The Top 100 Buster Strips

Off the back of March's announcement by Egmont that Buster was coming back for a one-off special this Autumn, Bustercomic.co.uk launched a poll to find the greatest Buster strips as voted for by you. And now, as Buster reaches what would have been it's 49th Birthday, we can reveal what you voted the top 100 strips from Buster's 40 year run.

Click Here to see the Full Top 100
The poll was open to all readers of Buster from across the four decades, but as we couldn’t expect a reader from 1960 to vote on strips in the 90s (and vice versa) the choice of favourite strips was optional for each period.

The most popular strip from Buster was X Ray Specs picking up half the votes. Faceache came in second with 47.8% of the votes whilst Ivor Lott & Tony Broke and Rent-A-Ghost came joint third with 45.7% of votes.

The most popular period amongst voters was 1970 to 1974 amassing votes from almost everyone who visited the poll. Unsurprisingly, with the all voters choosing this period, 40% of the top 10 come from this era. With long-lived strips such as Ivor Lott & Tony Broke and Faceache first appearing in this decade, it’s not surprising that everybody found something to vote for.

The seventies on the whole proved rather popular for votes, with the second half of the decade collecting votes from 85% of all visitors. Again, this era comes second in the top ten too; with 30% of the top ten strips coming from the second half of the decade.

The oldest strip in the top ten is Rent-A-Ghost and the only strip to originate in the 1960s and make it through. However, with this strip running for a full decade (1969-1979) it is perhaps not surprising it amassed votes from almost 46% of visitors.

Older strips have also reigned supreme overall with the only entry from the final decade of Buster being reprints of longer running Sweeny Toddler. The “newest” strip in the top 10 is Tom Thug at joint 10th which started in transferred from Oink! back in 1988.

Just 40% of the top ten are strips that originated in Buster. Rent-A-Ghost, Cliff Hanger, Clever Dick & The Leopard of Lime Street are the only Buster originated strips to make it into the top.

The remainder of the top ten are collected from Mergers with Monster Fun (X Ray Specs & Mummy’s Boy), Cor! (Ivor Lott & Tony Broke & Chalky), Whizzer & Chips (Sweeny Toddler) Jet (Faceache) and Oink (Tom Thug).

Longevity of strips has been a clear factor in voter’s choices. Two of the top ten ran in Buster for 20 odd years whilst over half of them ran for a decade or more.

Of the shorter running strips, Cliff Hanger leads with just 4 years under his belt, although this has presumably been boosted by an extra 8 years of reprints throughout the 1990s.

Adventure strips, are perhaps surprisingly, rare in the top 10. The Leopard of Lime Street falls in as the most popular Adventure strip scraping into 10th, possibly aided by reprints in the late 1980s, whilst Fishboy, Pete’s Pocket Army & Charlie Peace run 17th, 19th & 21st respectively.

Elsewhere inside the Top 25, Whizzer & Chips increases its stronghold on the highest number of merged strips voted for, with Odd Ball, The Bumpkin Billionaires, Joker, Fuss Pot, & Creepy Comix all appearing, alongside Gums from Monster Fun, & Jack Pott from Jackpot. As well as the aforementioned adventure strips, Vid Kid, Mastermind, Maxwell Hawke and Toys of Doom are the only other Buster originated strip in the Top 25.

Of the title strip (which all voters had to vote in) it is perhaps a little surprising that the winner is from the period that came second in total number of votes. Reg Parlett’s Buster’s Diary from 1974 to 1985 won the poll with 30% of the vote. It was closely followed by Tom Paterson’s Buster with 28%. Buster’s Dreamworld, which ran during the 1970-74 period that picked up the most votes for strips came in 3rd with 17%.

It perhaps suggests that most voters were read Buster during the 1975-1985 period and the high rating strips picked that started before 1975 were voted for as they spanned this period too.

Click Here to see the Full Top 100
I would like to thank all of those that voted in the poll over the past 8 weeks, your input was appreciated, and these results have been passed on to Egmont UK as they go on to compile the Buster Special. Don't forget, the special edition of Buster will be released on the 16th September this year. And prior to that, a Battle Special will be out in WH Smith stores from 24th June priced just Ł3.99.