The Germs is a

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 ...

in the UK

comic a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

'' The Beano''. It first appeared in issue 2374, dated 16 January 1988, replacing the Rasher strip, where the characters had been introduced the previous week.The Beano issue 3623 dated 18 February 2012, page 13 The strip was about a boy called Will who had three germs inside him (Ugly Jack Bacteria, Jeremy Germ, and Iris the Virus), and they were constantly making Will ill, requiring many visits to the doctor. Iris' name later changed to Violet Virus. The Germs were sometimes stopped in their tracks with a grown-up looking germ called Auntie Biotic (a pun on "antibiotic"). The strip was originally drawn by

David Sutherland David Sutherland may refer to: * David Sutherland (baseball) (born 1985), Australian baseball player * David Sutherland (comics) (1933–2023), Scottish comic book artist * David Sutherland (cricketer) (1873–1971), Australian cricketer * David Su ...

, and was taken over 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 s ...

later on. Around this time Will's name was added onto the title, the wording changing every so often, such as including (also featuring Ill Will), (also starring Ill Will) or (with Ill Will). Due to Neill's work on

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 ...

and

Tim Traveller Tim Traveller was a British comic strip created by Vic Neill and published in the British comics magazine ''The Beano''. He first appeared in issue 2862, dated 24 May 1997, as part of a continuing set of six new comic strips where the one with th ...

, the strip appeared on an increasingly irregular basis in the late 1990s, and after Neill's death in 2000, it disappeared from ''The Beano''. In 2004 it briefly returned with a new artist, Nigel Parkinson. However, the strip only made three appearances which were spread over the year, and was dropped once again. It returned to the comic in October 2011 as reprints of the David Sutherland strips, and later Vic Neill reprints in April 2012, along with

Number 13 Number 13 can refer to: * 13 (number) * Number 13 (comics) a comic strip in ''The Beano'' * ''Number 13'' (1922 film), a film by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Ernest Thesiger which was shot but never completed and is believed to be lost * "Number ...

, this time retitled as ''Totally Gross Germs''. The following month, they were retitled again, as "The Germs: Totally Gross". In Issue 3618 they returned to their original title.

References

Beano strips 1988 comics debuts Humor comics Comics characters introduced in 1988 Fictional viruses British comics characters {{UK-comics-stub