"The Swots and the Blots" was one of the few strips in "Smash" to survive all the changes of 1969 and 1970, reaching a new standard of excellence when Leo Baxendale began drawing it for the new-look "Smash" from March 1969, but even during the Odhams years it had wit and a sense of style.In Baxendale's hands it had notable similarities to his earlier classroom-based strip, "The Bash Street Kids", in "The Beano".