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The Broons

by 53 Comments

Author:Anonymous

About twenty years ago someone wrote to the letters page of The Guardian with a set of three questions that could be used to determine whether someone was really Scottish or not. I forget the other two, but one of them was “Who lives at 10 Glebe Street?”. The answer, as anyone who has grown up in Scotland over the last 80 years or so will know is: The Broons. I received a copy of the latest book as a Christmas present (it must be a classic gift for exiled Scots) and it was the first one I’d seen for quite a few years.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Broons, it is a long-running comic strip published weekly in the Scottish Sunday Post newspaper with a book collecting the strips being published every two years or so (And it really is long-running, first appearing in 1936, it’s characters are older than Batman and Superman). The original writer/artist died in the late 60s and since then a series or writers and artists have continued the strip in exactly the same style (there have been no Frank Miller-type Dark Knight re-imaginings of the Broons, though it’s an intriguing thought).

There are four standard Broons storylines:

1. “The Bairn overhears something”. Simple but versatile, the bairn overhears someone talking about one of the family, gets the wrong end of the stick, mobilises panic-stricken family members until it all sorts itself out. Memorably used in Viz’s McBroons strip. Key phrase: “Ha ha! My wee lamb!”

2. “Pa is mean”: Pa Broon tries to save money in a ridiculous way while lecturing the rest of the family on their spendthrift ways. He always comes a cropper and ends up spending more to get less. Key phrase: “Auld Skinflint”

3. “The But and Ben”: All 9 Broons decamp for a holiday in a two-room house in the Scottish countryside. Key phrase: “Look at that teuchter!

4. “The Broons vs Modern Life”: A member of the family will enthuse about a new trend or technology, such as electric shavers or computer games, only for the Broons to put their own stamp on it. In this year’s book, Grandpa Broon comes up with a mince & tatties smoothie, the idea of which is making me feel a bit queasy as I type. Key phrase: “Now that’s what I call a –insert technology name-!”

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

Jings, Crivvens & Help Ma Boab. Oor Wullie.

One thing you’ve learned

Why is The Broons still going? It was old-fashioned even when I first read it in the 70s; it can look ridiculously so today. In one of the strips in this year’s book we see Pa Broon at work in what seems to be a shipyard while his son buys a second hand zoot suit for a date. It’s not even that well-written: the bairn these days talks like Jar Jar Binks’s Scottish cousin: “Me disnae think Paw kens how”.

I think one reason it still exists is that it benefits from the powerful Celtic Nostalgia that Scots tend to be subject to (think of Billy Connolly’s line about Scots singing about being far away from Scotland while they’re still there). But I also think it’s linked to the fact that The Broons are one of the first things that a Scot will read by themselves; there are generations who remember having Broons and Oor Wullie books in their childhood libraries. The Broons is a reminder of childhood independence. And because it’s so strongly linked to our childhoods we’re happy to ignore the fact that Pa Broon dresses like something from Peaky Blinders.

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Comments

  3. Lovely review.

    And of course The Broons is published by DC Thompson in Dundee and the artist who drew them and Oor Wullie in the 50s and 60s was the great Dudley D. Watkins.

    Watkins also worked for the Dandy and Beano and was responsible for Desperate Dan and Lord Snooty and His Pals among others

      • I thought the Bash Street Kids were created by Leo Baxendale?

        The topic of unsung comics creators of course is a topic worthy of its own thread. How many more people have heard of Stan Lee over Jack Kirby? And who’s heard of Bill Finger?

          • This raises the interesting point regarding who should gain the credit for comics characters: Baxendale invents the strip, but only does it for 7 years compared to Sutherland’s 55. Who gets the credit?

            It’s the same with Wolverine. Created by Len Wein for an issue of The Hulk, but it was Chris Claremont who made the character popular over the decade or so he transformed the X-Men.

            I guess in both cases you could say that the intellectual property should go with the inventor, but it seems a bit unfair. I hadn’t heard of Sutherland until you mentioned him.

            • It’s a tricky one, but I think in this case Sutherland is responsible for the classic 60s/70s look of the cartoon that we know and love. When it started in 1954 (as “When The Bell Rings”) it looked very different and the artwork much more primitive than in later years. So although Baxendale came up with the concept, it was Sutherland who refined it.

              It can go the other way of course and later artists can all-but ruin an established character.

          • Yup, and quite right too. A lot of these historical oversights are slowly being rectified, but it’s a touchy subject, and of course not many of these writers and artists will gain much financially from it (if they’re still alive).

  5. I always used to equate the characters inherent to footballers of the day. Nobby Stiles. Does anyone even come close anymore as a cartoon from real life to cartoonery in the cartoon?

  6. Of course, we can’t have a Broons thread without mentioning the other side of the coin, Oor Wullie.

    I haven’t read one if his stories for years. Does he still sit on that old bucket? surely Social Services would have been round for him by now if he does?

    • Yes, he does.

