Any Vic Neill fans...Mc Ticklers...Plug..

[Peter Gray]

Hi Peter,


Thanks for your interest in my dad's work, your blog brings back many childhood memories. I'll be in touch soon with more information.


Vic

the son of Vic has emailled me and left a post on my blog on Mickey the monkey...so might get some nice info about Vic.

The son is called Vic too..

Any Vic Neill fans...Mc Ticklers...Ben Nevis
Plug..Billy whizz...Tim Traveller...Top of the class..
what else did he draw..
Peter Piper Sparky
Nightmare on erm street..
School Team Buster comic..

[Jonny Whizz]

I would definitely count myself as a Vic Neill fan. We don't know an awful lot about him (same could be said of a number of British artists), so it would be good to find out. He had a nice, appealing art work style which I liked. Great to hear from his son, it's not every day you get something like that. In fact, I have a couple of half drawn Billy Whizz strips in a Vic Neill style, and a complete one in a sort of cross between his and Trevor Metcalfe's style.

I mentioned this in another thread - I never thought Vic was properly replaced on his Beano strips.

[AndyB]

The Germs, taking over from Dave Sutherland.

[Old Freddy]

I have a best of whizzer & chips (monthly) where he drew Sweet Tooth.

He is probably one of my favourite artists for drawing Billy whizz, and in a way sort of set the style for The Germs, although his only flaw when drawing Billy Whizz was that Billy didn't seem to be going fast enough, and while other artists represented Billy's speed by trails of dust, blurred spinning legs or something else, Neill only really added a few motion lines, and perhaps the word "Whizz" or "Zoom" in great big letters. Shame because he could have done a bit better when drawing Billy 'whizzing'. However, I liked it how most of his strips were pretty funny.

[Jonny Whizz]

Has anyone else noticed how Billy Whizz underwent a seemingly constant evolution when Vic was drawing him? If you look at the earliest of Neill's strips, he has the original two hairs, his (then new) tracksuit still had the stripe down the trousers and looks somewhat unusual for a Neill character. However, shortly before his death, Billy's appearance had been refined, with the thunderbolt hair, rounded tracksuit with no stripe, and his overall appearance had been made smoother. Also, the style of colouring changed. When he first drew Billy, they was no colour, although he drew the Billy Whizz in the first full colour issue.

I think his work is funny too - I liked the mole haggises in the McTickles (I've only ever seen one strip), Tim Traveller, The Germs (with Ill Will) and (of course) Billy Whizz strips. I must admit I haven't minded Billy Whizz being reprints as much since they started using the Neill strips. I thought the David Parkins stories had become quite dated, and the Trevor Metcalfe reprints seemed strange given he was actually drawing Billy not that long ago.

I have some old issues from 1999 which feature a fair bit of Neill's work, and there are a number of very good and funny strips from him. I think he took over The Germs around 1992 - in the Beano Book 1993, David Sutherland appeared to have drawn the strip, but in the 1994 Book, it looked like Vic Neill.

[Old Freddy]

When I was younger I thought Billy's thunderbolt hair was to do with Neill's style, but When I acquired masses of Beanos and Dandys from 1992-5 in 2007 at a car boot sale, I noticed that in the early strips by Neill Billy had his two straight hairs, and it was only sometime between June & July 1994 when he got his new hairdo. I also used to think that once he was commissioned to draw Billy Whizz he immediately bacame the full time artist, but it was nearer the end of 1993 when they chose him.

[Jonny Whizz]

Something funny happened in the early 1990s with Billy Whizz. I mean, Malcolm Judge drew him for almost 25 years up to 1989, yet in the following 18 years (before they started using reprints), no less than SIX different artists drew his strip!

Barrie Appleby was little more than a stopgap in 1989, but what happened with David Parkins? Surely he was brought in as a long term replacement, but he left due to being overworked. The only other work he was doing for DCT at the time was Fred's Bed, in the doomed Beezer and Topper, although he will have been doing other stuff as well. Trevor Metcalfe I know was mostly an understudy, and ultimately Vic became the permanent artist until his death.

Anyone know why G Hall was chosen as a replacement for Vic Neill, as it didn't take long for it to become apparent that he was not a suitable choice as Billy plummeted down the ratings, and he could have been axed if Wayne Thomson hadn't come in, who restored the Mal Judge style and Billy's popularity.

