Leo Baxendale's 'The Banana Bunch'

The Banana Bunch began in The Beezer No.1 way back in 1956 and proved popular enough to continue throughout the comic's run until 1993. The strip has been revived a few times since by various artists and was last seen in The Dandy in 2012 drawn by Nigel Parkinson.

Most of us will probably have grown up with the version drawn by the excellent Bert Hill, but the original artist was Leo Baxendale, who drew it from issue 1 in 1956 until No.438 in 1964. Here's a few examples of Leo's brilliance with the huge full page above from The Beezer No.295 (September 9th 1961).

Now the one from the following week, September 16th 1961...

Finally a couple of full colour pages from The Beezer Book 1964 (published in 1963). 

Truly funny stuff and some of the best material to have appeared in British humour comics. As always, click on the pages to see them much larger.