Rob Murray writes:
An oil painting of iconic Scottish cartoon-strip character Oor Wullie is due to be auctioned in Glasgow on Thursday night, and has been valued at between £2,500 and £3,500.
- © STV – Scottish Television – Image by artist Graham McKean
The painting, by Irvine-based artist Graham McKean, shows D.C. Thomson‘s Wullie – and his trademark upturned bucket – away from his Dundee home and sat on a sandy beach.
McKean has called the painting ‘Oor Wullie, Your Wullie, A Holiday Wullie’ – a play on the strip’s tagline of ‘Oor Wullie! Your Wullie! A ‘body’s Wullie!’
The character is celebrating his 75th birthday this year, having first appeared in the Sunday Post in 1936.
“I have painted many famous people over the years but I wanted to do a real Scottish icon this time, and that was when I thought of Wullie,” McKean told STV News.
“Like many Scottish youngsters, I grew up reading Oor Wullie and The Broons, although when I was deciding where to set the piece I decided to take him away from Dundee and put him in a location closer to my own home,” he added.
The auction raises the age-old question about the relative value of different art forms.
If McKean’s painting reaches its expected sale price, it will have made roughly double that of a sketchbook containing Wullie drawings by the character’s original artist, legendary Thomson cartoonist Dudley D. Watkins – which sold last year for £1,600.
Meanwhile, Wullie has been reinterpreted in a very different way in the current issue of Viz. A one-page strip titled ‘Oor Frankie’, drawn by Davey Jones, casts comedian Frankie Boyle in the role and, for a limited time, can be viewed here for free.
Bloghorn says if you would like to share a view on the value of art and cartoon, or even of cartoon and art, please do in the comments below.
Latest Blog
by Alex Hughes
Roundup: What the Bloghorn saw
May 19, 2011 in Comment, News
Rob Murray writes:
Cartoonists have a habit of predicting the future, but Cam Cardow, cartoonist for the Ottawa Citizen, is more prescient than most. He was the first to satirise the news that Arnold Schwarzenegger had fathered a child outside of his marriage – eight years before the story became known. The Washington Post has the full story and cartoon from 2003 here.
Meanwhile, the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon series The Flintstones is due for a modern makeover – courtesy of Seth MacFarlane, one of animation’s most controversial success stories. Whether the remake will be closer to the original Flintstones series or to Family Guy remains to be seen, but you can read more courtesy of BBC News.
Cult 2004 film comedy Napoleon Dynamite has also been reinterpreted in cartoon format, debuting in the US this summer and featuring the cast of the original film.
Bloghorn also spotted an impressive piece of pavement art over at the Forbidden Planet – a truly vertigo-inducing optical illusion featuring Batman and Robin.
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, best British cartoonists, Bloghorn, Cam Cardow, Hanna-Barbera, Napoleon Dynamite, PCO, professional cartoonists, Professional Cartoonists Organisation, Seth MacFarlane, The Flintstones No Comments »