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swirlythingy wrote:Bea's Nursery Crimes... I'm not sure if it actually replaced Beaginnings or if it just happened to run more or less at the same time as the title changed - does anyone know?.
It was a nine week run instead of the regular Bea strip. 'Beaginnings' was the original name, which was changed to 'Dennis's Little Sister, BEA, the Mini-Menace', then sometimes just 'Bea' if I couldn't be bothered writing all that.
The strip was called Beaginnings from its debut until 2001, when as you say it was renamed Bea, the Mini-Menace. I think Bea's Nursery Crimes ran during the summer/early autumn of 2002 (I remember it because I'd only just started reading the Beano at that time!), although it wasn't a continuous series - the regular Bea strip appeared in its place more than once during that time.
As an aside, why was the title of Bea's strip changed, Nigel?
'Michael Owen isn't the tallest of players, but his height more than makes up for it' - Mark Lawrenson
I always assumed it was because they were out of beginnings. It started out with it being her first time doing everything, but after three years, they must've been starting to duplicate.
Another 2000AD character was Rose O'Rion, who started out as a one-off in a Pulp Sci-Fi story before being promoted to her own strip. Then there were the agents of Indigo Prime, who first appeared in Tharg's Future Shocks and then resurfaced in Tyranny Rex before getting their own series.
The character of Paul from Pat Mills' Third World War strip in Crisis ended up with a strip of his own as eco-warrior Finn. And to really stretch a point about spin-offs, when the regular artist of the two page Carrie strip in men's magazine Mayfair was unavailable, they ran an alternative strip starring her cousin, Connie (though only five were ever published).
Gosh, so many! It was obviously a far more common occurance from late 1980s to present day! When I read comics regulary 1960-73 `Spin offs` were rarer than hen's teeth! In the comics that I read-I could only recall one fun pal spin off "Grimly Feendish" and one adventure styled, "The Demon Dwarf".
I think it had a lot to do with the publisher you were most familiar with during the 1960s. I'd say that on this side of the Atlantic DC Thomson were the first to establish a kind of integrated 'universe' where the humorous characters in particular were able to cross each others' paths with relative ease (especially in Summer Specials and Annuals) - a state of affairs that made spin-offs much more likely.
On the other hand I do remember being impressed by the way in which early issues of TV Century 21 made a point of connecting the storylines in Fireball XL5 and Stingray (something that I longed to see in Gerry Anderson's TV series). Also there was at least one proper team-up at AP/Fleetway way back in 1959 when the merging of Tiger and Sun allowed Commando One to briefly join forces with Spike & Dusty.
An interesting one (well, I think so anyway): 2000AD's short lived (and unauthorized) revival of Kelly's Eye spun off from the series Universal Soldier.
Speaking of TV21 reminds me that Zero X got its own strip after featuring in the Thunderbirds feature film. It didn't spin off from the Thunderbirds strip though but did feature in a still-by-still serialisation of the film in TV21.
