"The Legend of Lord Snooty" book

[dishes]

Just perusing this 1998 oversized collection which I acquired second hand recently, and I have some observations and questions.

*It focuses very largely on the early years- 12 strips from 1938-39,
a whopping 51 strips from the 1940s, only 6 from the 1950s (plus a couple of illustrated text stories from the annuals) and only 8 from the 1960s (plus one strip from the annuals).

*All the strips are by Dudley Watkins. I suspect the decision to do the book was borne more of the prestige of Dudley Watkins's art than the popularity of the character. The illustrations of the second text story are ghosted, and endpapers and miscellaneous drawings are by Ken Harrison, ironically featuring the later "pals" who feature relatively little in the book itself.

*Marmaduke, Earl of Bunkerton (Lord Snooty) is a right nasty piece of work in the first few episodes. A forerunner of Dennis the Menace in some ways, but with added money and power. He also likes to have it both ways- slumming it in Ashcan alley but making full use of his castle and seemingly unlimited wealth. Fortunately, the writers must have realised this flaw as he becomes the good-hearted soul we're more familiar with very quickly. In comics, it's OK to be rich and OK to be a bully, but not both.

*One particularly nasty moment is in the fifth ever strip (fourth in the collection) dated 27/8/1938, where in revenge for the cook telling tales on him, he frames the cook so the cook is not only fired, but literally fired at with guns by the castle's hunting party.

*10/9/1938 is the last strip in the book to show Snooty in his "street urchin" disguise. It's not clear at what point his chums in ashcan alley stopped being a secret to his Aunt and when they started being welcome visitors, and eventually residents, at Bunkerton Castle. But soon after this, it would seem.

*The first strip in the book to feature Snitchy and Snatchy is 17/12/1938, so they must have made their debut sometime between 10/9 and then. It's also the first strip in the book to have "gutters" separating the panels instead of just lines.

* In the strip dated 21/1/1939, Snooty calls his aunt "Aunt Mildred". I wonder when she became Matilda.

*23/9/1939 has the brilliant surreal touch of horses who only run backwards.

*6/1/1940 is cited as the first Lord Snooty strip to mention the war.

*29/6/1940- Professor Screwtop's original name was Professor Pongo.

*9/11/1940 – Snooty and pals pretend to be ghosts carrying around their own tombstones. Snooty's reads: "R.I.P. in loving memory of Snooty, Lord, Born 1940 Died 1932". Presumably Dudley meant to write that the other way round! (or is supposed to be a mistake by Snooty?) In any case, it indicates that Snooty is supposed to be about eight years old.

*Throughout 1940, Snooty and pals (especially the Professor) are constantly thwarting Hitler. After 1940, though the war work continues, Hitler and Goering no longer appear in person. At least, not in the strips reprinted in this book.

*DDW appears in person, 3/1/1942 (and gets beaten up by the Gasworks gang for his pains.)

*Pansy Potter guest appearance, 10/10/1942

* Some of the 1940s stories are very outlandish, it reminds me of Leo Baxendale's charaterisation of the Beano before Dennis the Menace as having lots of magic. Snooty has a fist fight with his shadow on 31/7/1943.

*First strip in the book to be signed is 6/14/1947. The signatures are gone again by 1964.

*Oddly, the strips from the end of the original series in 1949, nor the start of the new series of 1950 with the changeover from the old gang to the new gang, are not included. can anyone tell me what happens in them? Were they perhaps considered poor quality, or non-PC? Because it would seem natural to have included them otherwise.

*I prefer the pre-1950 gang to the post-1950 gang, as I don't think DDW was so comfortable drawing characters originated by others. I also happen to prefer his looser, more cartoony style pre-c.1949, so I'm delighted the book is skewed that way.

*20/3/1965: the only strip in the book to feature Polly Wolly Doodle, in just a few frames. Does anyone know what years she appeared as a character? And do you think her presence might be the reason there are so few later strips in the book? Though if they wanted to avoid racism, they would have done well to have omitted 16/9/1939, where the gang fights some eskimos.

I still haven't read most of the strips, just skimmed through, so more observations may be still to come. So far, so good!

[Digifiend]

Polly was a 1940s character who joined the gang at the same time as Doubting Thomas, Big Fat Joe and Swanky Lanky Liz in 1950. They also gained two pets at that point. Pongo the dog belonged to Polly, and Contrary Mary the mule had her own strip in the early issues of the Beano. Those pets later vanished, eventually replaced by Angus the Stag. Polly was still around then, but vanished at some point in the 80s, a few years prior to the strip ending. I don't know the exact dates or issue numbers.

[Peter Gray]

Its a nice book.I suggested to DC Thomson that they should do The Legends of Bash Street School...the editor liked the idea But sales weren't good enough to continue..

personally I'd loved to seen the new gang more in the book prefer that group..the 1950's..
still great to see early stuff...

