Plug was a British comic magazine that ran for 75 issues from 24 September 1977 until 24 February 1979, when it merged with The Beezer. It was edited by Ian Gray.
A spin-off from The Bash Street Kids comic strip in The Beano, the comic was based on the character Plug who was a distinctively ugly member of the Bash Street Kids. His dog (Pug) from Pup Parade, and a new character called Chunkee the Monkey (Plug's pet monkey) accompanied him. Vic Neill mainly drew the title character's strip. The comic also had its own fan club, the Plug Sports and Social Club. The comic was inspired in part by Mad.
The Plug comic was never a big hit, possibly because, at 9 pence, it was too expensive compared to other D. C. Thomson comics at the time, which were priced at around 5 pence. According to the 2008 book The History of the Beano, for a while there were rumours of a "curse of Plug", fuelled by the fact that a number of celebrities featured in Mad magazine-style caricatures on the comic's cover died soon after, most notably John Wayne. However, the strip's use of gravure painting is still used in comics today.
List of Plug comic strips
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Strip Title
! Artist
! First Appearance
! Last Appearance
|-
|Gulp - The Galactic Goon with the GIGANTIC Gullet
|Joe Austen
| 58
| 75
|Back cover strip to complement Plug front cover, Gulp (Plug backwards) ate everything in the universe.
|-
|Hugh's Zoo
|Gordon Bell
| 1
| 75
|The adventures of Hugh and his backyard menagerie. Survived merger with the Beezer.
|-
|The Invasion of the Plug Bugs
|
| 26
| 75
|A strip about a group of aliens
|-
|Jockey
|
|44
|75
|-
|Lumpy Gibbon
|
| 1
| 25
|Starred Lumpy Gibbon (a huge gibbon), Colonel Podgy Whiner (a hunter), Little Gibbon and Man Eating Tiger Moth. The title was a homage to the 1975 song "Funky Gibbon", by The Goodies
|-
|Luncheon Vulture
|
| 26
| 57
|The adventures of a hungry vulture. The name echoes luncheon voucher
|-
|The Nutcase Bookcase - Guidebooks for Goons
|
| 19
| 75
|Plug would star in a 'guide' to doing something, usually with disastrous results
|-
|Plug
|
| 1
| 75
| Survived merger with the Beezer.
|-
|Sea Urchin
|
| 1
| 18
|An amphibious boy who had underwater adventures with his friend Roger, the flying fish. The main antagonist of the strip was Silas Sharke, the underwater rotter
|-
|Supporting Life
|Bill Ritchie
| 1
| 43
|Starred Elvis, Plug's little brother, looking at a different football team each week. The first was Arsenal F.C.
|-
|Tony Jackpot
|John Dallas
| 1
| 74
|A boy obsessed with golf, whose name was a play on that of British golfer (and 1969 British Open winner), Tony Jacklin.
|-
|Violent Elizabeth
|
| 44
| 75
| Her name was a play on Violet Elizabeth Bott, a well-known character from the Just William books by Richmal Crompton.
|}
See also
- List of DC Thomson publications
References
External links
- Plug (1977-1979)