By various (DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.)
No ISBN
For many British fans Christmas means The Beano Book (although Scots worldwide have a pretty fair claim that the season belongs to them with collections of The Broons and Oor Wullie making every December 25th magical) and I’ve chosen this particular edition as another epitome of my personal holiday memories. As usual my knowledge of the creators involved is woefully inadequate but I’m going to hazard a few guesses in the hope that someone with better knowledge will correct me when I err.
In this little cracker are a number of David Sutherland’s Biffo the Bear strips as well as his Bash Street Kids and even a smashing action-adventure of boy super-hero Billy the Cat (I wonder if the editors distributed strips to artists in alphabetical order?). There are whirlwind tales of “fastest boy on Earth†Billy Whizz drawn by Malcolm Judge. Paddy Brennan worked as a dramatic artist for decades on General Jumbo (the heroic boy who radio-controlled an army of robot toys) and the Q-Bikes, a team of young adventurers with technologically advanced push-bikes. In this volume they trade in two wheels for four, and become the Q-Karts for an Australian adventure, whilst the aforementioned General captures a team of safecrackers in his home town.
These annuals were traditionally produced in the wonderful “half-colour†that many British publishers used to keep costs down. This was done by printing sections of the books with only two plates, such as blue/Cyan and red/Magenta: The versatility and palette range this provided was astounding. Even now this technique screams “Holidays†to me and my contemporaries.
Some of the Dennis the Menace strips are possibly drawn by original creator Davy Law, but are most likely the work of his style-chameleon replacement David Sutherland. They all feature his charismatic new co-star ‘Gnasher’, too. The woefully un-PC but astoundingly funny Little Plum strips are by Ronald Spencer, I think, as are The Nibblers; an anarchic gang – and weren’t they all in The Beano? – of mice.
The 3 Bears segments are by Bob McGrath whilst Lord Snooty (one of the longest running strips in the comic’s history – a record only recently overtaken by Dennis) is the work of Robert Nixon, as is the Roger the Dodger Family Album section. There are short romps with Pups Parade (or the Bash Street Pups – the unlovely pets of those unlovely kids) by Gordon Bell and exemplar of Girl Power Minnie the Minx gets her own 16 page mini-book in this annual – and who could stop her? – courtesy of the wonderful Jim Petrie, but I’ll admit to being totally stumped by Swinging Jungle Jim a frantic boy-Tarzan strip that has sunk without trace since those faraway times.
Topped off with activity and gag-pages, this is a tremendously fun book, and even in the absence of the legendary creators such as Dudley Watkins, Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid and with a small but noticeable decline in the mayhem and anarchy quotas, there’s still so much merriment on offer I can’t believe this book is thirty seven years old. If ever anything needed to be issued as commemorative collections it’s DC Thomson annuals…
Divorcing the sheer quality of this brilliant book from nostalgia is a healthy exercise, but I’m perfectly happy to simply wallow – even today – in the magical emotions this ‘almost-colourful’ annual still stirs. It’s a good solid laugh-and-thrill-packed read, from a magical time (I was in my final year of primary school and a beloved, spoiled and precocious little snot with not a care in the world) and turning those stiffened two-colour pages is always an unmatchable Christmas experience.
© 1970 DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.
This one brings back some memories! I never had it myself, but it was among the collection of my cousins when I visited them in the mid-seventies. I would’ve been seven or eight. By that point, DC Thomson no longer put adventure strips in the Beano, so stuff like Billy the Cat (and Katy!), Q-Bikes, and General Jumbo were all new to me — and seemed very exotic.
Billy the Cat had real power to a reader of the right age. A super-hero who was the same age as you! Wow — did I ever daydream!
And Billy Whizz remains one of my all-time favourite characters. To heck with the Superman/Flash races — I wanna see a showdown between Flash and Billy!