Comics UK

When Dudley Watkins died suddenly of a heart attack on 20th Aug 1969 he was still providing the comic titles of D C Thomson with seven regular strips per week. This is what the editors of those titles with which he was involved did as a consequence of his loss.
Dudley's two contributions to the Sunday Post Fun Section 'The Broons' and 'Oor Wullie' gave the Fun Section's editor Roy Paterson the most pressing problem as he only had a single new strip of each that he could publish in 24th Aug edition of the Sunday Post with nothing then lined up for the 31st Aug edition or after. His solution was to simply reprint Watkins' material from the 1950's, beginning with the Post dated 31st Aug, and then to continue reprinting Oor Wullie strips until 8th Sept 1974 and The Broons until 22nd Sept 1974 at which point both where handed over to artist Tom Lavery.
As to which Oor Wullie or Broons strip was the last Watkins ever drew it is now really impossible to say as, as it was with all his strips, Dudley drew them in batches. All we can say for certain is that in each strips case it was either the one published on the weekend prior to his death or the weekend following it. More anon.

When it comes to the last strip that Watkins drew we can say for certain that it was the Desperate Dan strip that was eventually published in Dandy No 1454 dated 4th Oct 1969. We can say this for certain because Mrs Watkins removed the strip from his desk in the days after his death and years later recalled, without any prompting 'the Desperate Dan strip with the tree' as one of those strange inconsequential memories tragedy often throws up.
For Dandy editor Albert Barnes his first response to the loss of Dudley was to start reprinting Dan strips from the early 1960s with issue No 1455 (11/10/69) in the hope that in time he would find an artist capable of filling the great man's shoes but, despite giving two of his stalwarts Charlie Grigg (who would become the Dan artist in specials and annuals) and Bill Holroyd a go, for the next thirteen years, until his own retirement for health reasons and subsequent death it was the wholesale reprinting of Watkins work that prevailed. The last reprint appearing in Dandy No 2148 on Jan 22nd 1983 with Dan then passing into the more than capable hands of Ken Harrison. More anon.

As far as i can remember, 'LORD SNOOTY' was being drawn by ROBERT NIXON fairly often, even when DUDLEY WATKINS was still around, often alternating the drawing duties of this strip. Though his 'SNOOTY' was depicted in a quite different style from D.D.W., I rate BOB NIXON'S version pretty highly, even when compared to the original artist. R.T.N.'S sense of 'appeal' was very hard to beat, and his work in this period was evidently drawn on a larger scale than in his later '80s work. ...........other DUDLEY WATKINS 'successors' [probably not the right choice of word]:------BOB McGRATH had a long tenure on 'GINGER', in which he made no attempt to disguise his style;----and over at sister publication the 'TOPPER', the 'MICKEY the MONKEY' chores were handled by an artist whose name has always seemed to elude me, [but he had a long stint on 'SPARKY'S' 'PETER PIPER'] but who i always rated as a very accomplished cartoonist................any CLASH fans reading this will doubtless be aware that drummer NICKY HEADON was dubbed 'TOPPER' in a supreme act of literal 'MICKEY-'taking from bassist SIMINON: this was a reference to HEADON'S protruding monkey-like ears!!-------sorry, NICK, I have cracked a few mirrors, [PLUG-like] myself...............

Watkins ceased to draw Lord Snooty regularly in Apr 1968 when it was indeed taken over by Robert Nixon so, by the time of his death, Watkins hadn't drawn a weekly Snooty strip for fifteen months.
Biffo the Bear was his only Beano strip by Aug 1969 and Beano editor Harold Cramond had enough stockpiled to run Watkins' originals up to Beano No 1423 (25/10/69) which were then immediately followed by new Biffo strips drawn by Dave Sutherland.
Similarly with 'Mickey the Monkey' stockpiles allowed Watkins originals to appear up to Topper No 873 again dated 25th Oct and again the solution favoured by Topper editor Ron Fraser was to immediately replace Watkins with another artist this time Vic Neill. More anon.

Jimmy Glen took over Snooty when Bob Nixon left for IPC and drew it into the early 80s before handing over to Ken Harrison.

There were also, [in the early '90s?] one or two 'OOR WULLIE' strips turned out by BOB NIXON.......these were totally unlike his fairly WATKINESQUE [do excuse this pretentious term, dear reader] version of 'SNOOTY', and BOB'S style in these 'WULLIES' more closely resembled his later 'IVY the TERRIBLE' school of drawing......i found them a bit jarring, to be honest..........if someone can come up with some samples of 'BROONS' done by JOHN GEERING..........now, that i really WOULD like to see!!! I am constantly surprized by some of the info on these pages, so who knows!

Just to round off the rundown of the last strips produced by Dudley Watkins -
Ginger (Beezer) - Watkins last original Ginger strip appeared in issue No 718 (18/10/69) and then Beezer editor Bill Swinton made do with Watkins reprints until issue No 737 (28/2/70). From issue No 738 (7/3/70) the strip was taken over by Bob McGrath.
Tom Thumb (Bimbo) - the last original Watkins strip appeared in issue No 451 (1/11/69) and then new strips by another artist began immediately.
Other than his work for Thomsons Watkins also supplied a regular strip for the World Evangilisation Crusade's children's magazine 'The Warrior' titled 'Tony and Tina'. His final instalment of this strip appeared in the Nov 1969 issue and in the following issue the strip was handed over to artist Donald Grey.