Wee Ben Nevis was a British

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, published in the comic book magazine ''

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 ...

'', first appearing in issue 1678, dated 14 September 1974, and continuing until 7 May 1977. It was drawn by

Vic Neill Vic Neill (24 November 1941 – 24 December 1999) was a British cartoonist who drew for D.C. Thomson and I.P.C.'s comics. His first notable comic work was on Sparky strip Peter Piper. In 1969, he replaced Dudley Dexter Watkins on Topper cover ...

, and replaced '' The McTickles'', another Scottish themed strip by the same artist.

Concept

Wee Ben Nevis was a fictional

Scottish Highlands The Highlands (; , ) is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Scottish Lowlands, Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Scots language, Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gae ...

boy of superhuman strength. In the first storyline, Wee Ben is sent by his father (Big Ben Nevis) to Pudding College in England. On arriving, he meets the headmaster Prof. Egwell Fryd, who instructs him to "tidy up the classroom". Unfortunately, Wee Ben's idea of "tidying up" involves stuffing all the other students into cupboards. For the next few years, he brought chaos to staff and students alike. Much of the humour stemmed from the fact that Wee Ben never realised (or at least never anticipated) his own strength. His name is a pun on the Scottish mountain

Ben Nevis Ben Nevis ( ; , ) is the highest mountain in Scotland, the United Kingdom, and the British Isles. Ben Nevis stands at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Highland region of Lochaber, close to the town of Fort William. The mount ...

Auberon Waugh Auberon Alexander Waugh ( ; 17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was a British journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron". After a traditional classical education at Downsid ...

described the feature as having "strong undertones of Scottish Nationalism by its untrue suggestion that Scotsmen have superhuman strength despite their diminutive stature".

References

Beano strips British comics characters 1974 comics debuts Comics characters introduced in 1974 1977 comics endings Fictional Scottish people Comics characters with superhuman strength Comics set in schools Male characters in comics Child characters in comics Comics about children Gag-a-day comics Comics set in Scotland {{UK-comics-stub