In the few photos of David Sutherland that I managed to find on the web
he looks like a lean clean-shaven bloke, unlike the Beano Artist in these episodes of The Bash Street Kids and Biffo
the Bear that I believe came from his brush. Has Mr. Sutherland lost
some weight since then, or were they his caricatures of a “generic” Beano artist rather than his
self-portraits? Can anyone shed some light on this?
This one is from The Beano
No. 1236 dated 26th March, 1966:
This Biffo the Bear strip comes from The Beano No. 1924 cover-dated 2nd June, 1979:
And this beautiful set appeared in the
Beano No. 1991 dated 13th September, 1980. The Beano artist here looks a lot like the one from issue No.
1236 shown above (note the beret, slippers on bare feet, artist’s gown and
facial hair). I have cropped the episode into sets of panels for your viewing convenience:
While I am on the subject of Dave Sutherland and The Bash Street Kids, the
episode in THE BEANO issue No. 2155 cover-dated 5th November, 1983 in which the Bash Street Kids visit Beano offices, includes a portrait of Little Plum artist (Ron Spencer ?):
P.S. I’ve just found this Beano from the late 60s. Dave Sutherland replaced Dudley Watkins as the illustrator of Biffo the Bear after the old master passed away in 1969, so The beano Artist on this particular cover must be Mr. Sutherland. Here he looks different from the examples shown above:
