Bud Neill
Encyclopedia
Bud Neill was a Scottish
cartoonist
who drew cartoon strips for a number of Glasgow
based newspaper
s between the 1940s and 1960s. Following his death, his work has attained cult status with a worldwide following.
, he moved with his family shortly thereafter to Troon
in Ayrshire
. (He is not to be confused with William Neill, the poet, also from Ayrshire
originally). Growing up there, the young Neill would spend his Saturdays at the local cinema
, and was particularly enthralled by the adventures of silent movie
Western
star William S. Hart
. These experiences fuelled Neill's childhood imagination, and proved to be a formative influence for his future career.
His other great passion in childhood was a love of horse
s. When not watching the stars of the silver screen, Neill would often be found at the local stable
s where he bartered some mucking out and grooming duties in return for the opportunity to ride the horses. After leaving school, where he excelled at art, he returned to Glasgow and enrolled for a course in commercial art at Glasgow School of Art
.
for a year. He learnt a great deal from the experience, observing the sophistication of the North American newspaper cartoonists. On his return to Scotland he served as a gunner in the Second World War
, but was injured and invalided out of the service. Back in Glasgow, he took up temporary employment as a bus driver. His experiences there led him to develop a series of "pocket cartoons" depicting the city's "caurs" (tramcars) and their "clippies" (female conductors).
In 1944 Neill commenced a series of cartoons for the Glasgow Evening Times
, themed around Glasgow life. His wry observational humour focussed on local wartime attitudes, and plundered the rich resource of the Glasgow vernacular. They frequently featured "wee wifies", in the early cartoons gossiping about the war ("They tell me yon yin Hitler's a richt bad rascal an' a'...") and victory ("if ye ask me, they'll never catch him. He'll tak' yin o' his Luftwuffy airyplanes and scram tae Thibet or Edinbury
.."). In later cartoons they discussed their wean
(one clutching her girning [crying] baby says "It's his teeth, aye. Awfy crabbit. Like a bear wi' nae fags." ) and went "doon the watter" on Clyde steamer
s for their holidays: one irritating a smartly dressed man in yacht
ing blazer and officer's cap by quizzing him "Yaffayat? Whityatyaffa?".
Neill's most famous characters first appeared in the Evening News cartoon strip in January 1949. Sheriff Lobey Dosser of Calton Creek was a memorable series that ran in the newspaper until 1956. Further adventures were published in the Sunday Mail
in the late 1950s. The strip was extremely popular with Glaswegians and it merged the adventurous style of the silent era western movies with traditional Glasgow stage humour, particularly pantomime
. The outrageous pun
s and surrealistic drawings have endured over time and now attract a cult following.
The G.I. Bride
frequently featured in the pocket cartoons, and became a long running character in the Lobey Dosser series, always standing in Arizona
with her "wean" in her arms (her baby, prophetically called Ned
), invariably trying to thumb a ride with plaintive cries like "Ony o' youse blokes goin' the length o' Pertick
?". Neill was a regular theatre
goer at the time, and this character was probably inspired by Tommy Morgan's popular stage character, Big Beenie, the G.I. War Bride. The popularity of the Glasgow stage comedian's pantomime-style parodies of the city's culture was not lost on Neill, and was to influence his best known cartoon strip.
is a district of Glasgow) was an outpost of the wild west
, supposedly located somewhere in Arizona
, but its inhabitants bore an uncanny resemblance to Glaswegians and spoke with Glasgow accents. "Lobey Dosser" was the pint-sized, whiskered Sheriff of Calton Creek who, assisted by "El Fideldo" (Elfie), his resourceful two-legged horse, strove to maintain law and order and protect the citizens against the evil plans of "Rank Bajin" ("rank bad yin/one"). The character names drew heavily on the Glasgow vernacular and were often only comprehensible to Glaswegians.
