Bill Ritchie 1931-2010

Veteran DC Thomson artist Bill Ritchie sadly died on Monday 25th January, aged 78. Bill had been a mainstay of Thomson's humour titles for decades, drawing Clumsy Claude and later Sweet Sue for the Beano, Barney Bulldog and The Moonsters in Sparky and Toots in girls title Bunty, amongst others, though he's probably best known for the years he spent drawing Baby Crockett in Beezer (and also in Bimbo). He retired from comics work in the 1990s.

I have a good run of Bill's work in my 567 Sparky collection! Some of his `Moonsters` strips were very complex pieces of work indeed! So much going on in them.

My favourite bit of Bills work though is in a 1971 Barney Bulldog episode where Barney collides with a Lamp-post. The `battered` features of poor old BB were so well done!

Baby Crockett was the strip I best remembered him fo. Me's a big fan of Baby.

I enjoy the paradox of Bill's work, which often looks deceptively simple, but he often threw in elaborate setpieces to add variety and diversion; a real auteur, he said, pretentiously......


[PS: Alan, your 'location' as outlined in the space near where your avatar would be, reads a bit----dodgy!!!]

It's either innocent or deliberate shock tactics.......

Its actually a parody of yours 0` mighty X`