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{{Short description|British comic strip}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2015}}
{{Beano strip
| strip_name = Little Plum
| image = [[File:Little Plum - Beano.jpg|250px]]
| creator = [[Leo Baxendale]]
| writer = [[Robert Nixon (artist)|Robert Nixon]] (artist)<br>Ron Spencer (artist)<br>[[Tom Paterson]] (artist)<br>[[Claire Bartlett]] (writer)<br>Andy Fanton (writer/artist)
<br> Stu Munro (writer)
| artist = [[Hunt Emerson]]
| start_issue = 586
| start_date = 10 October 1953
| finish = Issue 3773<br/>(28 February 2015)
| format = Discontinued
| schedule = 
| main_character = Little Plum Stealing Varmint
| alias = Little Plum
| family = 
| friends = Chiefy, Hole in um Head, Pimple
| team_members = 
| type = Tribe
| characters = Dr. Kildeer, Treaclefoot the horse, Pudding Bison
| other_characters = 
| crossover = 
| spin-off = ''[[Baby Face Finlayson]] '', ''[[The Three Bears (comic strip)|The Three Bears]]''
| stars = '''''Little Plum'''''
| other_names = ''The Legend of Little Plum''
| other_cameos = 
}}
'''Little Plum''' (full name revealed to be '''Little Plum Stealing Varmint'''<ref>''Beano Annual 1994''</ref>) is a British comedy western comics series about a little [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]], originally created by [[Leo Baxendale]] and published in the magazine ''[[The Beano]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/30/leo-baxendale-obituary|title=Leo Baxendale obituary|first=Steve|last=Bell|date=30 April 2017|via=The Guardian}}</ref>

==Concept==

The eponymous hero and his friends Chiefy, Little Peach, Pimple and Hole-in-um-Head are members of the "Smellyfeet" [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|American Indian]] tribe, who spend much of their time clashing with their rivals the "Puttyfeet" tribe. Other characters include Dr. Kildeer (the tribal [[medicine man]]), Treaclefoot (Plum's faithful horse) and Pudding [[Bison]] (a 'marvellous' creature who eats anything – also featuring in spin-off strips [[Baby Face Finlayson]] and [[The Three Bears (comic strip)|The Three Bears]]).

==Character history==

===Original run (1953–1998)===
[[Leo Baxendale]] created Little Plum in 1953 as a puny cartoon character in a dangerous cartoon world.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/beano-80-created-minnie-minx-bash-street-kids/|title=The Beano at 80: how I created Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=30 July 2018|via=www.telegraph.co.uk}}</ref> It first appeared in issue 586, dated 10 October 1953. The comic strip employed a caricature of the English language spoken by [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|American Indians]], notably replacing the word "the" with "um". Baxendale dreamed him up, claiming he was a mixture of [[Hiawatha]] and Dennis the Menace and gave him to the editing team. "When I created Little Plum, I started him off as an amalgam of Dennis and Hiawatha, drawn in David Law's style, but after a while I realised this wasn't working," Baxendale recalled in 2010. "Fundamentally, it was because David's drawing was very stylistic, particularly the static mouth, which didn't work for what I had in mind. Plum had so many different thoughts going through his noddle that he needed constantly-changing expressions: a puny being in a world of vultures with knives and forks. Once I'd altered the mouth, we were away. It is very often a crux in a strip that you change something and it unleashes the comedy."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/magazines/cotswold/22607953.leo-baxendale-beano-comic-creator/|title=Leo Baxendale: The Beano Comic Creator|date=1 February 2010|website=Great British Life}}</ref>

Unsure of the name, Baxendale gave it in to the then ''Beano'' editor under the working title 'Booster' before the strip was officially titled 'Little Plum, Your Redskin Chum'.<ref>History of the Beano: The Story So Far...</ref> They consisted of Plum, a ten-year-old member of the Smellyfoot tribe and the misadventures he got up to trying to prove himself a valuable member. After Baxendale left ''The Beano'' in 1962, [[Robert Nixon (artist)|Robert Nixon]] drew a few strips before Ron Spencer took over that same year. The strip originally finished in 1986, but it continued to appear in the Beano annuals up to 1994, and reappeared for a short time in 1998 under the name 'The Legend of Little Plum', drawn by [[Tom Paterson]].

===Hunt Emerson strips and later history (2002 – 2015)===
From 2002 it has returned again under its original name, drawn by [[Hunt Emerson]]. The strip was finally dropped in 2006 when Hunt Emerson started drawing [[Ratz (comic strip)|Ratz]], though he has since appeared in [[BeanoMAX]] and in the 2009 Beano Annual. In Issue 3566, Little Plum returned to the comic once again, as reprints of Hunt Emerson's strips. However, all uses of the word "um" present when the strips originally appeared were removed in the reprinted versions. In autumn 2012, a new feature launched in the Beano called Funsize Funnies, each page of which features four single line strips. One of these is Little Plum, drawn by [[Laura Howell]]. Some episodes are written and drawn by [[Andy Fanton]], an ex-Dandy artist. After a brief absence, Little Plum returned to [[The Beano]] every week as a 6 panel half page strip, drawn by [[Hunt Emerson]] and written by ex-Dandy artist [[Claire Bartlett|Stu Munro]] after the pair collaborated on a revival of The Nibblers. The final weekly appearance of Little Plum ran in February 2015 with a full page strip parodying The Gruffalo. The character was then officially retired.

==Other appearances==
* Little Plum was parodied in the bawdy comic magazine ''[[Viz (comic)|Viz]]'' with their character "[[List of Viz comic strips|Little Plumber]]".

==References==
{{Portal|Children's literature}}
{{reflist}}
{{D. C. Thomson Comics}}
{{Beano}}


[[Category:Beano strips]]
[[Category:Humor comics]]
[[Category:Western (genre) comics]]
[[Category:British comics characters]]
[[Category:1953 comics debuts]]
[[Category:2015 comics endings]]
[[Category:Comics characters introduced in 1953]]
[[Category:Fictional Native American people in comics]]
[[Category:Child characters in comics]]
[[Category:Comics about children]]
[[Category:Male characters in comics]]
[[Category:Comics set in the United States]]