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Billy Whizz, which started in 1964 (issue
1139, May 16th) as a replacement for "The Country
Cuzzins", was created by Malcolm Judge. He had previously
drawn "Colonel Crackpot's Circus", but Whizz was a far
more interesting and enduring creation.
Judge stopped drawing the strip in the late eighties and has been replaced by various artists; primarily Vic Neill, but also Trevor Metcalfe and David Parkins (possibly!). The strip is currently drawn in a rather slapdash style by G. Hall.
Where Judge's original scores over all its
imitators, though, is in the sheer variety of ways that Billy's
"whizzing" was depicted, some of which are shown here.
Later artists tended to concentrate on a specific visual device;
blurred, spinning legs in Metcalfe's case, elaborate trails of
dust from Parkins and - sadly - little more than "motion
lines" from Neill (who I'm rather afraid to say took a lot
of the fun out of the strip - shame 'cos I like his style as a
rule).*
Top left: 1964 logo; Top Right: 1970 logo; Below left: Judge; Below right: Metcalfe
* PS: If you think it's sad that I've gone into so much detail on this subject, you're probably right. Sorry.
