David Parkins

[Jonny Whizz]

Does anyone know what's he up to these days? I believe Euan Kerr posted on this website a few years ago that he'd emigrated to Canada.

He was an excellent artist but I don't know much about him. I am familiar with most of his DCT work - he drew Billy Whizz in the early 1990s (1990-1993), and later did Dennis the Menace from 1998-2003 (plus occasional strips for the next couple of years), as well as Fred's Bed in the Beezer and Topper, The Three Bears and Desperate Dan.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

The last work I seen of his was political cartoons in colour for a newspaper [sorry, I forget which one] : I recognized his style instantly, even before I found the signature. I don't know if he still does this, but I also heard he had emigrated.

[Digifiend]

This website should answer that question: http://www.davidparkins.com/

He has two pet cats - and one of them's called Beezer!

[Jonny Whizz]

Thanks for that link.

I think you're right I Spy, his website does show some of his newspaper cartoons. There's also some of his Beano stuff up there (mostly covers and annuals), though he does mention Fred's Bed on it - he drew the majority of the strips in The Beezer and Topper, I'd be surprised if Tom Paterson drew more than 10 or so. It would be nice if he put up the final strip there, because it was the only strip that wasn't reprinted in the Beano.

[Classic Comics]

Thanks for that link.

I think you're right I Spy, his website does show some of his newspaper cartoons. There's also some of his Beano stuff up there (mostly covers and annuals), though he does mention Fred's Bed on it - he drew the majority of the strips in The Beezer and Topper, I'd be surprised if Tom Paterson drew more than 10 or so. It would be nice if he put up the final strip there, because it was the only strip that wasn't reprinted in the Beano.

The reason we didn't reprint that last Fred's Bed from the Beezer and Topper (other than it's barking mad) is that the bed blows up and is destroyed at the end. And I'm having way too much fun writing it to stop I think Tom only drew half a dozen or so Fred's Beds for the Beezer and Topper. He drew the first few but was busy drawing the Banana Bunch, Calamity James and various things for the Dandy and other comics so he didn't have time to work on it and it moved into David Parkins' care. As it goes, it probably worked out for the best - Tom was busy with other things and we got some real, genuine classic artwork by David Parkins. I wrote quite a few scripts for David over the space of a number of years and in my humble opinion, he's one of the top artists the comics have ever had. He had the ability to turn his hand to any style you asked for and do it beautifully. And a very nice chap too.

[Jonny Whizz]

Thanks for the extra information, I think you're right there. Also, if I'm right, the final Fred's Bed in The Beezer and Topper featured caricatures of the England team of the time (1993), which would have looked a bit odd in the modern Beano.

Also, his Billy Whizz strips in the 1993 and 1994 annuals are superb, with the brilliantly wacky undersea and outer space environments that featured in the 5-page stories. Plus, he changed Billy fundamentally, for the better in my opinion, for example he introduced the tracksuit. I like Mal's Billy, but I prefer the Billy Whizz of the 1990s by David and Vic Neill. However, I would say that Nick Brennan has now made the strip more like it was originally.

[DavidP]

Yup! I emigrated to Canada with my wife and daughter just over 3 years ago. I got to the big Five-0 and it was a sort of last hurrah before slipping into senility. The newspaper I did a few cartoons for was The Guardian, and I now do a regular cartoon in The Times Educational Supplement. And loads of other stuff that I won't bore you with. I loved working for DC Thomson, but I was a terrible timekeeper. Hopeless at getting work in on time and regularly. They even wrote a very pointed Desperate Dan story once about Dan always being late. If you ever manage see the strip, you'll see how I got my own back on the writer

Anyway, if anyone has any questions I'm happy to try and answer them.

David Parkins

[Jonny Whizz]

Hello David and welcome to the forum.

As my username suggests, I'm a big fan of Billy Whizz - a strip that you drew for a few years. You were drawing him at the time when his then new tracksuit was introduced, although I am aware that both Trevor Metcalfe and Vic Neill were drawing a few strips as well around this time. Did you draw the first strip the tracksuit appeared in? Also, what did you think of the change?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

[DavidP]

Hi, JW!

Thanks for your kind words. I was indeed the first person to put Billy in his whizz suit. It wasn't my idea, it was a directive from above (the editor told me to do it ), but I did have some hand in designing it. If I'm honest, I'm a bit of an old fashioned so and so, and I tend to prefer the old conceit that these are just ordinary kids with extraordinary traits, and therefore don't really need snazzy costumes to make them different. The problem was, though, that Billy had a rather grey look before the costume, and needed something to give him a bit more visual impact. So - mixed feelings really. He's certainly got a punchier presence on the page now - good thing. But on the other hand, he's not the same as he was in the early sixties... so that's obviously a bad thing. Comics are like Blue Peter presenters: it's all about when you were reading/watching them. There is ONLY John, Val and, at a pinch, Peter Purves for Blue Peter. And Shep and Petra and whatever that cat was called. And in the Beano, I still even think of Gnasher as a bit of a Johnny-come-lately. Great character, of course, but even so . I suddenly feel extremely old - excuse me while I go and drink cocoa.

