Peep in the People

[Rob Baker]

December 1997 was a crap month - the Daily Star dropped Beau Peep. 

March 1998 wasn't.  I received a phone call from a certain Mr Andrew Christine to say that Beau was back - but this time in the Sunday People.

Beau started in the People without any fanfare or promotion and, as I didn't buy the paper, knew nothing about it.  Unbelievably there was no mention at all in their sister paper, the Daily Mirror - even though they had Horace.  I wrote to the Cartoon Editor and he was good enough to send me some photocopies of the first three strips which I missed.

Their glossy magazine supplement carried brand new 2-bar colour strips between March '98 and March '99.   I entered the competition every week and was lucky enough to win one of the strips.  I wrote to the Editor again that August because Beau did another disappearing act.  Apparantly it was due to lack of space because of all the coverage of the anniversary of Princess Diana's death. Anyway, 4 weeks later Beau was back - and the Editor sent me another strip because I was "such a dedicated fan" (I'm pretty sure he was taking the p***).  But chuffed or what!

The last strip was on 28/03/99  - and the very next day Beau was back in the Daily Star.   Anyway, I thought I'd scan in a few of the People strips for you to enjoy.....







If you want to see some more of these, let me know. Thanks, as always, to Roger and Andrew...

[Diane CBPFC]

My vote would be for more Rob.

I didn't think there was much chance of Beau getting a nice pot of tea, but still I read on.

[Malc]

I'm amazed that the idiots ever cancelled Beau in the first place. It's the first strip that ever made me laugh out loud.


Make that the only strip. Calvin and Hobbes was clever and groundbreaking, Far Side too, and I was brought up with Peanuts, but Beau Peep was groundbreaking as well, it was Laurel and Hardy in print.
I agree with what Steve McGarry once said, which was that he didn't think Peep would have been bought by an American syndicate. It is too British. And too funny. Our American cousins are much happier with white bread bland stuff.

[Roger Kettle]

Well, this certainly brings back some memories. Andrew and I were told in a letter from the Daily Star in October 1997 that Beau was to be dropped at the end of that year. I remember replying by saying that I'd find it difficult to write cheery Christmas strips, knowing that it was coming to an end. Given that we'd been with the paper since it began, 19 years previously, I wondered if they could just pay us two months wages and stop the strip immediately. I suggested this payment would be a sort of "thank you". Back came the reply that we were welcome to stop immediately but no payment would be made. So we soldiered on. I was grateful to The People for taking us aboard but I found it difficult to adapt to a Sunday-only format---Beau Peep had been conceived as a daily strip and, I believe, that's where it worked best. Anyway, thanks to Rob and some other readers, the Star changed their mind and Beau Peep returned 15 months later.
Oh, and cheers, Malc---very flattering words.

[Rob Baker]

Totally agree with Malc about Laurel and Hardy - the obvious 'connection' is 'Beau Chumps'.   L+H are my heroes - and I was Grand Sheik of the 'Sons of the Desert' (the 'Way Out West' Tent) in Bath some years ago.  Google  'Sons of the Desert' if you don't know what I'm on about  . Their films were good, clean and brilliantly funny. and I never tire of watching them.

I'll put some more People strips up soon....