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| Dramatic 2 page spread from The Beano Book 1967. |
The Q-Bikes were a team of children who set off on their push bikes in numerous adventures of heroism and rescue, often resulting in catching crooks. Most artists hate drawing bikes but whether Andy Hutton relished it or not he was certainly up to the task and proved to be an ideal illustrator for the series.
The strip was briefly renamed The Q-Karts in 1969 to reflect the growing popularity of motor karts. Again, Mr.Hutton proved more than worthy for the task, producing dynamic and exciting pages.
My condolences to Mr.Hutton's family and friends at this sad time. For more information on the artist's life and career, see John Freeman's excellent tribute on his Down The Tubes blog:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=19835
4 comments:
Sad news, even though Andrew Hutton wasn't a name I was familiar with, I was certainly familiar with his work. It was the Q-Karts version of the strip which I knew of first, though it was re-named as Q-Bikes again with the pages of the Beano in the early 70's.
As a side note Lew, looking at that double page spread you posted, it occurred to me that Andrew Hutton may have also been responsible for my favorite Billy The Cat story... the one which appeared in the 1971 Beano book, the artwork is very similar.
I see what you mean, Staz although that Billy the Cat story is by Dave Sutherland apparently. I get the impression that most Beano adventure artists were encouraged to follow the style of Dudley Watkins so there is a bit of similarity in the work of Andy Hutton, Paddy Brennan, Dave Sutherland and Sandy Calder.
Thanks for sharing that info, Ken. Very interesting! It's great that you had someone so talented in the comics field to encourage you.
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