Given Neill's childhood exposure to early Westerns, and his passion for wartime theatre and pantomime, it was no surprise that the Lobey strips exhibited many of those genre
's stylistic devices: depiction of good and evil as white and black respectively, the overblown evil machinations of "Rank Bajin" and the rhyming speech of "Fairy Nuff" are good examples. The compliment was repaid in the early 1950s when a Lobey sketch
was included in a production of Little Red Riding Hood
at the Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow.
booklets, and a decade after the strip ended he was still getting enquiries from around the world from fans desperately trying to purchase one of these increasingly rare volumes. By the mid 1970s Glasgow artist Ranald MacColl had begun collecting material for a biography. The Daily Express closed its Glasgow print works and dozens of bin bags of Neill's original work were thrown out, fortunately another local artist Calum MacKenzie, Director of The Glasgow Print Studio and Gallery found and saved some of the works which eventually were exhibited in the exhibition, The Scottish Cartoonists (1979).During Glasgow's European Year of Culture Ranald MacColl organised a comprehensive exhibition of Bud's work,including unpublished pieces, at Glasgow's Art Galleries and Museum. Julian Spalding
, the Director at this period, pronounced the show one of the most popular of that year.
in Woodlands Road, Glasgow, across from The Halt Bar
. The idea came up in that pub in 1989 during discussion between the artist and stained glass designer http://www.cannon-macinnes.co.uk/php/project.php?proid=callu Calum MacKenzie and friends about Glasgow's 1990 European City of Culture status, and the statue was funded by donations following an appeal in the Glasgow Herald
. Ranald MacColl drew up the crosslegged Elfie/Lobey/Rank statue concept and art students Tony Morrow and Nick Gillon sculpted and erected the statue in 1992 which features "Lobey" and "Rank Bajin" astride "El Fideldo". The statue has the unique distinction of being the world's only two-legged equestrian monument
.
The inscription on the plaque below the statue reads:
Unfortunately the statue has been subjected to occasional vandalism, and is often seen adorned with a traffic cone
after weekend revellers have passed by, something that has come to be known as the traditional headwear of the Glasgow statue.
and take him on an expedition during which they find a rare herd of two-legged horses. When a wee horse is "stunned wi' fallin" ("Haw, there a wee foal fell, well!") and is rescued by Lobey, the two become inseparable. Less publicly, Neill modestly claimed that Elfie began because four legs were too much trouble to draw.
This book was followed by Bud Neill's Magic! again with biographical notes, and with a selection from the many pocket cartoons, showing their changing subjects and styles over the years. Further Adventures of the Wee Boy tells the story of the bronze statue in a foreword, and reprints a further five of the shilling booklets. These stories are patchy in style, including some where more realistically drawn characters mix with his cartoon figures, but give more examples of Neill's quirky humour and fine touch with pen and lamp-black ink.
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
who drew cartoon strips for a number of Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
based newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s between the 1940s and 1960s. Following his death, his work has attained cult status with a worldwide following.
Early life
Born as William Neill in PartickPartick
Partick is an area of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde, just across from Govan. To the west lies Whiteinch. Partick was a Police burgh from 1852 until 1912 when it was incorporated into the city.-History:...
, he moved with his family shortly thereafter to Troon
Troon
Troon is a town in South Ayrshire. It is situated on the west coast of Scotland, about eight miles north of Ayr and three miles northwest of Glasgow Prestwick International Airport. Lying across the Firth of Clyde, the Isle of Arran can be seen. Troon is also a port with freight and ferry services...
in Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...
. (He is not to be confused with William Neill, the poet, also from Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...
originally). Growing up there, the young Neill would spend his Saturdays at the local cinema
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
, and was particularly enthralled by the adventures of silent movie
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
star William S. Hart
William S. Hart
William Surrey Hart was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered for having "imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity."-Biography:...
. These experiences fuelled Neill's childhood imagination, and proved to be a formative influence for his future career.
His other great passion in childhood was a love of horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s. When not watching the stars of the silver screen, Neill would often be found at the local stable
Stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals...
s where he bartered some mucking out and grooming duties in return for the opportunity to ride the horses. After leaving school, where he excelled at art, he returned to Glasgow and enrolled for a course in commercial art at Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art is one of only two independent art schools in Scotland, situated in the Garnethill area of Glasgow.-History:It was founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design. In 1853, it changed its name to The Glasgow School of Art. Initially it was located at 12 Ingram...
