Was wellington a better cartoon character than Charlie Brown?

Question

Miniver, some people might think Wellington is worse off, he is an orphan, lives in a railway station, has to build buggies and try to sell them to survive after school. You think Charlie Brown has problems! Send Wellington a birthday card on October 25th

...... :-(

Here is a link to the official site. However in my book i dont think it shows enough early material to show him at his best.

http://www.theauthenticperishers.co.uk/

More information here

http://www.shadowgallery.co.uk/perishers.html

By the way, Wellington comes from a tough working class background, he is not privildged middle class, I'll bet my cartoon character could lick your cartoon character,so there!

Miniver your right. I stand corrected. Actually Wellington is far from being a bully. The real bully in the strip is a character akin to 'Lucy' However, sentiment aside the Perishers had tons of personality. And the inventivness of Wellington in the early strips is incredible. I think the Artwork is better than you say. Dennis Collins could draw anything and his eye for detail was better than Giles, and only using line and a single halftone. Maybe if you could find some early stuffthey may start to win you over, despite their rough edges. Unfortunately it is very rare. Anyway I hope you will reconsider sending Wellington a card on his birthday again. How could you deny a poor little orphan boy that simple pleasure? :-(

Answer 1

Wellington who?? :p Honestly, I've never even heard of this character, and have no idea what he is like. What cartoon is he from? It might help if you provided a link to an informative site.

(Sends Charlie Brown an early Valentine card. May send him another one when Valentine's Day gets here. Poor guy deserves all the Valentines he can get, after all those years of not getting any.)

Be my Valentine, Charlie Brown. There may be lots of other "hard-luck" characters in the comics and cartoons, but you'll always be the greatest in my book.

Addendum:
Thank you for posting the links; now at least I sort of have an idea of what Wellington is about. The artwork isn't bad, a bit typical perhaps, but at least it's better than "Baby Blues" and all the rest of those tiresome "family" strips that are currently saturating the American comics page.

The comparisons to "Peanuts" in the second link was interesting. "A feature which marks the British strip off from the American version is its refusal to view the children with any sentimentality whatsoever." That may be all well and good for some, but for me, it was the sympathetic portrayal of the characters like Charlie Brown and Linus in "Peanuts" that made them so appealing.

I'm afraid I can't relate to Wellington, because I'm not an orphan who lived in a railway station, and I've never had to build buggies(??) and sell them to survive after school. But the things that happened to Charlie Brown were almost too much like my own childhood. I can relate to being mocked and insulted by other children, being left out of social activities ("I'm having a party and I'm NOT inviting you!"), having difficulties with homework ("Good grief, this book has two-hundred and eighty-seven pages ... I'll start reading tomorrow.") -- the list goes on and on.

I grew up with Charlie Brown and the gang. Maybe if I had grown up in England, I would feel differently. Or maybe not -- the lack of "sentimentality" in the "Perishers" strip is a bit off-putting. I guess I'm just a sentimentalist at heart.

And you're not doing Wellington any favors by pointing out that he could beat up Charlie Brown. Now you've got me thinking that Wellington must be a little ruffian if he would pick a fight against a guy with no friends who never picked a fight with anybody in his life. Might doesn't make right, you know, and I don't like roughnecks and bullies. Tell Wellington to shape up, or I won't send him a card on his birthday (October 25th).