{"id":34285,"date":"2025-11-16T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T09:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=34285"},"modified":"2025-11-17T18:44:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T18:44:48","slug":"the-legend-of-desperate-dan-60-years-of-classic-cartoon-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/11\/16\/the-legend-of-desperate-dan-60-years-of-classic-cartoon-art\/","title":{"rendered":"The Legend of Desperate Dan – 60 Years of Classic Cartoon Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Dudley D. Watkins<\/strong>, with Charles Grigg<\/strong>, Ken Harrison<\/strong> & various (DC Thomson & Co)
\nISBN: 978-0-85116-657-5 (tabloid HB)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

It needs to be said. Scotland is an ancient and proud nation steeped in unique history, character and culture, and one that has enriched the entire world. That having been said, they all seem to have a rather odd and frequently disturbing fascination with the notion of cowboys…<\/p>\n

A timeless case in point is an icon of action and hilarity who began life as a mere half-page feature in the very first issue of The Dandy<\/strong>. The rowdy roughneck (and chin, and chest and…) was first seen fleeing town on December 4th<\/sup> 1937, but has since mellowed, found a family and settled down, He\u2019s still the Strongest Man on Earth and always in trouble because he doesn\u2019t know his own strength…
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\nAs seen in the eponymous opening historical section of this colossal tome, \u2018The Legend of Desperate Dan\u2019<\/em> predates Superman<\/strong>\u2019s debut and owes more to Elzie Segar\u2019s maritime masterpiece Popeye<\/strong> (as seen back then in Thimble Theatre<\/strong>) by way of a countless stampede of Saturday morning movie two-reelers. However Desperate Dan<\/em> didn\u2019t roam too long on the range and swiftly garnered a family including formidable Aunt Aggie<\/em>, super-tough nephew Danny<\/em>, niece Katey<\/em>, the hard-pressed Mayor<\/em>, Sheriff<\/em> and so forth… and lots of put-upon, shell-shocked neighbours usually caught in the catastrophic aftermath of Dan\u2019s latest efforts to help…<\/p>\n

Like so many of DC Thompson\u2019s most memorable stars, the Big Guy was the brainchild of Dudley D. Watkins (1907-1969) at his most imaginative and culturally adroit. A tireless and prolific illustrator equally adept at comedy, adventure, educational and drama storytelling, Watkins\u2019 style more than any other shaped the pre and especially postwar look and form of the Scottish publishing giant\u2019s comics output. Yes, the company AND the cowboy…<\/p>\n

Watkins started life in Manchester and Nottingham as an artistic prodigy prior to entering Glasgow College of Art in 1924. Before long he was advised to get a job at expanding, Dundee-based Thomson\u2019s, where a 6-month trial period illustrating prose \u201cBoys\u2019 Papers\u201d stories led to comic strip specials and some original cartoon creations. Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks<\/em> and Wandering Willie, The Wily Explorer<\/em> made him the only contender for both lead strips in a bold new project conceived by Robert Duncan Low (1895-1980). Managing Editor of Children\u2019s Publication. Between 1921 – 1933, Low launched the company\u2019s \u201cBig Five\u201d story papers for boys: Adventure<\/strong>, The Rover<\/strong>, The Wizard<\/strong>, The Skipper<\/strong> and The Hotspur<\/strong>. In 1936, he created the \u201cFun Section<\/strong>\u201d: a landmark 8-page comic strip supplement for national newspaper The Sunday Post<\/strong>. This illustrated accessory – prototype and blueprint for every comic the company subsequently released – was launched on 8th <\/sup>March. From the outset, The Broons<\/strong> and Oor Wullie<\/strong> were the uncontested headliners\u2026 and both illustrated by Watkins. The other features included Chic Gordon\u2019s Auchentogle<\/em>, Allan Morley\u2019s Nero and Zero<\/em>, Nosey Parker<\/em> and others. These pioneering comics laid the groundwork for the company\u2019s next great leap. In December 1937 Low launched DC Thomson\u2019s first weekly all-picture strip comic, The Dandy<\/strong>. Amidst the serried rank of funsters was a half-page western gag strip. It related the riotous outrages of a mean desperado dubbed Dan…
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\nDan was extremely popular and in 1939 briefly enjoyed taking up 75% of a page before expanding onto the star status of a full one. Famously, Dandy<\/strong> editor Alber Barnes – who hired Watkins and was the comic\u2019s boss until 1982 – was the model for that unmissable chin. Almost everything else was made up…<\/p>\n

This collation offers a wealth of strips, beginning with those calamity-stuffed half-pagers, filled with mighty gaffes, massive consumption and appalling comedic animal cruelty, all preceding the inevitable war contributions as the officially neutral US citizen kept finding ways to bugger up Hitler and Goebbels\u2019 plans for Britain. Another cautionary note: back then smoking tobacco was MANLY, so Dan did it in vast and generally competitive amounts. Be warned and wary…<\/p>\n

