DOCTOR Simpo is on a mission to bring the lost art of stupidity back to comic fans.

The 28-year-old Holmfirth artist, real name Ben Simpson, is displaying his original work at The Strip comic shop in Byram Arcade.

He has an impressive background in the Glasgow School of Art and the Royal College of Art but the Doctor, by his own admission, specialises in ‘the daft’.

On display at the shop is his new, fiercely detailed Sooper Stoopid and the Splurge of the Slimeslurps, written and pencilled himself, then inked by the ‘poison pen’ Graham Manley.

The comic tells the story of Sidney Swotley of Horrible High who, faced with an invasion from space, can simply pop a green jelly baby to trade his intelligence for base stupidity and great strength to become his alter ego Sooper Stoopid.

Full of detail – and no small amount of slime and snot – it’s an anarchic comic in which older readers might recognise the influence of Basil Wolverton Robert Crumb and one of Ben’s heroes, Ken Reid.

That artist was responsible for visually crammed classic strips like Jonah, Faceache and Frankie Stein.

Ben said: “It’s daft at face value, but there’s also a comment about the present climate in there. The slime is red tape or debt which the aliens smother Big Ben with.

“At the end of the strip it’s lifted of course and I’m not sure that will happen in the real world.

“I loved that element of the grotesque in British comics. The style used to be very detailed but the Beano became very simple, almost like Japanese Manga.”

Ben has sent his work to the Dandy – and it may be his dream job – but the comic seems a little reluctant to return to the style of its glory days.

He said: “The feedback I got was that it was a little risky. I thought riskier than Facebook and the internet? That sort of assessment is relative.”

Increasingly the comics reflect TV shows such as X-Factor in their content – a far cry from the market Ben remembers.

Far from keeping his lunacy to the page, he designs his own distinctly unusual cardigans which include knitted pens in the top pocket and owns a reconstituted 1960s ambulance and mobile joke shop called the Looney Bus. The bus travels to schools and will also appear at the next Glastonbury Festival.

He also once cut off his own dreadlocks and cast them in bronze.

You can find his work gracing the pumps and bottles of the Nook Brewhouse in Holmfirth.

He said: “I was an only child until I was 12 and I had to entertain myself. The newsagent had a selection of things like Whizzer and Chips, Beano, Dandy, Beezer, Shiver and Shake and Topper. Now there is still Beano and Dandy but The Simpsons comics, Sponge Bob Squarepants – things that are just TV spin-offs.

“I loved the zaniness and the look of these comics, but never graduated to things like superheroes, Judge Dredd or 2000AD.

“My aim with the exhibition is to give children a chance to see this kind of work and have it affect them the way it did me.”

Doctor Simpo and Graham P Manley present an all-day underground comics workshop at Saviles Hall, Leeds, this Saturday as part of the Leeds Sequential Art Festival Thought Bubble.

For firther information contact doctorsimpo@hotmail.co.uk