''Keyhole Kate'' was a 1930s British comic strip series in ''

The Dandy ''The Dandy'' was a British children's comic magazine published by the Dundee based publisher DC Thomson. The first issue was printed in December 1937, making it the world's third-longest running comic, after ''Il Giornalino'' (cover dated 1 Oct ...

''. The strip featured a nosy young girl who liked to look through people's

keyhole A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object (such as a key, keycard, fingerprint, RFID card, security token or coin), by supplying secret information (such as a number or letter permutation or passw ...

s. She appeared in ''The Dandy''s first issue, drawn by

Allan Morley Allan Morley ( Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Great Britain, 29 April 1895 - Thanet, Kent 5 September 1960) was a British comic artist. He first worked for DC Thomson in 1925, drawing a number of comic strips for the ''Sunday Post'' and for DC Th ...

back in 1937. She continued in ''The Dandy'' until 1955 and appeared as the cover strip of issue 295. She later appeared in the new ''Sparky'' comic released in 1965, alongside

Hungry Horace ''Hungry Horace'' is a video game developed by Psion Software Ltd. and published by Sinclair Research in 1982 for Commodore 64, Dragon 32/64, Timex Sinclair 2068, ZX Spectrum, and later for Microsoft Windows and Android (operating system), And ...

another character who appeared in ''The Dandys first issue and was drawn by Morley. The character was featured alongside Hungry Horace on the front cover of the ''Sparky'' book from 1970 to 1972. The character continued in ''Sparky'' until 1974 when the character was dropped and she then reappeared in ''The Dandy'' in the late 1980s and early 1990s drawn by Sid Burgon before being dropped and later revived again. The revived strip was drawn by

Tom Paterson Tom Paterson is a Scottish comic artist who drew characters for Fleetway in 1973–1990, and D.C Thomson from 1986 to 2012. As of 2013, he currently draws strips for Viz. He lives in Leith, with three children, and is a Hearts supporter. Tak ...

and

Trevor Metcalfe Trevor Metcalfe (born May 1939 in Brotton, Yorkshire) is a British illustrator and comic book artist. Known for his comic strips in IPC Magazines comics such as Sweet Tooth and Junior Rotter in ''Whizzer and Chips''. Influences include Leo ...

in ''The Dandy'', until it was finally dropped in 2007. However the character's legacy remains as the character has appeared on the front cover of ''The Beano'' and ''Dandy'' books and has appeared in the longer ''

The Bash Street Kids ''The Bash Street Kids'' is a comic strip in the British comic magazine ''The Beano''. It also appeared briefly in The Wizard as series of prose stories in 1955. The strip, created by Leo Baxendale as ''When the Bell Rings'', first appeare ...

'' stories by

Kev F Sutherland Kev F. Sutherland (born 18 October 1961) is a Scottish comedian and comic strip creator. He has drawn for a variety of publications, including ''The Beano''. He has produced several shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, including The Sitcom ...

. She reappeared in the 2013 ''Dandy Annual'' drawn by Laura Howell. ''Keyhole Kate'' then moved to ''The Dandy''s online version. In this version, the character is a

Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a Fictional character, fictional character appearing in several Mystery fiction, mystery book series, movies, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwriter, ghostwritten by a number of authors and published ...

-esque reporter for the school newspaper. She appears in ''Dandy'' annuals, drawn by Lew Stringer since 2013, starting with ''Dandy Annual 2014''; Stringer also scripts the strip.

References

DC Thomson Comics strips British comics characters 1937 comics debuts British comics Dandy strips Comics characters introduced in 1937 Child characters in comics Female characters in comics Comics about women Children's comics {{Comic-strip-stub