Little Plum is a Native American boy who has appeared as the title character of a comic strip in The Beano. He made his debut in issue 586 (dated 10th October 1953) and was the first Beano character to be created and drawn by Leo Baxendale, who would also go on to create Minnie the Minx and The Bash Street Kids in the months following Plum's debut.
Little Plum lives in an American desert setting and is a member of the Smellyfeet tribe led by Chiefy. The Smellyfeet tribe's arch rivals are the Puttyfeet tribe. The main characters spoke in a caricature of the English language as spoken by American Indians, most notably replacing "the" with "um". The strip's setting was retconned in 2014, as his American desert setting was now supposedly on the outskirts of Beanotown.
The strip introduced several animal characters, including Plum's horse Treaclefoot and the 'marvellous creature' Pudding Bison. However, the most notable animals to appear were The Three Bears, who in 1959 would go on to appear in their own comic strip, also drawn by Baxendale.
When Baxendale left DC Thomson in 1962, the strip was briefly taken over by Robert Nixon before Ron Spencer became full time artist. Spencer would continue to draw Plum until the strip was dropped in 1986. Like Baxendale before him, Spencer would also draw another Western-themed spin-off strip, Baby Face Finlayson.
In June 1998, shortly before The Beano celebrated its 60th birthday, Plum briefly returned to the comic under the title The Legend of Little Plum, drawn by Tom Paterson. The story returned again at the end of 2002 under its original title, this time illustrated by Hunt Emerson. This run of stories began in issue 3154 (dated 28th December 2002) would continue until 2006.
Physical appearance[]
Little Plum is short, has fair skin, black hair and a headband with a single feather. He wears black pants and red shoes.
Trivia[]
- Little Plum was originally given the working title Booster before his final name was settled on.
- Little Plum does not appear in recent comics, though his classmates would have been at Bash Street School in recent stories.
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