Comics UK

philcom55 wrote:Nice to see this thread resurrected! To be honest I prefer Bimbo in its second or third year to the very early issues - I really must try to find more copies from that period. Some of those Tom Thumb covers certainly seem to be classic examples of late Watkins, though I do wonder why he didn't sign them. And I see what you mean about Young Snow White: the overhead shot of the lifeboat has a particularly Krigsteinesque feel!

Apart from the Broons and Oor Wullie Watkins signed very little of his D C Thomson work in the last ten years of his life even though he could have done so had he wished. This was primarily because he felt that, as the popularity of his work waned, he couldn't justify putting his name to strips in the likes of Beano and Dandy, when others could not. This of course never applied in The Sunday Post Fun Section where his work was always the critical selling point.

Dudley Watkins' work might have lost some of its popularity towards the end of his life but he was still the heart and soul of the company in my opinion. While the loss of Baxendale and Reid during the early 1960s was a major blow it was Watkins' sudden death at the close of the decade (closely followed by the demise of Davey Law) that signalled the end of DC Thomson's Golden Years for me!

The comics lost their Scottish flavour after Watkins died, I think, but perhaps that wasn't apparent to readers outside Scotland.

Here's Pippin, 29.11.69. The Pogles story is written by Oliver Postgate, but illustrated by Bill Mevin. Fred Robinson draws "Trumpton", and "The Herbs" is by Ferguson Dewar.