Laughter and colour as export of comics puts Dundee on the map

The colourful characters who inhabit Dundee streets have proved to be a source of inspiration for one of the city’s best-known exports – comics.

Now this has come full circle, as the characters step back off the page and are immortalised in bronze.

It says much about the stature of the firm that gave us these creations that its name, DC Thomson, is as recognisable as Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace or Paw Broon.

When the family newspaper publisher moved into the world of children’s entertainment in 1937, its first comic, The Dandy, already showed innovation.

Instead of dialogue being written below the picture panels, characters now spoke to the reader through speech balloons.

If you met a Dundonian who said that they worked as a “balloonist” for a living, they probably didn’t take to the skies on a daily basis but put words in Korky the Kat’s mouth.

The Beano followed the next year and was joined by The Beezer, The Topper, Starblazer, The Victor and The New Hotspur – a comicstyle relaunch of a boys’ story paper that had been running since 1933 – and many more.

There was also the stillpopular Commando, which has been licensed by other countries, and has been a huge success in Finland.

These were the foundation of a comic and magazine family that entertained the nation through good times and bad.

Even during the Second World War, The Dandy and The Beano brought smiles to little faces, alternating publication weeks due to wartime paper rationing.

However, all of these had been preceded in 1936 by Scotland’s most iconic comic creations, when super-scamp Oor Wullie and ample family The Broons first appeared in The Sunday Post.

Today, the comic family has many of its own creations, but DC Thomson has also been entrusted with creating magazines for some of the biggest names in children’s literature.