Comic strip featuring a barrel-chested cowboy of the same name, famous since 1937 for his well-stubbled, oversized lantern jaw. As his creator Albert Barnes described him: 'He is to be the roughest, toughest cowboy. He has to be the strongest man in the world: a man who can chew iron and spit rust' .

Desperate Dan featured in The Beano and The Dandy. He was going to be written out in 1997 until an international outcry staved his execution.

Desperate Dan lived in Cactusville, a town in the wild west that occasionally resembed twentieth century Britain, and until recently was populated by sterotypical Indians, Chinese, Eskimos and other minorities alongside other cowboy folk. Just like Rodolf Raspe's character Albrecht who was part of Baron von Munchausen's cabal, Desperate Dan was intended to be funny because of the absurd things his strength allows him to do, like lifting cows with one hand (sometimes in the form of a cow-pie, complete with steers sticking out).

Viz magazine parodied Desperate Dan by...well...having the same kind of inane skits being performed by another oaf called Desperately Unfunny Dan.

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