The Daily Telegraph

David Sutherland

Comic artist who delighted generation­s of children with his illustrati­ons for ‘The Bash Street Kids’

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DAVID SUTHERLAND, who has died aged 89, was the artistic genius behind the Beano’s subversive comic strip The Bash Street Kids for more than 60 years and was described by the current editor John Anderson as the “single most important illustrato­r” in the comic’s history.

Over his time with the Dundee-based publishers DC Thomson, which he joined in 1959, Sutherland drew numerous episodes of Dennis The Menace (and his loyal wirehaired Abyssinian tripe hound Gnasher) and Biffo the Bear, but it was for the hell-raising antics of the reprobates of Class 2B, Bash Street School, that he was best known.

Originally called “When The Bell Rings”, the comic strip had been created in 1954 by Leo Baxendale. The first strip featured Danny (recognisab­le from his black skull jumper), and the only female gang member, Toots, but they were soon joined by Sidney; Fatty (a morbidly obese boy often depicted with a bag of cakes); Smiffy (the densest boy in the world); Wilfrid (with an oversize jumper), the chronicall­y short-sighted ’Erbert; Plug, with his huge overbite, buck teeth and wide nose, and the dermatolog­ically challenged Spotty.

As the children found new ways to torment their mortarboar­d-wearing teacher every week, their delinquent behaviour captured the imaginatio­ns of youngsters all over Britain and boosted the Beano’s circulatio­n from 400,000 in 1954 to two million in 1958, by which time the strip had been renamed The Bash Street Kids.

Sutherland took over when Baxendale left in 1962 and the quality of his drawings saw the strip rapidly promoted from a single to a double page, and then to the centre pages in full colour for the first time.

In 1971 he oversaw the introducti­on of class swot Cuthbert Cringewort­hy (a frequent target of his classmates’ pranks), followed in 1980 by Olive the school cook, depicted endlessly concocting rancid recipes for the gourmet cookbook she never writes.

For many years Bash Street withstood modernisat­ion. In 1994 reports that DC Thomson were planning to make the kids politicall­y correct and introduce them to computer games prompted outrage from fans, leading the publishers to back down.

By 2021, however, pressure for change was irresistib­le. That year two British Asian characters, Harsha and Mandi, joined class 2B, while Fatty became Freddy and Spotty was renamed Scotty, prompting Jacob Rees-mogg, then Leader of the House of Commons, to suggest the name changes were either a case of publicity-seeking – or merely “comically woke”.

According to Mike Stirling, the creative director of Beano Studios, however, Sutherland had been “very much part of the work to modernise The Bash Street Kids in terms of inclusion and diversity.”

But some things never change. During all the years Sutherland brought them to riotous life, the Bash Street Kids remained perpetuall­y nine years old, while their aptitude for anarchy and capacity for causing mayhem remained undiminish­ed.

Sutherland officially retired from DC Thomson in 1998 but he continued to work on a freelance basis. Over the years he drew more than 3,500 individual instalment­s of The Bash Street Kids and he continued to deliver a comic strip every week until shortly before his death.

David Sutherland was born in Invergordo­n in the Scottish highlands on March 4 1933, the youngest of three children. After his mother died when he was two, his father took his young family to Stirling, where relatives were able to help bring up the children while he worked. Shortly afterwards, the family moved to Kirkintill­och, near Glasgow.

As a child David loved drawing and painting, and after leaving school he joined Rex Studios in Glasgow, where he illustrate­d cinema advertisin­g posters, and attended evening classes at Glasgow School of Art. He did his National Service in the Army in Egypt.

In 1959 he entered a drawing competitio­n organised by DC Thomson. He did not win but was given the opportunit­y to illustrate adventure strips for the Beano including “Danny On A Dolphin” and “The Great Flood Of London”.

Before long he was understudy­ing for some of the comic’s establishe­d artists, including Baxendale, David Law (creator of Dennis the Menace) and Dudley D Watkins (creator of Biffo the Bear and others).

By 1970 Sutherland was the mainstay of Beano, drawing Biffo the Bear on the cover, The Bash Street Kids in the centre spread and Dennis The Menace on the back cover. Between 1970 and 1998 he drew well over 1,000 episodes of Dennis.

Sutherland drew his final strip for The Bash Street Kids at the end of December. It will appear in the Beano this week as the first and only piece of his artwork to be bylined.

He was appointed OBE for services to illustrati­on in the most recent New Year’s Honours List.

In 1958 he married Margaret, with whom he moved from Glasgow to the Dundee suburb of Broughty Ferry when he began working for DC Thomson. She survives him with their two daughters.

David Sutherland, born March 4 1933, died January 19 2023

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 ?? ?? David Sutherland at work, and his first (1962) and last (2023) Bash Street Kids comic strips
David Sutherland at work, and his first (1962) and last (2023) Bash Street Kids comic strips

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