Alf Tupper, The Tough Of The Track. He could run and win almost any race over any distance after eating his "Two cod and chips".
Captain Hurricane and his batman Maggott Malone.
So many,so many.

Some of those were in those "Classics from the comics" magazines with old Beano, Dandy, Beezer etc. strips. I used to buy those as well.

I bought the Beano and my brother bought the Dandy. Favorite strips were Dennis the Menace of course and the Bashstreet Kids..... Korky the cat was, to be honest, rubbish!! (although I will concede that DD was quite good)

Yep, I used to get all 4 DC Thompson releases, Beano, Dandy, Beezer, Topper and a couple of others, Buster and Whizzer and Chips.

Still occasionally pick up the Bash Street Kids Annual, and from the same publisher The Broons and Oor Wullie.

I liked him when I first bought the Dandy but after a while I went off the Dandy altogether and just stuck to the Beano instead. I gave most of my Dandy comics to the charity shop but still have most of the Beano ones (for now).

It just seemed that the Dandy was like the poor man's Beano... only DD came close to the characters the Beano had in it.... Rodger the Dodger and Minnie the Minx just weren't up to scratch.... and why the hell a character as boring as Korky the cat was their cover strip I will never understand.... not that it stopped my reading it though. Just glad I got the Beano first.

Did you join the Dennis the Menace fan club and get that black wallet and other crap that I cant remember now.?

Weren't they Beano characters?

Reverend!

I used to love all those. Even the photo-story layout of the relaunched Eagle. Eagle was a lot more traditional than 2000AD. And a lot less scary. Those Yugees and the vapourisation vats in Meltdown Man scared me silly as a kid. But they were also weirdly fascinating.

And also those little sci-fi books that were a bit like Battle Picture Library, were they called Starblazer?

Heres a link to a page on Billy the Cat..

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/b/billycat.htm

And anyone remember when Ginger was taken off the cover of the Beezer??? He gave way to True Brit! Anyone remember him?? I cannot find much information about the character, but if I recall correctly he did stay as the cover star for a while, having bumped long-time star Ginger to the insde back pages!

Remember the back cover of The Dandy?: 'Bully Beef & Chips'.

There was also a science fiction strip, about a baddy alien called Captain Zap, thwarted by an earthling boy and an alien boy (occasionally with the aid of a giant robotic hand, called the 'fizzfist').

'Winker Watson' and 'Black Bob' were other strips.

Yep! They were two of my favourite characters

Around 1987-88. He was replaced by Geezer in 1990 when the Beezer and Topper merged. The only other Beezer cover star was Pop, Dick and Harry, for a few years in the late 50s early 60s. Ginger was on issue 1's cover, got bumped off by Pop, Dick and Harry, but in the early 60s got the cover back and stayed there until the 80s.

Jack Silver. It was on Dandy's centre pages for a while.

I took the Beano from my youth until my mid-teens in the mid-90s. I always regarded the Dandy as slightly more 'downmarket', couldn't really rationalise why now.

Two badges, one with Dennis's side view and the name of the club, the other a front view of Gnasher's face, complete with fur.

They still are. £2 on the third Wednesday of the month from WHSmith, or by subscription.

Here's an image of True Brit. The cover is dated 1987. I used to love this strip and preferred it to Ginger who was previously on the over and then got relegated to the inside pages and downgraded from colour to a "red-tinged" colour strip.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Jm70Jx1fU-...h/truebrit.jpg

December 1987, looks like I had the date about right then.

The Jellymen, from Beezer 1960, are mentioned in that strip. The Beezer featured them in one of the 90s annuals, and they appeared in a Dandy Fun-Size as well. Their most recent appearance was in a Billy the Cat arc in The Beano a year or two ago.

I discovered Classics from the comics just a few months ago and have since bought a few issues. great to see the older strips again. A few years ago I bought a Dandy and Beano - the only survivors - and was so disappointed. Gone is the comic feel which has been replaced with a sort of celeb /pop culture magazine with some comic strips in them! i was truly shocked! But then again, I guess thats what kids want nowadays!

Might check them out again sometime, used to love them.

Not any more. The Bash Street Kids annual appears to have been discontinued.

For Dandy Xtreme (why they saw the need to add that word is anyone's guess), I'd agree, but Beano is still mostly comic strip content. Beano comes in two flavours though. The Beano weekly, and the monthly BeanoMAX, which has more in common with Dandy Xtreme.

I used to buy that one, also the Dennis the Menace annual. Is that still around?

I used to get The Dandy every week and sometimes The Beano from about 1997 - early 2000's. Me and a friend got The Dandy, but he hated The Beano so I read it in secret. I also got a Beezer book every year for a few years, and a few "Classics from the Comics".