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Tom
Thumbscrew

Tom
must surely be Fleetway's most sinister star. He
was supposed to be the torturer's apprentice for
a bossy
king. But instead of scorching the eyeballs out
of his
captives to make them talk, this reluctant fellow
would
employ a light-hearted tickling, and various forms
of
tomfoolery to make their time in the dungeon a tad
more bearable...
Tom was a strange one to pin down. Although he
was
most decidedly non-violent he did display a mean
spirit
which would come to the fore when e'er a prisoner gave
him too much grief (like that Jester fellow, below).
On top of that, of course, one could pile a multitude
of
S&M references and innuendoes. Butone must remember,
this strip was being printed in a more naive time,
way before
Graham Norton, satelitie porn et al. Kids were more
likely
to confuse the term with Mum's favourite High Street
store
than with anything more suggestive...

What is perhaps more surprising is that the authorities
did
not appear to pick up on the content of this weekly
strip.
Here were a collection of characters depicted
in a captive
environment, frequently manacled, or being threatened
with
the Rack or worse. Amnesty International would
be
horrified!
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