Vic Neill (24 November 1941 - 24 December 1999) was a British cartoonist who drew for
D.C. Thomson and
I.P.C.'s comics. His first notable comic work was on
Sparky strip
Peter Piper
"Peter Piper" is an English-language nursery rhyme and well-known alliteration tongue-twister. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19745.
Lyrics
The traditional version, as published in John Harris' ''Peter Piper's Practical Principles of ...
. In 1969, he replaced
Dudley Dexter Watkins on Topper cover star
Mickey the Monkey after Watkins' sudden death. Neill was a big admirer of Watkins' artwork. He made his debut in the Beano with
The McTickles in 1971. In 1974, this was replaced by another Scottish-themed strip,
Wee Ben Nevis.
In 1977, when D.C. Thomson launched their new comic,
Plug, a
spin-off from
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 appea ...
, Neill became the regular artist of the title character's strip, which he continued to draw after it merged with
The Beezer
''The Beezer'' (called ''The Beezer and Topper'' for the last three years of publication) was a British comic that ran from (issues dates) 21 January 1956 to 21 August 1993, published by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. Comic strips in ''The Beezer' ...
two years later. In the 1980s, Neill drew much material for I.P.C. Magazines. This included strips such as
Top of the Class in
Buster comic and
Spare-Part Kit in
Whoopee. His final strip for them, Nightmare on Erm Street, appeared in Buster in 1990.
Returning to the Beano in the late 1980s, he took over
The Germs
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
from David Sutherland. Neill then started drawing
Billy Whizz in 1992, and became the strip's regular artist the following year when the Beano switched to full-colour printing. While initially drawing the character in a loosely comparable style to
David Parkins and
Trevor Metcalfe when they shared the workload, once he was established as main artist he began making incremental changes to Billy's appearance. Most notably, Billy had always had two long hairs on the top of his head, but in the 9 July 1994 issue of the comic his hair fused into a lightning flash, and his head shape was also changed from oval to round. In the Beano's 1997 reader vote, Neill drew
Tim Traveller,
the boy with the time-travelling bike. Tim won the poll, along with
Crazy for Daisy and went on to become a regular in the comic.
He continued drawing for the Beano until his death in December 1999. Billy Whizz was taken over by
Graeme Hall, with
Keith Reynolds becoming his replacement on Tim Traveller, but The Germs ended. A number of his Billy Whizz strips were later reprinted in the Beano in 2008–2009.
References
British comics artists
British cartoonists
1999 deaths
The Beano people
1941 births
{{UK-comics-creator-stub