The Perishers
The story is set in the fairly drab fictional town of Croynge (sometimes spelled Crunge), which is apparently a South London borough.
The main characters largely exist independently of 'the real world' and adults are only rarely seen; for example, every year the Perishers go on holiday but always get thrown off the train home, forcing them to walk and arrive home several weeks late (a joke on how a short scene in comic book time can take several weeks when told in daily instalments), yet with seemingly no repercussions.
In the early days of the strip they lived in an approximately 10 ft (3.0 m) diameter concrete pipe section in a seemingly abandoned builder's yard.
He can also be quite resourceful – he appears to support himself by selling handmade wooden buggies (or "boobys" as Maisie calls them) and pilfering food from sympathetic local shops, or convoluted schemes to create sudden crowds in order to celebrate his birthday on 25 October (which also happened to be Maurice Dodd's birthday).
Boot is also convinced that he is in fact an 18th-century English lord enchanted into a dog by a gypsy wench (as he puts it, I knew I should have bought those damn clothespegs!)
Boot's favourite food appears to be links of sausages, and his attempts to consume these in advance of Wellington provide the basis of many episodes.
He also claimed to have invented a "micro-stetho-deeposcope" – supposedly a high-tech instrument for probing deeply below the earth's surface, but which actually turned out to be a piece of broken mirror tied to a chair leg.
The splash in question occurred whenever he bit into one, caused by a huge dollop of ketchup hitting whoever happened to be standing nearby.
It is usually Wellington who has just managed to scrape together enough money for sweets or fish and chips, which he has then to hide lest a rustle attract Maisie, who will appear, as if from nowhere, to inquire: "Need any help with that paper bag?"
Maisie bears a resemblance to Lucy van Pelt in Charles Schulz's Peanuts strip.
He enjoys creating mischief with his space hopper, or by putting insects into Maisie's underwear drawer, when he isn't embarking on some improbable business venture or other (usually worm-related; he invented the wormburger, for instance, though nobody but Wellington ever bought one, and Wellington didn't initially believe it had real worms in it).
He is also frequently seen questioning the plausibility of fairy tales or nursery rhymes read out by Maisie, while at the same time vandalising an alarm clock or other household item.
Not all of these characters appeared during the same time periods This is a partial list of the phrases coined or made popular by the Perishers.
A final, specially drawn strip appeared on the Daily Mirror's comic page on Saturday 10 June 2006.
The strip depicts the silhouetted figures of Maisie, Baby Grumpling, Wellington, Boot and Marlon walking down a street into the sunset.
After a gap of nearly four years, the original cartoon strip returned to the Daily Mirror as reprints, on 22 February 2010 due to popular demand.
(WELL SORT OF) was issued by Response Records, with lyrics written by Maurice Dodd and music by Trevor Evan Jones.
