Variations on a small theme

  
When The Numskulls debuted in The Beezer in 1962 few could have suspected that it would inspire so many variations on its theme. The concept of microscopic sentient beings living inside our bodies and controlling our thoughts and deeds seems to fascinate comic readers. (Example above is from The Beezer No.595, June 10th 1967, drawn by Malcolm Judge.)

Two years after The Numskulls appeared, rival comic Wham! arrived with George's Germs in issue No.1 by Leo Baxendale. Other artists also drew the strip, such as this example from Wham! No.17 (10th October 1964). I'm afraid I've forgotten the name of the artist of this one but he was quite prolific at Odhams.

The comedy in George's Germs was far grubbier and more brutal than The Beezer's Numskulls. (See the "nasty, grimy little smut germs" above for example.) Like the strip that inspired it, George's Germs also proved to be very popular. In 1966, when Wham's companion comic Smash! was launched it was only natural that a similar strip would appear in its pages. Thus came The Nervs, again, originally by Leo Baxendale but soon illustrated by other artists, most often by Graham Allen, who drew this example from Smash! No.14, 7th May 1966...

 

The Nervs was later taken over by Ken Reid who took the strip to greater heights of lunacy and gross comedy. Here's ken's very first episode from the first combined issue of Smash! and Pow! (No.137) dated 14th September 1968...

The early issues of Smash! also featured The Tellybugs drawn by George Parlett. (This example from Smash! No.14, 7th May 1966.) This time it was a TV set rather than a human body which played host to the tiny creatures. This strip fascinated me so much as a child that I cut out the figure on the extreme left of the title banner, stuck it to card with a base, and would place it in various positions next to our television.

For me, the weirdest strip of this type was Nobby's Night Mares which appeared in the early issues of Pow! (This example below is from issue 9, 18th March 1967.) Nobby suffers from narcolepsy (although it's never actually specified as such in the strip) and while he's asleep the Night Mare creatures inside his body put on horrifying stage plays that transfer into nightmares in Nobby's mind. Strange stuff, but this is the sort of creative dark comedy that made Odhams' comics so different (and often funnier) from those produced by DC Thomson or Fleetway at the time. An ex-IPC staffer once told me that when IPC took over the Odhams comics they sent a memo to editors telling them never to reprint The Nervs as they found it too disturbing - and they never did.

Today, the variations on the theme continue. The Numskulls is still going strong, now in The Beano and drawn by Barry Glennard...

...recently, reprints of The Beano's The Germs (considerably inspired by George's Germs) have also begun to appear, drawn by Dave Sutherland...

...and in The Dandy, Nigel Auchterlounie's The Bogies continues to run every week. (The first series of The Bogies appeared in rival comic Toxic but as it's a licensed strip it was able to jump ship to The Dandy.)