The Perishers
| The Perishers | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Maurice Dodd |
| Website | theauthenticperishers |
| Current status / schedule | Concluded / Reprinted |
| Launch date | 19 October 1959 |
| End date | 10 June 2006 |
| Publisher(s) | International Publishing Corporation |
| Genre(s) | Comedy |
The Perishers was a British comic strip about a group of urban children and a dog. It began in the Daily Mirror on 19 October 1959 and was written for most of its life by Maurice Dodd (25 October 1922 – 31 December 2005). It was drawn by Dennis Collins until his retirement in 1983, after which it was drawn by Dodd and later by Bill Mevin. After Dodd died, the strip continued with several weeks' backlog of strips and some reprints until 10 June 2006. The strip returned, again as reprints, on 22 February 2010, replacing Pooch Café.
Many Perishers strips are polyptychs—a single continuous background image is divided into three or four panels and the characters move across it from panel to panel. The story is set in the fairly drab fictional town of Croynge (sometimes spelled Crunge), which is apparently a South London borough. The name is a portmanteau of Croydon and Penge. The location often resembles an industrial Northern town and may have its roots in how Croydon, Penge and the towns between them appeared in the 1950s. Collins's artwork in particular gives the town detailed, realistic architecture and a consistent geography.
Thematically, the strip draws upon nostalgia for childhood experiences and often has a static, almost limbo-like atmosphere, in a similar manner to its companion strip, Andy Capp. The main characters largely exist independently of 'the real world', and adults are rarely seen; for example, every year the Perishers go on holiday but always get thrown off the train home, forcing them to walk and arrive home several weeks late (a joke on how a short scene in comic book time can take several weeks when told in daily installments), yet with seemingly no repercussions.
An impoverished orphan boy who lives with his dog, Boot. In the early days of the strip they lived in an approximately 10-foot (3 m) diameter concrete pipe section in a seemingly abandoned builder's yard. In 1966 he and Boot moved into a small railway station that had been closed by the Beeching Axe, and they have lived there ever since. Wellington takes his nickname from his trademark wellington boots – he cannot afford proper shoes. He named his dog Boot to go with Wellington.
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