Basil Brush very aggressive Scottish hedgehog also made by Peter Firmin. In the mid-1960s Basil became a supporting act for the magician David Nixon, upstaging Nixon on the latter's BBC1 show "Nixon at Nine-Five" in 1967 and "The Nixon Line" (1967–68), to such good effect that the fox was offered his own show. Basil thus acquired his own television series on the BBC, "The Basil Brush Show", which ran for 12 years from 1968 until 1980, in which he was supported by various famous stooges: first, in 1968, by the actor Rodney Bewes, known on the show as "Mr Rodney"; next, from
Mandrake the Magician Pictopia" (first published in "Anything Goes!" #2, August 1986) is a short story by Alan Moore and illustrator Don Simpson, which takes place in a limbo world of comic book characters. The main character, Nocturno the Necromancer, is based on Mandrake. The story was reprinted in George Khoury's "The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore" (TwoMorrows, July 2003). Michael Kupperman's "Tales Designed to Thrizzle" (Fantagraphics), pokes fun at many comics, including "Mandrake the Magician" with a three-panel strip, "Mancake the Magician." New Zealand-born Australian country and western singer Tex Morton had a successful song "Mandrake" recorded in 1941. It was about