The Numskulls
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The Numskulls is a comic strip in The Beano, a UK comic. The strip is about some tiny human like creatures that live inside the head of Edd, a boy, and control his actions
The Numskulls are:
- Brainy - Controls Edd's brain.
- Blinky - Controls his sight/eyes.
- Radar (previously Luggy)- Controls his hearing/ears.
- Snitch - Controls his smell/nose.
- Cruncher - Controls his mouth/taste.
History
The strip first appeared in The Beezer and was drawn by Malcolm Judge. In this version they lived inside a man's head rather than a boy's head. The man was never named, but the Numskulls referred to him as "our Man".
In 1990 the comic became The Beezer and Topper following the acquisition of The Topper by The Beezer. It was at this point that Edd replaced the man. Three years later the comic folded, and the strip joined The Beano in issue 2674, dated 16 October 1993, drawn by Tom Paterson. The strip is currently drawn by Barry Glennard, who became the permanent artist in 2003, although Dave Eastbury drew some strips on occasion in the past.
Discussion
We can see the typical interaction between the numskulls in the story "An Alarm clock gives them a shock" which appeared in The Beezer Book 1980. "Our Man" is pictured asleep in the first panel and in the second we see Luggy in the Ear Dept. awoken by the sound of the alarm clock next to "our Man's" bed. Using an intercom system Luggy sends a message to Brainy that the alarm clock is ringing. Brainy, in turn uses his intercom system to wake up all the other numskulls and feeds the written message "SWITCH OFF ALARM!" into the suggestion box. We then see "our Man" thinking "Noisy alarm! I'll switch it off. Where is it?" In the following panel we see Luggy informing Brainy that the alarm is still ringing whilst Brainy reads a print-out from the computer "WHERE IS IT?".
It transpires that Blinky, who is in charge of the man's eyes, has neglected his duty by staying in bed. The other two numskulls burst into his department and force him out of bed. Grumbling, Blinky opens the man's eyes with a hand-crank whilst Brainy and Luggy stow his bedding in cabinets under the eyes. In the last panel we see "our Man" reflecting that he couldn't open his eyes this morning and now his bags under them (caused by the bedding).
The above description is typical of the Numskull's formula. The Man (who represents 'us') is totally determined by the decisions and actions of the numskulls. He has the freedom only to reflect on what has occurred, all his decisions are made by Brainy. As all the thoughts sent from Brainy's 'suggestion box' appear to "our Man" as his own he little suspects the existence of the numskulls. Much of what he reflects on is actually a consequence of the Numskulls' free will, rather than his own. In the story above the Man notices the bags under his eyes, which he puts down to a normally bodily reaction to tiredness, when they are in fact the bulges caused by Blinky's bedding. The man has bags under his eyes, not because he chose to have a late night but because Blinky chose not to get out of bed.
The numskulls stood out from the other comic strips in the Beezer in that it addressed the metaphysical questions that fascinate only children and philosophers such as - Where do thoughts come from and why do people do as they do?