This is high quality nostalgia, very nicely packaged in an outsize hardback. I never was much of a fan of The Beano, I would happily read it if I came across it, I preferred the more action orientated comics, The Hornet, Battle and the like. Getting this book was a pure impulse buy that was turned into a very happy one. The presentation of the one page stories on outsize pages is excellent and critically allow all the details of the art to be clearly seen.
Dudley Dexter Watkins was the original artist for the Lord Snooty stories , they launched in 1938 and continued on the strip until 1968. The pleasure of these stories lie in the quality of his art and the myriad details that he put into the background. The original formula for the stories, the young Lord Snooty would sneak out from Bunkerton Hall to play with his friends from Ash Can Alley played specifically to the anticipated audience for the comic, the readers were much more likely to be closer to the Ash Can Alleys gang than Lord Snooty.
The stories developed and became much more like slapstick and fantastic , crucially they retained the theme of mocking and humiliating authority figures. Teachers, cooks, butlers, policemen, mayors all were taken down a peg. The war time stories are great fun, they are clearly propaganda, they are carefully created propaganda. The overall level of craft on display is amazing, these stories were published weekly and must have created a staggering workload for the artist. The carefully chosen stories in this collection are a great tribute to an enduring comic icon and to the extraordinary talent of Dudley D. Watkins.
