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Calamity James

British comic strip character

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ16825236
Source-derived summary

Calamity James is a comic strip in the UK comic The Beano. It is about a boy, named Calamity James (a pun on Calamity Jane), who has disastrous luck. He first appeared on 1 November 1986, in issue no. 2311. A copy of his first strip is viewable here. His strip replaced Biffo the Bear and Little Plum, which had both been reduced to a half-page by this time. He has a pet called Alexander Lemming, (a pun on Alexander Fleming).

Creation and Concept

There were several variations of the visual appearance of Calamity James before a final image was decided on. Calamity James has black hair, wears black trousers, and has a red jumper with the number 13 on it. He has big eyes, and many buck teeth, but he originally had small eyes and only two buck teeth.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Calamity James” is british comic strip character. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Calamity, James and British, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1986—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1986-11-01, 1939-11-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Calamity, James and British is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british comic strip character” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16825236. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1986.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Calamity James”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Calamity James primary sources, Calamity James archive and Calamity research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Calamity James”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Calamity James” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.