      My 12 year old, who lives in deepest West Virginia and is as all-American as you can be, adores Oor Wullie. Hearing him talk about the strip and the characters, reading it out loud is….amusing

  7. Brilliant – The Broons rediscovered. As JC stated, the magnificent Dudley D Watkins (who died in 1969) has been replaced numerous times but none of the other artists have managed to emulate his simple but nevertheless immaculate style.
    I’ve posted it before but this sketch from Naked Video in the early 90’s was written by an ex DC Thomson employee and contains a number of in-house jokes – (see if you can pick them).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKEWtUojpbY

  8. As I only spent the first 12 years of my life in Scotalnd I was more of an Oor Wullie man, though I avidly read both of course. A standard Oor Wullie story would involve him trying to do something harmless but boyish and being frustrated by adults who found him a nuisance.

    The one that sticks in my mind has him receiving the gift of a toy boat, but the park pond hs been drained, his father objects when he tries to use the bath he is in, so Wullie goes to the local museum where there is a large fish tank. He is, of course, ejected by the uniformed attendant who accuses him of disturbing the fish and goes on his way complaining, ‘Och, it was a wee bit of life they were wearied for!’ The strip almost always ended with him grinning at the reader while sat on an upturned bucket (Hamish the hedgehog optional).

    • I always found Oor Wullie’s friends interesting. They were obviously meant to be from different social classes: Wee Eck looked like he was lucky to have escaped rickets, while Soapy Souter went around in shirt and tie.

      • Sometime in the late 1980’s/early90’s a musical version of Oor Wullie premiered at Glasgow’s Pavilion Theatre. It was spectacularly awful and disappeared without a trace after about a week. Wullie was played by a very young Ashley Jensen (Extras, Ugly Betty) but it’s probably signifiant that nowhere in AJ’s cv is the musical referenced.

  9. The Broons and Oor Wullie were ingrained into my childhood and I have shelves of the books. It is precisely their archaicism that is (was) the appeal, the idea being much better if one accepts they live in a time warp, rather than the unsatisfactory updatings that now sneak in, with references to popular culture that sit awkwardly. Hell, Maggie looks positively a babe on that cover in the o.p., whereas she should look like a 6os tiger. It should be forever (about) 1961 in Glebe Street and P.C. Murdoch should still be allowed to skelp Wullie about the ear.
    And I would never have managed Irvine Welsh had I not read these essential primers in the language.

    • I think I agree with you. I think there are two basic strategies when making an ongoing comic strip. One is the Doonesbury approach, where characters age in real time and the stories play out in the real world. The other is the Peanuts approach, where only minor changes occur. The latter is in some ways the safer option, though at some point people will start poking fun at the comic for being old-fashioned and out of touch.

      I think it’s more difficult to update Oor Wullie than the Broons. You can’t update childhoods; the childhood that Oor Wullie was living in 1961 isn’t available anymore.

      • There was always a carefree escapist element of course, indeed that was at least half the point. But now Wullie would be obliged to encourage Hamish the hedgehog to roam free, and build a wildlife habitat for him instead of keeping him under a bucket.

        I remember another story where Wullie climbed up a factory chimney and sat on the ledge at the top with the steeplejack, eating sandwiches. I suppose that would have been frowned upon even in 1961 let alone now. You just can’t get the steeplejacks any more, and hedgehogs are noticeably scarcer too.

  10. The Broons and Oor Wullie were popular in the North East of England too. Certainly amongst my family and friends.

    Christmas Day meant the annuals (along with Giles).

    I loved the couplets above each story. One of which revolved around a cat nicking Maw Broon’s nice piece of haddock for Granpaw’s tea. ‘Michty Me! Whit a CAT-astrophe!’

  11. Actually, there *has* been a dark re-imagining, kind of. The much-missed Electric Soup had a strip called The Greens, being a very thinly disguised rendition of Scotland’s first family. Done by Frank Quitely, no less.

    • I only saw one issue, but I remember the perfect recreation of Watkins’ style and, in particular, a few frames where the the twins dropped Bairn’s corpse out of a window and narrowly missed the vicar who was coming to call. When remonstrated with the twins protested, ‘Ach, she wis deid anyway!’ Yes, it was quite dark. Are there any online?

  12. Urban legend says that DC Thompson recruited a posse of young artists to replace Watkins, not all of whom were going to eventually get the gig. So they amused themselves by producing x-rated knock-offs.

    Far fetched, you might say. Except that I have one somewhere. Daphne Broon enjoying a day out with Wullie and pals. Crivvens!

    And there was a great stand-up routine by Bing Hitler (aka Craig Ferguson), which is no doubt available somewhere.

  15. As we’re on Scottish cartoon, I will forever grateful to my Dad, who threw in my face, after a period of smart-arsery, the immortal question “If you’re so f*cking smart, what’s the name of Lobey Dosser’s horse?”

    The stories have been collected into two(?) volumes. They’re a cracking read.

  16. Nothing to do with The Broons, but Frank Dickens who created Bristow, my favourite strip cartoon of the ’70s, has lately died. And on the subject of strip cartoons, who here remembers Garth, in the Daily Mirror? A sort of super-hero, but very British.

  17. I love The Broons, and always request the annual each Christmas. Growing up in Scotland it was a childhood staple.

    Other common storylines were usually based on Daphne’s failed lovelife, and Hen’s height.

    I often read them to my (US born) kids who look at me in bafflement.

  18. Harsh I know but I never really found Lord Snooty that funny, so by extension I never paid much attention to other strips by that writer/artist in other comics. I can see the appeal of The Broons though. The artist who gave us the Bash St kids (who I now know to be Leo Baxendake) was a total genius.

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