Clem Atherton drew for every comic your dad ever swapped in the playground. But what will he do when he finally gets a chance to take revenge on the man who stole his most famous creation: Spotty Herbert: The Kid WIth Magic Pimples.
Plot Synopsis
Clem Atherton drew loads of comic strips: 'Gertie's Gunge', 'Ronnie, the Evil Earwig' and 'Mable Syrup: The Girl Who Can't Stop Eating.' Finally he falls into a fever due to overwork, and is nursed through it by his fellow cartoonist Frank Hesketh. Only when Clem recovers he sees that Frank has stolen the drawings for Clem's new creation: Spotty Herbert. Years later they meet at a comics convention and Clem is taken to a hospital to meet Frank's grandson: a Spotty Herbert fan. On the boy's hospital bed are the original drawings of Spotty Herbert: all the evidence Clem needs to prove his authorship. But Frank explains that they need money for the boy's operation, which can only be done in America, and they can only get there by selling the drawings to a collector. So Frank does the swap of his life with the boy: the drawings for half a tube of toffees. As Clem goes home he compares his life, as the unackowledged creator of Spotty Herbert, with that of Frank, famous on someone else's back. Clem decides that he would never swap with Frank.