[dishes]

Its a nice book.I suggested to DC Thomson that they should do The Legends of Bash Street School...the editor liked the idea But sales weren't good enough to continue..

personally I'd loved to seen the new gang more in the book prefer that group..the 1950's..
still great to see early stuff...

Maybe from a sales point of view, they should have done the Bash Street Kids first!
I thought maybe their legal tussles with Baxendale may have led to the preference for Watkins material.

[Gilly]

Maybe from a sales point of view, they should have done the Bash Street Kids first!
I thought maybe their legal tussles with Baxendale may have led to the preference for Watkins material.

Maybe from a sales point of view yes but wasn't it Snooty because that book was released for The Beano's 60th birthday and he was the most famous character to come from issue No 1, much like the reason behind the release of The Legend of Desperate Dan in 1997.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, that's right.

[David Gerstein]

*20/3/1965: the only strip in the book to feature Polly Wolly Doodle, in just a few frames. Does anyone know what years she appeared as a character?

If my memory is correct, a lot of the strips in that book have been edited to remove Polly—more or less just erasing her wholesale.
It's happened elsewhere in Thomsonworld, too (...I even think I recollect one strip in which the erasure wasn't done completely, so her legs appeared below a table or blanket with no top half above).

[big bad bri]

i have just ordered the lord snooty & desperate dan books from amazon only a penny each or £2.81 each inc

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

They're great [oversized] items, Bri---I'm sure you'll love 'em!

The Polly character appeared quite frequently in the 60s Watkins strips [which seemed to be new stories, unlike a lot of the Desperate Dan reprints of the same era.]

Eventually, by around 1968, Robert Nixon took over the strip after being 'eased in' and the Polly character definitely appeared in a lot of these newer stories as well.

Later reprints of both artists' work seem to be the first source of Polly-less stories [including noticable spaces where she originally stood] .

Some stories only featured a few [as little as three] of the gang line-up, presumably for reasons of variety which also gave the artist more breathing space of course.

Polly was always a making-up-the-numbers character, I can't remember her being central to any story, or at least nothing springs to mind.

If anyone can add a Snooty story 'starring' Polly, I'd love to see it, 'coz I missed that one!

[Peter Gray]

Wow I never knew she was edited out of reprints...

[dandy mad]

If it ain't PC or socially acceptable in today's society then it'll get scrubbed out and with the polly character being black and having a big white mouth then it'll get omitted...

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

It would be OK to show images of Polly on here for historical reasons.

I used to go to the Odeon kid's matinee every Saturday in the very early 70s, and one of the items was a series of very early talkies about a gang of kids which I am convinced were the inspiration for the Lord Snooty strip.

This USA import easily predates the Beano strip and must have been widely-seen by 30s kids at the cinema.

Called Our Gang or The Little Rascals, at least four of these characters are obvious models for the Snooty mob:

a portly guy is even called JOE

The leader, a very young Mickey Rooney, wears a bowler hat, if not a topper,

One guy has a question-mark like hair sticking out of his head, very much like the comic THOMAS

---and there's CLEARLY a 'Polly-a-like, as seen here:




This guy [named 'alfalfa' in the early 30s series] is clearly the idea behind DOUBTING THOMAS, there is no question:

[Digifiend]

Bingo! Our Gang appeared in the Dandy, and as recently discussed in another thread, several of Snooty's gang are the same character models as the rascals.

[David Gerstein]

The Dandy's Our Gang features two black boys, "Billy Thomas" and "Buckwheat Thomas." Someone (Watkins?) didn't do his research, as Billie/Buckwheat Thomas in the American films is actually just one kid!

ISPYSHHHGUY: Mickey Rooney was never part of Our Gang, so I'm not sure which of the two hatted kids you're referring to....

[dishes]

It would be OK to show images of Polly on here for historical reasons.

I used to go to the Odeon kid's matinee every Saturday in the very early 70s, and one of the items was a series of very early talkies about a gang of kids which I am convinced were the inspiration for the Lord Snooty strip.

This USA import easily predates the Beano strip and must have been widely-seen by 30s kids at the cinema.

Called Our Gang or The Little Rascals, at least four of these characters are obvious models for the Snooty mob:

a portly guy is even called JOE

The leader, a very young Mickey Rooney, wears a bowler hat, if not a topper,

One guy has a question-mark like hair sticking out of his head, very much like the comic THOMAS

---and there's CLEARLY a 'Polly-a-like, as seen here:




This guy [named 'alfalfa' in the early 30s series] is clearly the idea behind DOUBTING THOMAS, there is no question:

Remember though, that Big Fat Joe, Polly Wolly Doodle and Doubting Thomas all started out with strips of their own before joining Snooty's SECOND gang in 1950.

Not that there wasn't clear inspiration from "Our Gang" in even the original 1938 gang. "Lord Snooty" was Beano's answer to Dandy's licensed "Our Gang" strip, also drawn by Dudley Watkins.