Thursday 25 May 2017

Working on the classics

I've just sent off my first page for The Dandy Annual 2019, which features Keyhole Kate. (Yes, we work way in advance.) It's always a privilege to script and draw such a long-established character that dates right back to The Dandy No.1 in 1937. It's kind of a strange feeling too, illustrating a strip with such a legacy that millions of kids from over the past 80 years have been aware of.

On a personal level, I get a kick out of it because Keyhole Kate was my maternal grandmother's favourite comic strip. I never knew my grandma, who died years before I was born, but my mum often mentioned it. I don't know how grandma would have been aware of Keyhole Kate, but she was a regular reader of Thomson's text-story weekly Red Letter so perhaps she bought a Dandy occasionally too. 

Anyway, back to the present. I won't show you anything of the 2019 annual for a long time yet, but at the top of this post is a panel from one of the Keyhole Kate pages I did for The Dandy Annual 2018, to be published this July/August. 80 years on and still peeking through keyholes! Other strips I've done for this annual are Postman Prat and Kid Cops. You can pre-order the book here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dandy-Annual-2018-Annuals/dp/1845356446

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