Comic cuts

It was a sad day in the world of comics when Desperate Dan was neutered as the new moral climate dictated that his old-fashioned ways were no longer tolerated. The arrival of mad cow disease took his favourite dish, cow pie, off his table. Smoking was a no-no and a man who parted his hair with a bullet from his gun couldn't be tolerated in today's lawless society.

He was a victim of political correctness, who had his so-called bad habits taken away from him. The taming of Desperate Dan is recalled in the first part of Comics Britannia, earning its third showing of the week tonight.

The documentary is like reading a comic. The talking heads are put in cartoon surroundings, so they look like they're actually on the page of a living comic. All very gimmicky but that doesn't matter because what they're saying is interesting.

Armando Iannucci narrates this history of The Fun Factory, which launched itself on an unsuspecting young public 70 years ago with Dandy and Beano.

These are the comics, produced in Dundee of all places by DC Thomson, that gave us such icons as Lord Snooty, Minnie the Minx, Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids, as well as Desperate Dan.

The use of speech balloons rather than text beneath the illustrations made them stand out from previous publications for youngsters.

Desperate Dan was one of the early characters, a freakishly strong cowboy whose antics included invading a country armed with a large cheese. It all sounds a bit Pythonesque.

His comic strip transported the Wild West to Britain, something that children never questioned because they were used to playing cowboys and Indians, a game that's been a victim of political correctness in recent years.

Much of these comics' contents would be frowned upon, with what would now be perceived as racist images and comic foreigners, although lampooning Hitler and what were called "nasty Nazis" as part of the war effort was acceptable.

The writers had to take a moral line so Dennis the Menace was punished, and by corporal punishment at that, with a good beating on the bottom.

When it came to Minnie the Minx, the equally mischievous female version of Dennis, things were different. She was allowed to have the last word against parents, teachers and even the police.

Children - and there were a lot of them in the post-war baby boom - became hooked on comics. The Beano was, says one observer, the crack cocaine of its day.

Youngsters in Jamaica face an uncertain future, according to Unreported World. About one million people, a third of the population, live in or near the garrisons, the slums in the centre of the island's capital Kingston.

Reporter Evan Williams investigates the links between the gangs, the politicians, the police and the violence.

In one area, there are four killings a day - three by gangs, one by police. There are accusations of corrupt policemen acting as assassins and politicians funding gangs in return for votes.

Families live in shelters made out of scrap. Many children are left fatherless by the killings. Few get a proper education because their parents can't afford the school fees.

The situation has reached the point where we see a government housing scheme standing half-built and now abandoned. Rival gangs fought over the project, causing the builders to flee for their lives.

Those who have jobs have to keep the gangs sweet. One taxi driver tells of handing over half his earnings to gangs. He knows what will happen if he refuses. The figures show that, over the past six years, 68 taxi drivers have been killed by extortionists.

Williams hears claims that the police prefer to kill rather than arrest suspects. Per head of population, police kill more people in Jamaica than almost anywhere else in the world. There were 227 police killings last year.

Jamaica needs its economy to grow to improve the situation of the people. But that will never happen until the violence ends. It's a vicious circle with little hope for anyone of breaking out.