[citation needed] There were several variations of the visual appearance of Calamity James before a final image was decided on.

According to the 4 December 2014 issue of the Beano, he has a crush on Minnie the Minx and hopes to become her boyfriend one day.

The strip features much surreal and incidental background detail, with various recurring themes: notably the "Little Squelchy Things" which appear in a wide variety of guises and tend to be visual gags, though they may take part in the story (for instance, James may trip over one), randomly placed smelly socks and a constant scatter of winning lottery tickets, notes with a large sum of money on them, diamonds, gold bars, and bags with 'Vast Dosh' written on them which James walks past yet somehow never manages to notice.

Once, when he was complaining about his lack of money, Alex told him to look around (he was surrounded by one of each of the above), as if he had just noticed them, but then it turns out he was referring to busking.

John Geering and Henry Davies drew some preliminary sets for the character before he first appeared in the comic.

He hasn't appeared as regularly as some other characters, as Paterson has also drawn other strips for the same comic including Minnie the Minx, The Numskulls and Dennis the Menace.

One of Alexander's hobbies is plummeting from great heights, which often helps James overcome his fate.

[citation needed] His name is a play on "Alexander Fleming", the famous biologist and discoverer of penicillin.

By 2003 this, and Paterson's other work for D.C. Thomson, means that James begins to appear on an increasingly infrequent basis.

As the Beano editor Alan Digby was not keen on the strip, Calamity James gradually appeared less frequently, became reprints and was eventually dropped.

[4] The comic strip was loosely adapted for television as a BBC Three short film in 2023, starring Dylan Blore in the title role and Mark Bonnar as his father.