The Perishers

Another ingredient in my and my family's cultural diet was a cartoon strip called The Perishers. The main character is Wellington, a feisty boy with a healthy Weltanschauung and an eye to the main chance.
His faithful companion is Boot, an Old English Sheepdog (sort of). Boot believes he is of aristocratic lineage, cruelly deprived of his rightful inheritance by the lack of an opposable thumb. He is fond of sausages.
Then there are a whole range of characters: Maisie, fiercely female and hilariously unstoppable; Marlon, a dumb but lovable kid; Baby Grumpling, who knows that worms are for eating.
There are also wonderful animal characters with walk-on parts. the raddled poodle, Tattie Oldbitt, the sailors' friend: the bloodhound, BA Calcutta (failed); and a tortoise in the shape of a WWII German helmet who looks like AH and speaks in Fraktur.
Ask my children about the Eyeballs in the Sky, and they will tell you everything you need to know about an otherworld experience that happens to crabs in rockpools every summer, and confirms, at least for the crabs, that there is a Divine Presence after all.
Me, I'm with the crabs on this; it was the Perishers converted me.