Tuesday 11 September 2012

Give a hoot - read Hoot!

It was "Britain's bubbling new comic" in 1985, and 364 days later it was merged with the Dandy, but DC Thomson's short-lived comic had its fun. Most remember it as being too childish, but from the dozen or so issues I've read, I'd disagree. Mostly. Granted, it had a baby on the cover in the form of Barrie Appleby's Cuddles (a survivor of the similarly short-lived Nutty comic, and the same Cuddles who'd later team up with Dimples from the Dandy), but the inside pages were mostly fun fun fun in a way that today's comics would never allow!



Plenty of good old-fashioned violence was on offer - witness here Mr. Appleby's Spotted Dick, who managed to annoy his matron to such an extent that she chases him with a Tommy gun:


We also have good-humoured, forklift-based sexual harrassment from Steve Bright's Wanta Job Bob:


And the highlight of every issue of Hoot, and surely a high-point in the history of DC Thomson as a whole, is Ken Harrison's Hoot Squad, the ugliest, most violent, perverted ("ning!") bunch of kids you're ever likely to see. These'd give the Bash Street Kids a good fight! Here's every Hoot Squad page I currently have access to, enjoy!












Personal highlights - the grotesquely pimply kid in the art lesson; the little pervert finding a new use for bagpipes; the child who didn't look where he was diving; the portrait of Hitler titled "Daddy"... If comics still had pages like this etc etc.

10 comments:

  1. All of the Hoot Squad pages got reprinted in The Beano a few years ago, retitled The Riot Squad. Spotted Dick was one of the characters who transferred to the Dandy when Hoot ended. Nutty was nowhere near as shortlived as Hoot, it ran for five years.

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  2. Ken H sure drew great good looking ladies in the Hoot Squad!!!;)

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    1. Definitely! That one popping through the window in the art class, woof etc.

      Nice that he carried on this fine tradition with Minnie's teacher in more recent Beanos.

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  3. Nice blog! I wasn't familiar with Hoot Squad, makes me want to collect a full set.

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    1. Why thank you! I really like your blog too, even stuck a link to it in that corner there. Hoot's always cheap, go for it!

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  4. One of the things I found a bit odd about Hoot! were the three-panel strips featuring Beano or Dandy characters, none of which appeared to have been drawn by their 'proper' artists. Lord Snooty in particular looked very peculiar.

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  5. Suppose they were to make it an "all-in-one" solution for those wondering which of the many DCT comics to buy? Dennis and Dan in the same comic, as well as all the other "new" characters... Nice to see Big Eggo getting some work again, I suppose.

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    1. Big Eggo? You've gotta be shitting me!

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    2. Whoops, my mistake - it was Big Uggy!

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    3. Big Eggo was in Hoot near the end of it's run.

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