many older strips were brought out of retirement for this feature: big names such as Pansy Potter the Strongman's Daughter and Les Pretend, middlers like Tom, Dick and Sally and Joe King, and the comparatively obscure such as Emelyn the Gremlin were amongst the slew of names who suddenly found themselves with another chance to make people laugh. In the issue dated 16th May 2015, a rebooted and renamed Betty and the Yeti reintroduced themselves to the comic, drawn by Steve Beckett:

After just ten months, though, Beckett departed the Beano for a time and Hugh Raine, who would also write the scripts, took over. Raine -- who had pitched an idea for a strip featuring a girl and her friend who was a blue monster, and was asked to retool it for an existing property -- redesigned both characters:

A very early Raine strip, from the first month of his tenure.

It is this version of the strip that has endured and is still running in the comic to this day. In 2019, Betty and her abominable friend were promoted to a full page, making them by far the biggest success story of the 'retro' strips running in Funsize form.

(A noticeable difference between the nineties and present-day incarnations -- especially under Raine -- is that this time round, Betty is actively trying to hide the fact that her friend is an abominable snowman. Nobody seemed to care that much in the nineties. It was a different time.)

They've even on occasion been allowed the big, 4-page strip at the front of the comic, typically reserved for the biggest hitters such as Dennis, Roger, Minnie and the Bash Street Kids:

(The Nixon incarnation got one such super-length story, in the Beano Annual 1995.)

Raine has also penned a series of graphic novels starring the characters, which allowed him to write yet another story for how they met:

(You can read the entire "When Betty Met Yeti" story via the Amazon sample of the book. Then go and buy the whole book, ideally from your local independent bookshop. I'm sure you've got a really nice one.)

One of the subtler changes made to the comic in recent years is to more firmly establish that all the different stories are set in the same town -- in strips set in a classroom, even if it doesn't have a bearing on the plot the other schoolkids will be characters from other strips rather than generic children. This allows for a lot of fun links between stories, such as Edd from The Numskulls and Calamity James being good friends, or Rubi von Screwtop of Rubi's Screwtop Science popping up to apply a dose of mad science wherever she's needed, as she does in the four-page story from earlier, but the full "When Betty Met Yeti" story is one of my favourite examples -- it's like Betty's rite of passage into being in the comic!

(More than a decade on from him joining the comic, I still find it a bit odd to see Bananaman cropping up in the likes of Dennis the Menace and The Bash Street Kids, though.)