The Perishers

The Perishers was a British comic strip about a group of urban children and a dog. It began in the Daily Mirror on 19 October 1959 and was written for most of its life by Maurice Dodd (October 25, 1922 – December 31, 2005). It was drawn by Dennis Collins until his retirement in 1983, after which it was drawn by Dodd and later by Bill Mevin. After Dodd's death the strip continued with several weeks' backlog of strips and some reprints until June 10, 2006. The strip returned, again as reprints, on February 22, 2010, replacing Pooch Café.

Its elements of eccentric British sense of humour, combined with its detailed art style (Collins produced some of the most finely detailed artwork ever seen in a daily strip), sets it apart from many other strips.

Many Perishers strips are polyptychs - a single continuous background image is divided into three or four panels and the characters move across it from panel to panel. The story is set in the fairly drab fictional town of Croynge (sometimes spelled Crunge), which is apparently a south London borough - the name is derived from Croydon and Penge. However, visually the location often resembles an industrial Northern town and may have its roots in how Croydon, Penge and the towns between them appeared in the 1950s. Collins's artwork in particular gives the town detailed, realistic architecture and a consistent geography.

Thematically, the strip draws upon nostalgic childhood experiences, and often has a static, almost limbo-like atmosphere, in a similar manner to its companion strip, Andy Capp. The main characters largely exist independently of 'the real world', and adults are rarely seen; for example, every year the Perishers go on holiday but always get thrown off the train home, forcing them to walk and arrive home several weeks late (a joke on how a short scene in comic book time can take several weeks when told in daily installments), yet with seemingly no repercussions.