''(Tales of) Johnny Bean from Happy Bunny Green'' was a comic strip in the comic ''
The Beano
''The Beano'' (formerly ''The Beano Comic'', also known as ''Beano'') is a British anthology comic magazine created by Scottish publishing company DC Thomson. Its first issue was published on 30 July 1938, and it became the world's longest-runn ...
''. It first appeared in Beano issue 3404, dated 27 October 2007. It is the first Beano
comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
ever to be regularly drawn by a female artist. The strip's artist is
Laura Howell
Laura Howell is a British-born comic strip artist. She is the first female artist in the history of ''The Beano'' comic, and is responsible for '' Johnny Bean from Happy Bunny Green'', '' Les Pretend'', '' Tricky Dicky'' and the manga adaptation o ...
, who also pens and has subsequently taken over outright
Hunt Emerson
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
's "
Ratz", and has also drawn one
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 ...
and one
Les Pretend
Lesley Presley Pretend is a fictional character in a comic strip (Les Pretend) in the UK comic ''The Beano'' with the byline "the Little kid with the big imagination". Originally drawn by John Sherwood, he first appeared in issue 2493, dated ...
strip.
The strip starred the
title character
The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The title of ...
, and his attempts to terrorise the citizens of his village, Happy Bunny Green, in a less extroverted, but more cunning way than that of
Dennis the Menace. The citizens include Mr. Garden, his neighbour, Mrs. Garden, his wife, Mr. Baker the butcher and Mr. Butcher the baker, who are sworn enemies. He has a penchant for amazing ruthlessness. In one strip, he shows a cow a picture of a beefburger during a
Cowpat Lottery (in which a cow has to defecate on a villager's selected square). In the Beano Annual 2009, he hijacks an anthropomorphic train named Timmy, injures the driver, drives it dangerously, and eventually destroys it (a parody of
Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine is an anthropomorphised fictional tank locomotive in the British ''Railway Series'' books by Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher, published from 1945. He became the most popular and famous character in the series, a ...
). The early stories featured a narrator, who spoke in a heavily sugar-coated way, but he disappeared during 2008.
His strip continued to appear regularly in the Beano until autumn 2009, when Laura Howell started drawing
Beano Manga. As she was already drawing
Ratz for the comic, Johnny's appearances became increasingly infrequent. He later made a return as a regular before the strip ended in 2010, after Laura Howell's strip
Meebo and Zuky
Meebo and Zuky is a comic strip in the British children's comic strip magazine The Beano. It was introduced as one of three new strips in the Beano's Comic Idol competition, in June 2010, where the winner gets a permanent place in the comic. ...
won that year's Comic Idol contest.
Beano strips
2007 comics debuts
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