Monochrome trips about eating, fighting, shaving, Dan\u2019s Girlfriend Lizzie<\/em>, eating, fighting some more and getting even pause for a colour featurette on \u2018The Dandy Monster Comic\u2019<\/em> as Dan hoved further westward into Books and Annuals before the strips concentrate on the \u2018War years\u2019 <\/em>with Cactusville slowly morphing in all but name into a fair-sized Scottish town as Dan inflicted ever more outlandish punishments on the weary, wary Wehrmacht…<\/p>\n

Feature on firsts follows with \u2018Desperate Dan\u2019<\/em> shouting out to his ever expanding cast, after which post-war tales encompass a momentous trip to the North Pole; jobs; cow pie; sweet rationing; clothing for the bigger man; bank robbers; cow pie; how feeble modern buildings are; toothache for tough guys and how meat rationing impacts on the mightiest appetite ever known. Once again it\u2019s some pretty hard sledding for us wimpy modern animal-lovers…<\/p>\n

Covers, strips and other treats from the Christmas tomes explore Dan\u2019s unstoppable progress and includes a spread on \u2018Back Covers on Annuals\u2019<\/em> – the cowboy\u2019s sole province from 1954 to 1965 – before segueing into a 1950s selection as Britain, Empire & Commonwealth and Dandy<\/strong> underwent dramatic revision and change…<\/p>\n

The Watkins-limned prose yarn \u2018Two Desperate Tiddley-Winkers\u2019<\/em> leads to more fifties fun with Dan no longer in any way intentionally dangerous in strips covering the star\u2019s invulnerable hair & bristles, coal mining in the High Street; cow pie; and Dan\u2019s utterly unique pedal bike (take one steamroller and three parts tractor…) before closing on a momentous moment of history as Dan voyages to London to see the Queen\u2019s coronation as originally published in Dandy dated June 6th<\/sup> 1953…<\/p>\n

\u2018The Desperate Dan Song\u2019<\/em> \u2013 sorry, just words & pictures so you\u2019ll need to wrangle up your own tune – leads into more strips with enhanced roles for Danny & Katey, prior to the Sixties revivals opening with \u2018Annual features\u2019<\/em> including a glance at Dan\u2019s primordial forebear Desprit Jake<\/em>.
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\nWith contemporary strips coming thick & fast the fun is closely followed by two-colour Annual larks involving li\u2019l Dan\u2019s photo-day at \u2018Cactusville School\u2019<\/em> whilst – happily mining a fresh seam – \u2018Desperate Dan\u2019s Schooldays\u2019<\/em> (as illustrated by Charles Grigg and first published in the Desperate Dan Annual 1979) gives readers another bucket of whimsical back-story from the big man boyhood as the end approaches.<\/p>\n

In 1984, the Biggest Yin made it to the front – and back – of the weekly Dandy<\/strong> covers, displacing Grigg\u2019s Korky the Cat<\/strong> after five straight decades. Here a full colour spread celebrates an anniversary year with a quartet (octet?) of images shouting out fifty years of Desperate astonishment wonder before we unsaddle for the moment with final modern colour feature \u2018The Hobbies of Desperate Dan\u2019<\/em> as seen in the 1994 Dandy Annual and showing what the term \u201cextreme sports\u201d really means…<\/p>\n

Timeless, hilarious and not nearly as tame as you thought, Desperate Dan<\/strong> is a pure paradigm of our lengthy comics glory – and disregard for other people\u2019s culture. Here is a book that – if you\u2019re properly braced and forewarned – will delight and warm your secret, stifled cartoon coloniser\u2019s heart.
\n\u00a9 D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd 1997.<\/p>\n

Today in 1913 Golden Age artist Charles<\/strong> (Spy Smasher<\/strong>, et al) Sultan <\/strong>was born. In 1943, Metabarons artist Juan Gim\u00e9nez <\/strong>was born. You might also want to peek at A Matter of Time<\/a><\/strong>, before celebrating that in 1962 Darwyn Cooke<\/strong> (DC: The New Frontier<\/strong>, Batman: Ego<\/strong>, Parker<\/strong>) joined us for far too short a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dudley D. Watkins, with Charles Grigg, Ken Harrison & various (DC Thomson & Co) ISBN: 978-0-85116-657-5 (tabloid HB) This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. It needs to be said. Scotland is an ancient and proud nation steeped in unique history, character and culture, and one that has enriched the entire … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Legend of Desperate Dan – 60 Years of Classic Cartoon Art”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[280,42,90,113,119,290,122,125,97,127,210,169,93,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-antics","category-best-of-british","category-cartooning-classics","category-comedy","category-comicsacademic","category-dinosaurs","category-historical","category-humour","category-kids-all-ages","category-nostalgia","category-sport","category-spy-stories","category-war-stories","category-westerns"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8UZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34293,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34285\/revisions\/34293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}