Dudley Watkins' Final Page

What you see above may look like any other old 1960s Beano cover, but it is in fact the last page illustrated by legendary artist Dudley Watkins. Watkins was working on the page at his home on the morning of 20th August 1969 when he suffered a fatal heart attack and collapsed over his desk. The Biffo the Bear strip was only part-done, and was later completed by David Sutherland for Beano #1423, dated October 25th 1969.

I've always found it interesting to see the last comic strip of an artist, as sad as the context surrounding them may be. I've posted a few such pages on this blog before, such as this one by Ken Reid, who passed away half way through his final Faceache strip. I do hope that artists passing away while still drawing speaks more to a love of the craft than anything else.

Whereas 99% of what I post on this site is taken from my own collection, this comic is not one of them. Instead, I came across the image during a reread of The Art and History of The Dandy, published in 2012. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, you absolutely should. It's a wealth of knowledge and definitely a book worth seeking out.

A New Colour Scheme For Christmas

It can be interesting to compare an original story with the reprinted one, to see what changed. In the 2003 Dennis the Menace annual they reprinted the Christmas story from Beano #2475 from December 23rd 1989, that year's Christmas issue. Originally just called Dennis the Menace and Gnasher, the annual renamed it to 'Dennis the Menace and Gnasher in a Christmas Chortle', adding Santa in his sleigh and moon to the panel.

The colour scheme also changed, the original version is generally darker with a nice purple sky. I personally prefer the original version, the reprint just doesn't seem as festive. Even the bells that read 'Dennis the Menace and Gnasher' aren't as nicely coloured.

Here's the full strip, the original next to the reprint. Art is by David Sutherland. As always click on the images and then again to view in full size.

And here's the book the reprint appeared in, the 2003 Dennis the Menace annual.

Many thanks to Phil Creighton for informing me of this reprint! Cheers Phil!

First Class to Bash Street

Back in 2012 Royal Mail released a set of stamps with British comic covers on them. This was a very nice set and as far as I was aware the only time a British comic set had been made.

The 2012 stamps.

However, back in 1993 Royal Mail issued 'Greetings Stamps', a set of ten stamps that featured illustrations of famous characters including Rupert the Bear, William (from the William books) and Wilfred and Teacher, from The Bash Street Kids!

Yes, Wilfred and Teacher got first class treatment with this stamp, which features Wilfred teasing Teacher with an apple. Artwork is by David Sutherland. I'm not sure if British comics or characters have featured on any other stamps, these are the only two occasions I am aware of but if you do know of any more please leave a comment in the comments section below.

The postcard accompanying the stamp. The actual stamp can be seen at the top of this post.

Spotlight On An Artist: David Sutherland

David Sutherland is an inspirational artist to me, as I'm sure he is to many other readers of The Beano. Over his 50+ years of working in comics he has illustrated countless pages, most significantly The Bash Street Kids, which he has drawn almost every week since 1962, well over 2000 pages in total.

He started working for D.C Thomson in 1960, and his first strip was the successful Danny on A Dolphin. Danny had three series in The Beano, one from June to October 1960, the second from March to October 1962 and the last from February to December 1968. This was accompanied by Dave's other adventure strip The Great Flood Of London, which ran from 1960 - 1961.

In 1962 Leo Baxendale left Thomson to go and work with Fleetway and go on to create Odhams' new "super-beano" Wham. Baxendale's departure meant that another artist had to take over his work on the Bash Street Kids, and the honour was,of course, given to David.

He is also well known as a key artist on Dennis the Menace. He drew Dennis, along with his trusty sidekick Gnasher, from 1970 all the way up until 1998 - a whopping twenty-eight years!

Over 50 years on and David is still drawing the Bash Street Kids every week in the Beano, as well as illustrating other pages in the annuals. There's no room to go through and show every character he ever drew, but a few of David's other strips are Biffo the Bear, General Jumbo, Billy the Cat, Korky the Cat and more recently he drew Fred's Bed up until last year. The self-portrait of him at the top of this post is from the 2010 Beano annual, and the photo below is a recent one of him standing next to a model of Gromit covered in drawings of Beano characters!