[Jonny Whizz]

Thank you. I agree with the points you made, Billy did not particularly stand out before he got the tracksuit and introducing it did make him more distinctive. I would also say that his appearance became even more extreme when Vic Neill took over, though most of his changes were ultimately reversed, whereas I think that the majority of the changes from your time have stuck.

To be honest, I find Mal Judge's Billy looks a bit odd, but that's because the more recent versions are more familiar to me, which relates exactly to what you said.

[ajsmith]

Hi David, I have a question:
how did you find working at The Beezer and Topper compared to working for the 2 "first division" D.C Thomson comics? I found the Beezer and Topper was full of a lot more leftfield and even slightly more "adult" content (and I don't mean in a rude way) and enjoyed the greater creative freedom the artists and writers seemed to have. A point in case would be that last Fred's Bed Strip.. the kind of pointed satire in the strip is more like something from Private Eye or a football fanzine than a typical D.C Thomson comic.. I remember reading it at the time it came out (I was 13) and thinking it seemed jarringly grown-up.

Adam

[DavidP]

Hi Adam

I'm desperately trying to remember what was in that last Fred's Bed strip. I remember the time bomb ticking throughout the strip, and the final explosion. I put that in myself, because I knew the comic was folding so I thought that really was the end and I wanted it to be final and irrevocable. It never occurred to me that it would turn up again in The Beano. Was that last story the strip about the England football squad, I wonder? What was going on there was an almost pathological hatred that the Scots (and therefore everyone that works at DC Thomson) have for the England football team. I know there was one where England kept losing to teams of vegetables, but I can't remember if that was the last one. I do remember that I tried to turn the tables by putting in an aside: I made the England team look really happy and confident and said something like 'they can't lose the next match- they're playing Scotland'. But the writers caught it, and changed 'Scotland' to 'they're playing England'. A bizarre and rather surreal concept.

I know that when I first wrote to DC Thomson, with some samples of my work, I had read in my Writers' and Artists' Yearbook that new artists were often started off in The Topper (presumably because the smaller circulation meant that they could take more risks - which really reinforces your own impression, even after amalgamation with the Beezer). I said in my covering letter that I understood this, that everyone in the world wants to draw for the Beano, but that I could wait. When I got a letter back on Beano headed notepaper, I was walking around two inches off the floor for about a week. Then I was told what they pay, and I fell through it!

But I always got on well with all three editors, apart from the always being late thing. And Fred's Bed was a classic strip, written by Al Bernard, who used to send me scripts not as they would appear, but with subtle alterations that would render them unprintable. Unprintable by DCT, at any rate. I don't know if they still have a list of unmentionables, but I once put 'Plonka toys' on the side of a toy truck in a Fred strip. Like 'Tonka', you see? And when the thing came out it was expunged, so I asked about it. Apparently 'plonker' was on the list of no no words, so it had to go.

I seem to have rambled happily away, and I don't think I actually answered your question. Truth is, I just liked working for DCT generally. The place is just so wonderfully bizarre. They all have computers and all that whizz bang stuff now, but even in the late 80s the beano office didn't have an outside telephone line. When I rang Euan Kerr, the editor, the switchboard contacted him on the internal line and then he had to go into the corridor to take the call. I kid you not. There was a big chalk cross on the wall by his desk, which had been there for about 5 years, where the wire was going to come through for the phone line. Just completely priceless.

rambling again. Sorry. Hope that helps

[ajsmith]

Hi David,

thanks a lot for your informative reply! Yes, the last Fred's Bed was the one where they lost to a team of vegetables (amongst other odd teams): there was another earlier strip where Fred's crucially placed posterior managed to reverse the winners of the 1966 World Cup, so there was a prescendant!
It's fascinating to learn the reason the squad were said to be playing "England" at the end of the last strip: do you know, I remember reading that at the time and assuming the reason that had been written was to avoid legal action from the England Squad! (as in , if they complained you could always say, "ah, but they're playing against England at the end, so they can't be intended to be the English team!"): now I know the real reason was Scottish patriotism!
Odd, because I recall a Three Bears strip drawn by Bob Dewar where the parable of Robert The Bruce was reversed so robert was "beaten to a pulp by the English" at the end! Wonder how that one got past! (and Bob's Scottish too!)

[Jonny Whizz]

It could have been written by an English writer! Being DCT that may have been unlikely though.

Good on you David, standing up for Saint George!

[DavidP]

Yeah, but a fat lot of good it did!

The Robert the Bruce thing doesn't surprise me, really - they don't mind the mickey being taken out of Scotland generally (scarcely a scotsman goes by in The Beano without an outrageous kilt and 'Len us a poon' slapped across his t-shirt) - it's just football that they get touchy about. They hate, loathe and detest the England football team. I once made the mistake of commiserating with Euan Kerr after Scotland had been knocked out of a World Cup competition back in the late eighties or early nineties (I think it was the one where Gazza cried). That was OK, but then I casually said, "still, England are doing well." Pin drop silence for a few seconds, followed by some rumbling. I just knew never to mention that again.

It's not just DC Thomson, either. It's all of Scotland. My Dad, who was the coastguard at Ullapool despite being English, used to really enjoy walking round to the local supermarket when England were doing well to casually mention it in a loud voice. Wound them all up something terrible. Evil man