Dave the Orang Utan

Few characters in British comics can claim the sheer audacity of their own existence quite like Dave the Orang Utan, who swung into the anarchic pages of 2000 AD back in 1984, courtesy of the boundary-pushing Pat Mills and the gloriously imaginative M. Belardinelli. A Bronze Age original from IPC's legendary weekly, Dave has rubbed shoulders across the decades with some of the most iconic figures the Galaxy's Greatest Comic has to offer — Judge Dredd, Chief Judge McGruder, Johnny Alpha, and Wulf Sternhammer among them — which speaks volumes about the wild, anything-goes spirit that made 2000 AD a phenomenon. With a presence stretching across 23 years and a collector-significant key issue to his name, this improbable primate is a genuine piece of British comics history, the kind of delightfully eccentric character that only Tharg's universe could nurture and keep alive. If you love 2000 AD at its most wonderfully strange, Dave the Orang Utan belongs on your radar.