Monkey Bizness

&nbsp MONKEY BIZNESS was the second Dandy serving from John Geering, his first being PC Big Ears which ran from 1971-73. Geering's skill at creating uber-manic characters had not gone un-noticed by Dandy Editor Albert Barnes, who commissioned a second strip from the same artist. Although not as gloriously anarchic as Geering's 70s masterpiece Puss 'n' Boots, this was another entry in his delightful 'funny animal' stakes, and stylistically and thematically it echoes the vintage Thomson strip Bamboo Town in it's depiction of talking jungle-animals.

The frolics centred around the general-stores like shop ran by the bowler-hatted BOSS, who often falls prey to the practical jokes of two young monkey assistants who help out in his shop. Attractive and a delight to behold visually--John Geering's work during this decade reflected the care and time spent on his weekly output, in the days before his artwork was scaled-down and more rushed-looking come the 1980s--there is, perhaps, a slight restrainment of all-out chaos that made his Sparky cat-and-dog strip so memorable. Fantastic technique used for the very appealling central characters, however, and this series ran from DANDY issues 1662-1770 [29 Sept 1973-25 Oct 1975].

Geering's very considerable potential was gleefully snapped up by DANDY long before his Beano debut Smudge in the very early 1980s.