Calamity James

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Beano strip
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Calamity James
Current/last artist	Tom Paterson
First appearance	Issue 2311 (November 1, 1986)
Last appearance	Ongoing
Regular characters	James, Alexander Lemming, James' Mother, Little Squelchy Thingies

Calamity James is a fictional character who has his own comic strip in the UK comic The Beano. He first appeared in issue 2311, dated 1 November 1986. Created and drawn by the Leo Baxendale influenced Tom Paterson (of Sweeny Toddler fame), James is, apparently, the unluckiest boy in the world. He has a pet lemming, Alexander (whose favourite pastime is plummeting from a large height) who often helps James overcome his fate, although Alexander rather likes to see him suffer. James' name is a play on Calamity Jane, whilst Alexander Lemming's name is a play on Alexander Fleming.

James regularly wears a shirt with the number 13 on it, probably the cause of his disastrous nature. However, even without the shirt, James is still unlucky. In the early years he was seen with a black rain cloud floating above his head.

A recurring feature in the strip is the appearance in the background of generally absurdly named buildings including a "Laughably Obvious Wig Factory" and "Knicker Elastic Testing Sheds". There have even been large storage tanks labelled "Town Emergency Custard Supply" and "Town Tomato Sauce Supply", each with their respective contents overflowing out of the top.

Often there are items like million pound notes, chests of treasure, gold bars, or even diamonds, in the background, but James is always looking in the other direction or talking to someone, so he does not notice them.

In one strip, he gave his 13 shirt to Alexander Lemming, and while Alex suffered bad luck, he had a day of good luck. However, he was gullible to accept his shirt back when Alex got fed up of it.

In several other strips, Calamity James has changed his shirt number to, 0 or 7, for a lucky number, to try and get good luck, unsuccessfully.

Calamity James hates black pudding, a food which is usually served to him by his long suffering mother.

Due to its somewhat black humour, this strip's concept was very unusual for The Beano at the time of its release, although James' bad luck is shown as exaggerated and immature.

[edit] Squelchy Thingies

Little Squelchy Thingies are small blob-like creatures that are frequently shown "squelching" around the background of some panels in the comic strips. To get the reader's attention "Look! A little squelchy thingy!" is usually written in a brightly coloured caption, with an arrow pointing to it, often in the comic, several times a year, a section may appear called. Alexander Lemmings guide to little Squelchy Thingies. Which is supposedly each type of Squelchy thing, however it becomes more and more nonsense as the reader reads on and changes completely every time it appears in the comic.

Squelchy thingies sometimes have nothing to do with the plot, existing merely as sight gags. But occasionally they play a more significant role: James may trip over one, for example. One series of strips included a planet of the apes parody where James was trapped on a planet completely inhabited by them (ironically, after trying to get away from them). In another strip, his house was used as a nesting ground by the Squelchy thingies. After many attempts to dislodge them, James was forced to allow the Thingies into his house as it is illegal to evict Squelchy thingies from their nesting grounds during the nesting season (which happens to last all year round). On certain strips they often drive him insane.

There are various different types of squelchy thingies that are usually accompanied by a different text-box. For example, a squelchy thingy that is blowing a raspberry or sticking its tongue out would be accompanied by the caption "A very rude squelchy thingy".

Due to the popularity of squelchy thingies, various Calamity James stories have been based around them. Plus, readers have sent pictures of their own variations of squelchy thingies to the Beano, which has started a section of the comic called "The Squelchy Corner" which showcases these pictures of celebrities or Beano Characters as little Squelchy thingies.

[edit] Other Usage

Calamity James is also the nickname of England football goalkeeper David James, due to his goalkeeping "howlers".

[edit] References