Handmade screen print on cotton paper.
The Kids are having fun - too much fun. Danny is dancing with Plug and Fatty (or Freddy as he's now called) with Smiffy. And Teacher spills his tea, which is in a mug shaped to his likeness.
Marked AP in pencil by the printer, John Patrick Reynolds.
Standard size: 26cm x 19cm
The great thing about the Bash Street Kids is that there’s somebody for pretty much everybody to relate to: all humanity is there from tall skinny ones to shorter fatter ones.
And I love that many of their names are unabashedly direct: there’s Fatty, Spotty and Plug (ugly), just there would be in any classroom.
And for the record, as well as those three, the regular characters are: Danny, Erbert, Sydney, Smiffy, Toots, Wlfred and Cuthbert. And, of course, Teacher.
The strip, created by Leo Baxendale as When the Bell Rings, first appeared on 13 February 1954. The story became The Bash Street Kids in 1956.
The Beano is of course also home to those other icons of British children's comic humour Dennis the Menace and Gnasher.
Incidentally, the word beano is apparently short for "bean-feast" and means a feast, a celebration and a good time.
This screenprint has been officially approved by DC Thomson. I am the first and only screenprinter with permission to use the images of Dennis The Menace and Gnasher in my work.
These are all original screenprints. An original print is a work of art printed by hand, from a plate, block, stone, or stencil (which is the case here - screenprints are made using screen stencils) that has been created by the artist for the purpose of producing the image.
© D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd.