General Jumbo

General Jumbo (called Admiral Jumbo for a brief period in the early 1970s) was a British comic strip, published in the comics magazine The Beano beginning in 1953. Originally drawn by Paddy Brennan, it was subsequently illustrated by . The strip is about Alfie "Jumbo" Johnson, a 12-year-old boy who serves as "general" to a remote-control model army, navy, and air force created by scientist Professor Carter.

Publication history[]

General Jumbo made his first appearance in The Beano #583, dated 19 September 1953, and the strip continued intermittently until issue #1734, dated 11 October 1975, at which point it was the last adventure story in The Beano. He continued to appear in The Beano Book until 1979, and then every year from 1990 to 2008 (except 2007), and made a one-off appearance in the 60th-birthday issue (#2924, dated 1 August 1998).

He also appeared in Nutty and Buddy in the early 1980s. The Buddy version called him "Jimmy" instead of Alfie.

Fictional character biography[]

Storylines involved crime-fighting and/or rescue missions.

Jumbo briefly turned evil during The Beano Annual 2008 in the three-part Billy the Cat story "The General," written by Kev F Sutherland and drawn by . In part 2 of the story, it was revealed that he is under mind control. His controller is Private Pike, one of Jumbo's soldiers, who has gained sentience through an experimental learning chip and had built an electronic mind-control device into his controller unit. Billy uses the device against Pike, who is seemingly killed when he is subjected to the device's electronic feedback. Jumbo makes him "safe" by stamping on him, after which Billy suggests they could have just taken his batteries out. Pike survives, however, as his eyes are seen glowing red once more in the last panel.

In the 2009 Annual, Private Pike returns in a General Jumbo story that is not a crossover (although again written by Sutherland). He is now housed in the body of a teddy bear and leading a revolution of broken and discarded toys, also equipped with copies of Pike's "learning chip." Jumbo is better prepared this time and successfully disables his captors before they can carry out their plot to discredit him in the eyes of the public at a fête. He unmasks Pike by alertly spotting that every other toy in the creche is being played with, and puts paid to the nuisance for what should prove to be the last time.

Influence on other strips[]

General Jumbo appears to be the inspiration of several other strips and characters in British comics, including:

• The Toys of Doom (Buster, 1965–1968) — Criminal scientist Doctor Droll escapes from Garstone Prison with the aid of an army of remote-controlled mechanical toys he has constructed.^[1]
• The House of Dolmann (Valiant, 1966–1970) — crime-fighting inventor Eric Dolmann creates a roster of remote-controlled robots that looked like puppets, each with special abilities, and uses them to combat crime where he finds it
• The parodies Drill-Sergeant Jumbo and Danny's District Council in Viz (from 1979)
• Colonel Tusker, killed by the Fury in Alan Moore's Captain Britain series during the "Jaspers' Warp" storyline (1981–1984)
• An unnamed character killed by the Lloigor in Zenith, in 2000 AD^{[citation needed]} (from 1987)
• General Tubbs in Jack Staff^{[citation needed]}
• Colonel Liliput in Alan Moore's Top 10 series (1999–2001)^[2]

Notes[]

References[]

• General Jumbo at the International Catalogue of Superheroes

External links[]

• Official Beano website, archived at the Wayback Machine
• Tribute website, archived at the Wayback Machine