Robbie Rebel was a British

celebrity comics Celebrity comics are comics based on the fame and popularity of a celebrity.De Weyer, Geert, "België gestript",Standaard Uitgeverij, 2014. They are a byproduct of merchandising around a certain media star or franchise and have existed since the ma ...

gag-a-day A gag-a-day comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of ...

comic strip, which premiered in ''

The Beano ''The Beano'' (formerly ''The Beano Comic'') is a British anthology comic magazine created by Scottish publishing company DC Thomson. Its first issue was published on 30 July 1938, and it published its 4000th issue in August 2019. Popular and ...

'' comic in issue 3104, dated 12 January 2002. Based extensively on

Robbie Williams Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, launching a solo career in 1996. His debut studio album, ''Life thru a Lens'', was re ...

, 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.

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 Decomposition, decomposing plant and food waste, recycling organic materials, and man ...

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 Geraldine Estelle Halliwell-Horner (''née'' Halliwell; born 6 August 1972) is an English singer, songwriter, television personality, author, and actress. She rose to fame in the mid-1990s as a member of the pop group the Spice Girls, in which ...

and

Kylie Minogue Kylie Ann Minogue (; born 28 May 1968) is an Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. Frequently referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Princess of Pop", she has achieved recognition in both the music industry and fas ...

) 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

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. Robbie is drawn by ''

Desperate Dan Desperate Dan is a wild west character in the now-defunct Scottish comic magazine '' The Dandy''. He made his appearance in the first issue which was dated 4 December 1937 and became the magazine's mascot. He is apparently the world's stro ...

'' artist Ken H. Harrison, 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

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. 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, 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, making her the third longest running Bea ...

. 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 Rebel, Robbie Rebel, Robbie Comics about children British humour comics Gag-a-day comics Rebel,Robbie Rebel, Robbie Comics set in the United Kingdom Defunct British comics