[Old Freddy]

I think G hall was a bit of a bizarre choice; I'd have preferred Dave Sutherland or Trevor Metcalfe to do it, but they chose stupid old G hall. He just sapped all the fun right out of the strip. I mean, Billy Whizz was always funny, but in the Neill era the strip reached its peak, and when G Hall took over it started to go downhill. Most artists draw wacky, like Karl Dixon, Bob Dewar, etc. but G. Hall didn't draw wacky because he wanted to be wacky, he drew like it because he was seemingly just rushing the strip to try and get it over with. I wish it didn't say on wikipedia "G hall kept Neill's overall style, but with a bit less detail". I can't see any of Vic's style in G Hall's work.

[Jonny Whizz]

I don't think David Sutherland would have been considered as a replacement for Neill. He was drawing The Bash Street Kids at the time (and still is now), and I think Jak MkII and Korky in The Dandy, although now he only does the kids. I think his (relatively) reduced workload (he used to draw loads, including Dennis and Bash St, possibly the comic's two most popular strips) is one of the reasons he's been able to keep going for so long. However, he is famed for his ability to draw very well in a huge number of different styles.
It's hard to guess why Trevor Metcalfe wasn't chosen though. He'd been doing understudy work on Billy in earlier years, he later returned to draw him again, and he is undoubtedly a better artist than Hall was (Trevor should still be drawing for The Beano ).

As for Hall 'keeping Neill's overall style', I believe it means that he kept the thunderbolt hair (Wayne Thomson reverted to the original two hairs) - other than that, the two styles have little in common. Hall's work was clearly rushed. Neill's work, on the other hand, was well proportioned, neat and funny. Anyway, why would anyone be so desperate to 'get over with' drawing Billy Whizz?

[Old Freddy]

I know. If I was drawing billy whizz, I'd probably keep the Thunderbolt hair, but retain the humour of Neill and draw in a rather neat way. I've drawn a strip that I made called "Nutty" a few days ago to see what my style was really like, and it looks kinda like Trevor Metcalfe to me, so I'd probably draw like Metcalfe but with the thunderbolt hair.

In fact I can't even think of anything Metcalfe was drawing in 2000 for DCT. Growing Paynes ended around that time, he wouldn't draw Ivy until 2002, or Les Pretend until 2004.

But, My style never used to be like Metcalfe's. Back when I started drawing when I was 12, my style was plain dreadful. I was worse than G Hall! There, I say it, and it's true!

[Jonny Whizz]

In a Beano from a few weeks ago, there was a reprint of a Trevor Metcalfe strip which had the thunderbolt hair, but was drawn in Trevor's own style. I didn't know until that strip appeared that Trevor continued as an understudy after Vic became permanent artist. I thought he quit along with David Parkins in 1993.

John Dallas filled in for Vic a few times in the mid '90s as well, including in The Beano Book of Britain. This was published in 1996 and contained factual information about Blighty as well as comic strips drawn by Tom P (Dennis), Dallas (Whizz), Jim Petrie (Minnie), Bob Nixon (Roger and Ivy) Bob Dewar (Joe King) and The Bash St Kids (Jimmy Hansen, I think).

It's been interesting with Euan Kerr editing Max (until very recently) and Alan Digby on the weekly Beano how Euan tends to reprint David Parkins Billy Whizz strips while Alan has decided to reprint the Vic Neill strips. Most of the Billy Whizz strips or sketches I've done recently have had a strong Neill influence.

[Old Freddy]

In this week's issue, there's something about the billy whizz strip that just shouts "REPRINT!!!" to everyone. If you notice, you can make out the outline of a box around some of the speech bubbles, and the computerised text on the sign doesn't suit the unrecoloured strip that was done on a printing machine. (To be honest, I don't like the idea of strips done on a printing machine and not recoloured on a computer when reprinted. The Ivy the Terrible and Les Pretend strips used to be recoloured and therefore they look OK, but ones done on a printing machine but not recoloured when reprinted just look dated.)

[Digifiend]

I noticed that problem with the speech bubbles. I think the strip must've been patched to remove the old ones.

[Jonny Whizz]

I think it does make the strip look 'old' and make its age clear. Unfortunately, the colouring took a backward step on Billy in the late 90s (which this week's strip appears to be from), with the colours becoming pale and rather poorly defined. It is less noticeable on earlier Vic Neill reprints where the colours were stronger, yet still traditional. They could always change it, but I'm not sure I'd like that. The bright, bold colours used nowadays don't look right with Neill's style in my opinion - I prefer the mid 90s colours you see most week. I can notice the edges of the old speech bubbles in this week's strip but I don't think it looks that bad.

My 100th post!

[Digifiend]

Oops. Since a new Beano came out today, you meant last week's issue. The problem didn't repeat itself this time.