No one can dodge old age… not even Roger the Dodger, who celebrates his 70th birthday in today’s Beano.
Roger has been delighting kids of all ages with his wizard wheezes since April 15, 1953, and he is showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.
In the birthday edition, Roger craftily disguises himself as an old man to dodge all his chores.
He also appears in the comic’s other strips alongside Minnie the Minx, Dangerous Dan and Billy Whizz. Roger, created by Ken Reid, introduced readers to the art of dodging on his seventh birthday.
He received his grandpa’s precious collection of Dodgebooks, which recorded all the scams, pranks and misdirections he had pulled over the years.
And more recently Roger has stored them online where he can access them via his DodgePad.
Fresh dodges are created each week by writer Danny Pearson and illustrated by Barry Appleby.
Mike Stirling, Beano Studios’ director of mischief, said: “Some of us like to make mischief, others prefer to absorb it. Roger the Dodger does a bit of both.
“He breaks rules that shouldn’t be rules by challenging the status quo and using his creativity to dodge life’s boring bits. That’s a lesson none of us should dodge.”
Roger is not lazy, he just saves his time and energy for things that are important to him.
He is a lateral thinker, not a forward planner, and his dodging can leave him worse off. His hero is his pet Dodge Cat, because cats only do what they want.
Between 1986 and 1992, a spin-off strip appeared called Roger the Dodger’s Dodge Clinic.
Readers would write in with their problems, and Roger would try to find a dodge for them, which would usually go wrong.
In 1960 Burton’s Biscuit Company named the Jammie Dodger after him. The Beano reaches over five million fans a month on its digital network.
