philcom55 wrote:As a matter of fact I've always wondered if there was ever any DCT editorial line on the percentage of strips set in Scotland that were allowable at any one time, bearing in mind that the bulk of the readership for their comics lived in England. As it was there seemed to be an awful lot (probably because many had originally appeared in their Scottish newspapers), and I was always a bit uneasy about series like Wild Young Dirky where we were regularly cast as villains. As a matter of interest, was it ever actually established that Black Bob was set in Scotland as I always assumed?
- Phil Rushton
As to Black Bob, reading them always made me think that it was set in the Borders area, around Jedburgh or Hawick way.
As to percentage of strips featuring heroes, it was a rare one that featured a Scots hero as opposed to an English one. Just flicked through two Victor Annuals and a Hotspur Annual and you have the count as follows:
English Heroes 31
US Heroes 8
Scots Heroes 1
and the Scots one is only due to it being called Cameron's Crackerjacks with the man in charge being Scottish. And not one of these Annuals is newer than 1972!
But, back to the Alf Tupper debate, there were old railway arches of the ilk in downtown Dundee. So when I first saw the arches, I thought that was where the orignal author had taken his inspiration from and I have always associated railway arches with the Midlands and that sort of area for some reason. Plus, it is a tad difficult to run from Bow Bells to anywhere green and pleasant in only five miles, which is what Alf used to do regularly.