Art: Arthur Ranson (b. 1939); Script: Angus P Allan (1936 – 2007)
The British children’s animated cartoon series Danger Mouse was an international hit, which ran in the UK from 1981 to 1992. The show parodied British spy fiction that was popular at the time, in particular James Bond and the Danger Man series. The eponymous hero – voiced by David Jason – was a mouse who worked as a secret agent.
The comic-strip version ran in Look-in (1971) magazine, and was syndicated in a number of other publications. It was drawn by Arthur Ranson and Angus P Allan provided the scripts. Ranson also worked on the television series providing some of the backdrops.
This was, however, not the first comic-strip version of a ‘Danger Mouse’. In 1966 a black and white murine character appeared in Smash! (1966) with ‘DM’ proudly pinned to his chest. His raison d’etre was to answer the call of distressed mice everywhere.