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| Image copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd |
Above is the cover of my own copy of The BEEZER #600. If you behave yourselves, I may show further pages from this landmark issue. Look at how easy on the eye DUDLEY D. WATKINS' art is - he made it seem simple. Some of today's newer artists, whose pages are abstract, convoluted and difficult to follow assaults on the senses, could sure do with taking a leaf out of D.D.W.'s work.
I'm almost ashamed of how I used to take this comic - and dozens of others - for granted when I was younger, as I'm sure we all did back in the day. It seemed to us that theses comics had always been around and always would be, but, alas, we now know different, much to our cost, and also that of today's generation of comics readers.
Did you buy Beezer back in the day? What's your abiding memory of this iconic comic? Tell all in the comments section.
8 comments:
I read the Beezer and The Topper from about 1971 till November 1974 when I bought (I mean my mother bought) Planet Of The Apes No.5 and I switched to Marvel. But I continued reading the Beezer and Topper annuals for several years.
My favourite strip was Nick Kelly and his assistant, Cedric :)
Towards the end of their lives, both comics were merged into a single comic (Beezer & Topper) for a while, but it couldn't save them in the end, alas. Two or three years back, Pedigree issued The Best of The Beezer and The Best of The Topper Annuals - they were really nice.
I can remember The Topper but not The Beezer.. I suspect the name did not entice my interest. Looking at artwork though on the Beezers cover it looks a lot like the work of the guy who did Desperate Dan in the Dandy.
Yup, as well as drawing Oor Wullie & The Broons for The Sunday Post, Ginger for The Beezer, and Mickey The Monkey for the Topper, Dudley D. Watkins also drew Desperate Dan & Lord Snooty for The Dandy.
"I'm almost ashamed of how I used to take this comic - and dozens of others - for granted when I was younger, as I'm sure we all did back in the day. It seemed to us that theses comics had always been around and always would be, but, alas, we now know different, much to our cost, and also that of today's generation of comics readers."
Ditto! Looking at online scans of the last issue of Buster makes me feel kind of down. Losing that, the Beezer (I remember reading it as the merged Beezer and Topper, though I might be confusing it with Whizzer & Chips) and so on is bad enough, but having the Dandy off the shelves feels like an ending, and not a good one.
But onto brighter things - I'm of an age where my exposure to Dudley D. Watkins came second- or third-hand through Ken Harrison's Desperate Dan, the occassional Ginger or Biffo the Bear, and an odd Sunday Post that must've been lying around my Grandparents' house; but in latter years I've become a fan of the original artist through Oor Wullie and The Broons collections. The ones named after the decades when the strips were published - The Roaring Forties, the Sensational Sixties, and so on!
Not only do I appreciate his art, pretty much in the way you've described, but as a Northern Ireland resident from the Scottish-extraction side of things, some of the dialect is familiar to me ('jings' is still heard round here, and bald-headed Paw Broon reminds me of my late Granda every time he says it) and as someone with a passing interest in history, it's interesting to see how much of the early-mid 20thC comes through.
I've got the last issue of Buster, WJB, bought back in the last few days of 1999 (which only seems like a couple of years ago) and, indeed, it was a sad day when it ended. As for Dudley D. Watkins, he made drawing look easy, and the only artist (in my opinion) who's done full justice to Oor Wullie and The Broons since Dudley died, is Ken H. Harrison. The collections you speak of are excellent, and I've got every single one so far. Interesting thing - Dudley drew sausage figures in pencil when laying out a page and did the actual drawing at the inking stage. That's talent!
I always liked Dudley Watkins' work particularly his depiction of Desperate Dan. After his death the script in the weekly Dandy comic were repeats of the previous issues while the annuals and summer specials were drawn by Charles Grigg whose art work I also enjoyed.
Same with Oor Wullie and The Broons - they were reprinted for years right into the mid-'70s (I think) before they found a new artist. If you're a new commenter, please pick a name (even a pseudonym) for the future, as it helps me (and others) differentiate between different readers. Ta.
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