- Kid Chameleon (comics)
"Kid Chameleon" was a weekly 2-page colour
comic strip appearing in the BritishComic Book "Cor!! " from its first issue in 1970 until 1972. It was written byScott Goodall and drawn byJoe Colquhoun , both uncredited.tory
Stranded in the
Kalahari Desert by aplane crash , a British boy is raised bylizard s as aferal child , and weaves himself a skin-tight suit of transparent lizard scales which covers his entire body except the top of his head (to avoid the appearance of completenudity , he also wears a pair of flesh-coloured briefs underneath). Only one strip shows how the suit comes off. It consists of two pieces: a top that opens at the front, and leggings. The suit allows him tocamouflage himself like achameleon by making the scales change colour, although how he does it is never explained.When he reaches
adolescence he is told by his only human contact, an ancient Bushman, that the wreckage of the plane contained the bodies of his parents, who had been shot. The only clue to themurder er's identity was a silver skull brooch.Subsequent strips trace Kid's journey across
Africa and beyond as he searches for his parents' killer and uses his camouflage to help people (often other teenagers in trouble) along the way. The actual effect of his camouflage is achieved by superimposing his black-line image on a coloured background, so that he appears semi-invisible. As one correspondent pointed out, the main weakness in his camouflage is his blond hair, which always remains visible, yet none of the other characters ever notices it.The strip was cancelled in 1972 after almost two years. In the closing installments Kid finds the murderer and hands him over to the
police , before returning to the Kalahari to live with his reptilian friends.Goodall was also wrote "
Fishboy " for "Buster", and there some obvious similarities between the two strips. Fishboy is searching for his parents, while Kid Chameleon is searching for his parents' killer. However, while "Fishboy" was drawn inblack and white , "Kid Chameleon" had to be drawn in colour in order to show the effects of Kid's camouflage.ee also
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Feral children in mythology and fiction External links
* [http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/k/kidcham.htm International Hero page on Kid Chameleon]
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