Robbie Rebel was a British
celebrity comics gag-a-day comic strip, which premiered in ''
The Beano'' comic in issue 3104, dated 12 January 2002. Based extensively on
Robbie Williams, who at that time was very popular, his creators aimed to make him the
Dennis the Menace of the 21st Century: his adventures are set in a contemporary world of mobile phones, computers and music videos.
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Concept
His first appearance showed him being born 'seven years ago', and being smacked on the bottom by the nurse to start his breathing. Instead of crying, he giggles. This sets the tone of the strip: Robbie is a rebel who does nothing he is told (although he occasionally does as he's told if he can make a job hard for his parents or anyone else, for instance scrapping a whole kitchen for a
compost
Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant, food waste, recycling organic materials and manure. The resulting m ...
heap, when his dad told him to find scraps in the kitchen for the heap). His appearance was a breath of fresh air to ''The Beano'': he sported long jeans, school shoes and a T-shirt, usually with an animal motif on it giving the wrong sound for the animal (so the silhouette of a Duck going 'moo' etc.) and has "No way" written on the back of all of them. A second strip in the same issue as his debut introduced his dog, Defido, who, like his Master, is a rebel. Robbie's parents are shown to be relatively young and trendy, particularly his pretty blonde mother.
Robbie has had two girls going after him, both competing to make him their boyfriend. They are called Kylie Geriwall and Geri Minogue (a mix-up from the singers
Geri Halliwell and
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue (; born 28 May 1968) is an Australian singer, songwriter and actress. She is the highest-selling female Australian artist of all time, having sold over 80 million records worldwide. She has been recognised for reinve ...
) and Kylie won (eventually, seeing as he always rejected them). In the later reprints, Geri was renamed Cheryl. More recent strips saw Kylie become a rival to Robbie, and they no longer seemed to be in a relationship.
It is one of the few instances where a Beano character seemed to fancy a girl. Other examples include Fred in Tom Paterson's Fred's Bed who fancies
Hannah Montana
''Hannah Montana'' is an American teen sitcom created by Michael Poryes, Rich Correll and Barry O'Brien that aired on Disney Channel for four seasons between March2006 and January2011. The series centers on Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus), a ...
.
Robbie is drawn by
Desperate Dan artist
Ken H. Harrison
Ken H. Harrison ( 1940) is a British comic artist best known for his work for DC Thomson. His credits include Robbie Rebel, Big Brad Wolf and Lord Snooty for ''The Beano'', The Hoot Squad for ''Hoot'' (later reprinted as The Beano's The Riot Squad ...
, and his clean drawing style immediately cemented the strips'popularity. Because of Ken's continuing work on Desperate Dan, Robbie did not initially appear as regularly as other characters such as
Roger the Dodger
Roger "the Dodger" Dawson is a comic strip character from the comic magazine ''The Beano''. He first appeared in his eponymous comic strip in 1953, and is one of the longest-running characters, known for his tactics of avoiding responsibility a ...
or
Billy Whizz
Billy Whizz is a fictional character featured in the British comic ''The Beano'', first appearing in issue 1139, dated 16 May 1964, when it replaced The Country Cuzzins. Billy, the title character, is a boy who can run extraordinarily fast. His ...
. With Desperate Dan's revamp when the Dandy got a facelift in September 2004, both were drawn in the same style (as opposed to the 'old' Desperate Dan where Ken drew things more detailed). Following the decision to stop running new Desperate Dan strips in mid-2007, Harrison was able to concentrate entirely on Robbie, who was now able to appear on a weekly basis.
In the Beano Christmas special 2007 Robbie Rebel had a joint strip with The Riot Squad.
In February 2008 Robbie Rebel left The Beano after 6 years. It has been hinted that Robbie had a terrible accident when he crashed into a tree in his last comic appearance. The strip ended so that Harrison could take over
Minnie the Minx
Minnie the Minx, whose real name is
Hermione Makepeace is a comic strip character published in the British comic magazine ''The Beano''. Created and originally drawn by Leo Baxendale, she first appeared in issue 596, dated 19 December 1953, ma ...
. However, in the 25 September 2010 issue, there has been a reprint of the strip. Then, since the issue dated 13 November 2010, he started to appear regularly as a reprint for several months.
References
{{Beano
Beano strips
2002 comics debuts
Rebel, Robbie
2008 comics endings
Comic strips based on real people
Rebel, Robbie
Defunct British comics