The Beezer

The Beezer (called The Beezer and Topper for the last 3 years of its life) was a British comic that ran from (issues dates) 21 January 1956 to 21 August 1993, when it merged with The Beano. Like its sister comic, The Topper, the Beezer was an A3 (tabloid) publication, meaning it was twice as big as other comics. It shrank down to A4 paper size like the others in 1981.

Comics that merged with The Beezer during its 37 year run were Cracker in 1976, Plug in 1979, and The Topper in 1990. Although the comic ended in 1993, three other publications continued for a few years afterwards. They were The Best of Beezer (1988-1996), The Beezer Summer Special (1973-2002, known as the 'Holiday Special' from 1998 onwards) and The Beezer Annual (1957-2002).

Strips in The Beezer included:

• Adrian the Barbarian
• Baby Crockett - supposedly a baby version of Davy Crockett, but in practice a modern-day 'cute toddler' strip
• The Bad Lads - a group of three criminals always on the run or bungling an attempted crime. Drawn by Malcolm Judge
• Barney's Barmy Army
• Beefy Dan The Fast-Food Man
• Black Bun - a rabbit stealing cabbages from a farmer
• The Banana Bunch - a group of mischievous schoolchildren similar to The Bash Street Kids
• Cap'n Hand and his merry mutineers - a pirate captain and his endlessly rebellious crew
• Colonel Blink The Short-Sighted Gink
• Geezer
• General Jim
• Ginger
• The Gobbles - a group of vultures always on the lookout for food. Similar to The Three Bears
• Hugh's Zoo
• Hungry Hoss
• Little Mo (comics) - a generic resourceful/mischievous tomboy
• My Pal, Ropey
• Paw, Maw and Porky
• Pop, Dick and Harry
• Saucy Sue
• Scrapper
• Smiffy
• The Badd Lads
• The Banana Bunch
• The Hillys and the Billys - two feuding hillbilly families. This strip was surprisingly violent, with the families eager to shoot each other with shotguns - even to the point of co-operating in order to steal guns from the sheriff
• The Munchers
• The Numskulls
• Tommy's Toybox
• True Brit
• Tuff and Tiny
• Twitt Hall
• The Wallies of Winkle Street
• Young Sid The Copper's Kid

References

See also: List of DC Thomson publications