Lew Stringer wrote:Billy's Boots was reprinted in Holland in Sjors weekly and became even more popular than in the UK. It was collected into many albums, with newly drawn covers by John Gillatt. When Sjors ended in 1975, they concluded the strip with new stories and artwork, and Billy actually got older, unlike in the UK where he was forever 12 years old.
Full details on a blog post I did five years ago:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/ ... boots.html
I've just read your blog post on Billy Dane, Lew, and I just wonder what percentage of readers actually found the fact that Billy never aged
increasingly bizarre. I certainly wouldn't have if I had continued to buy
Tiger after it had served its main purpose, that of helping my younger son Russell to learn to read. This kind of series is rather like a comfort blanket. Everything is always the same so fear of the unknown is kept at bay until the child is ready to face it. It's a version of the Peter Pan syndrome. There is no doubt, of course, that time appears to move forward, evidenced by progress in cup competitions for Roy Race or Nipper Lawrence, and in stories about Johnny Cougar, Skid Solo and Hot Shot Hamish that progress from one issue to the next and so on, but apart from Roy Race, the aforementioned characters do not appear to age. I know they are not children, but my point is still valid. Billy Dane is a modern equivalent of Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Billy Bunter, Tom Merry et al. What you see is what you get, for thirty odd years, forty for Mary Simpson and her three Mary friends at St. Elmo's.
Roy Race is different, and the longevity of
Roy Of The Rovers has everything to do with the decision to age him. At a stroke it gave the writers the opportunity to create new story lines for each successive football season. Successes and failures could be recounted, players could be sold, new ones bought, tactics could be altered, friendships and disputes started and ended, injuries introduced and so on, the whole giving the reader the impression that he is seeing his Melchester Rovers team in real time. This approach was definitely not necessary for
Billy's Boots because the concept did not really require it.
The major opening for the writers of
Roy Of The Rovers was providing him with a girlfriend, a plot element that Thomsons' story papers for boys avoided like the plague after the early twenties. Penny was a boon because story lines could feature an engagement, a wedding, and children, the growth and upbringing of one of whom could even lead eventually to his selection for the Rovers. It could have been a never-ending story!