Comics UK

It most likely wasn't mentioned due to it being a reprint. But then again, they didn't mention his 40th birthday 5 years ago either. Maybe they'll mention it on his 50th?
Although all character debut anniversaries seem to be constantly ignored apart from Dennis's (celebrated by bringing out a special book for his 50th in 2001). I know a publicity stunt was used for Bash Street's 40th, but even their 50th was ignored, and aren't they second in popularity to only Dennis?

Coming back to this, wasn't Roger the Dodger's 40th 'birthday' celebrated in 1993? I think he appeared in all of the strips of the anniversary issue.

Oh, that's right, yes, including a one-off Walter the Softy strip - if I recall, the storyline saw Walter end up stuck in a bowl of jelly (to prevent Dennis pushing him to the floor), but making him look like a Subbuteo footballer!

Returning to this thread, does anyone know when this week's Billy Whizz reprint was from? It was a Trevor Metcalfe strip, but with Vic Neill's thunderbolt hairstyle. I thought he only drew it between 1992 and 1993 (and again between 2005 and 2007), and only as a substitute for David Parkins. However, he wasn't a ghost artist as such, as he used his own style rather than either Parkins' or Neill's style.

It is weird to look at Billy's artist history though. Only one artist, Mal Judge (excluding ghost artists) drew him for almost the first 25 years of his existence, but then in the next 20 years only Vic Neill drew him for more than 3 years in the same spell (Trevor did draw Billy for more than 3 years but in clearly seperate spells). Barrie Appleby (1989), David Parkins (1990-93), G Hall (2000-2003) and Wayne Thompson (2003-2005) have also drawn him since then. Why has such an established character changed artists so many times (before they resorted to reprints!)? I would find the reasons why these artists quit interesting (except Neill and Judge, who I know died).

Wayne Thompson's departure was due to the addition of Jak (now Jak and Todd) in The Dandy's 2004 relaunch. However, he did draw Billy's 2009 annual story. This may well also be why Nigel Dobbyn took over Billy the Cat (I know, it wasn't regular at the time, but Billy Whizz is one page, Jak's always been two, so something else had to give).

I Believe that G. Hall stopped doing the strip because his style failed to give the strip the popularity among readers that it should have done. I read that they were going to get rid of Billy Whizz, if Wayne Thompson hadn't come to the rescue.

You're definitely right there. Hall's style was far too slapdash - that would be OK for a 'lesser' strip (where you don't mind it as it provides a bit of variety in the comic), but an established strip like Billy, you need a good artist. Restoring Billy to the Mal Judge style revived it - any of the Wayne Thompson strips in summer 2003 capture that and those strips have a really good feel. I'm not a fan of manga though, and I was disappointed when he started drawing Billy more like his other strips, which I felt detracted from his excellent early strips.

Oh, welcome to Comics UK Forum Freddy, and it's always good to find someone else interested in the same stuff as me!

I know I'm digging up an old thread here, but does anyone have a scan of the first Billy Whizz story where he has his new tracksuit? I'd like to see it.

Heres a scoop from Lew's comic page..hidden a bit in the background
Billy Whizz goes to Super School and is a star pupil..

I think Billy Whizz should appear in this comic page properly now..its a great idea..

They could do a storyline in which maybe he goes there for a while but perhaps eventually gets expelled (in a multi-part story, but long-term this way he can still remain solo). He does have a superpower - super speed - after all.

I have seen most of the modern incarnations of BILLY, but I felt that original artist MAL [for all his seemingly simplistic style] captured the essence of speed and acceleration the best.

I think that's a fair point. Perhaps it was that very simplisticity, and the number of different ways Judge depicted Billy's whizzing, that set out the original from the later versions. David Parkins sure captured Billy's speed, but in a rather more destructive way. Vic Neill's version was very fine, but he never looked quite fast enough (as he only used motion lines). G Hall was way wide of the mark with his crude interpretation. Wayne Thomson captured the essence of Judge's style, but his whizzing was portrayed in a more modern way, that I never liked as much. I reckon that Trevor Metcalfe was 'best of the rest' in representing Billy's speed.

Regarding the tracksuit, I can remember seeing several Beano issues from September/October 1993, shortly before the Beano went full colour. I recall in one issue that inside the comic Billy appeared in his tracksuit, drawn by David Parkins if my memory serves me correctly, yet on the Dennis strip on the front and back covers which featured statues of many Beano characters, the statue of Billy Whizz had him with his old plain T-shirt! What surprised me about those issues was which strips were in colour and which weren't - for example, Roger and Billy were not in colour, yet strips like The Yeti with Betty were. (the other black and white strips I believe were Les Pretend, Calamity James, Number 13 and The Germs)

Also, I saw in the 1994 Beano annual that Billy's tracksuit was originally black and yellow (and in the comic in the early 1990s, black and red but with the yellow lightning bolt down the front), which is clearly because of the first story with the tracksuit which Kashgar mentioned with him being invisible and mistaken for a lightning storm.