.
Professional career
In the late 1930s Neill lived and worked in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
for a year. He learnt a great deal from the experience, observing the sophistication of the North American newspaper cartoonists. On his return to Scotland he served as a gunner in the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, but was injured and invalided out of the service. Back in Glasgow, he took up temporary employment as a bus driver. His experiences there led him to develop a series of "pocket cartoons" depicting the city's "caurs" (tramcars) and their "clippies" (female conductors).
In 1944 Neill commenced a series of cartoons for the Glasgow Evening Times
Evening Times
The Evening Times is an evening tabloid newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, Scotland.-History:The paper, an evening sister paper of The Herald, was established in 1876. The paper's slogan is "Nobody Knows Glasgow Better"....
, themed around Glasgow life. His wry observational humour focussed on local wartime attitudes, and plundered the rich resource of the Glasgow vernacular. They frequently featured "wee wifies", in the early cartoons gossiping about the war ("They tell me yon yin Hitler's a richt bad rascal an' a'...") and victory ("if ye ask me, they'll never catch him. He'll tak' yin o' his Luftwuffy airyplanes and scram tae Thibet or Edinbury
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
.."). In later cartoons they discussed their wean
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
(one clutching her girning [crying] baby says "It's his teeth, aye. Awfy crabbit. Like a bear wi' nae fags." ) and went "doon the watter" on Clyde steamer
Clyde steamer
The era of the Clyde steamer in Scotland began in August 1812 with the very first successful commercial steamboat service in Europe, when Henry Bell's began a passenger service on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock...
s for their holidays: one irritating a smartly dressed man in yacht
Yacht
A yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...
ing blazer and officer's cap by quizzing him "Yaffayat? Whityatyaffa?".
Neill's most famous characters first appeared in the Evening News cartoon strip in January 1949. Sheriff Lobey Dosser of Calton Creek was a memorable series that ran in the newspaper until 1956. Further adventures were published in the Sunday Mail
Sunday Mail (Scotland)
The Sunday Mail is a Scottish tabloid newspaper published every Sunday. It is the sister paper of the Daily Record and is owned by Trinity Mirror and as such has a left-wing outlook which in turn tends to guide Scottish political debate in that direction.The Sunday Mail is read by over one million...
in the late 1950s. The strip was extremely popular with Glaswegians and it merged the adventurous style of the silent era western movies with traditional Glasgow stage humour, particularly pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
. The outrageous pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
s and surrealistic drawings have endured over time and now attract a cult following.
The G.I. Bride
War-bride
War bride is a term used in reference to wartime marriages, especially - but not exclusively - during World War I and World War II.One of the largest and best documented war bride phenomenons is American soldiers marrying German "Fräuleins" after World War II. By 1949, over 20,000 German war brides...
frequently featured in the pocket cartoons, and became a long running character in the Lobey Dosser series, always standing in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
with her "wean" in her arms (her baby, prophetically called Ned
Ned (Scottish)
Ned is a derogatory term applied in Scotland to hooligans, louts or petty criminals, latterly with the stereotypical implication that they wear casual sports clothes. Such usage in Glasgow dates back to the 1960s or earlier.-Early use of term:...
), invariably trying to thumb a ride with plaintive cries like "Ony o' youse blokes goin' the length o' Pertick
Partick
Partick is an area of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde, just across from Govan. To the west lies Whiteinch. Partick was a Police burgh from 1852 until 1912 when it was incorporated into the city.-History:...
?". Neill was a regular theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
goer at the time, and this character was probably inspired by Tommy Morgan's popular stage character, Big Beenie, the G.I. War Bride. The popularity of the Glasgow stage comedian's pantomime-style parodies of the city's culture was not lost on Neill, and was to influence his best known cartoon strip.
Lobey Dosser
The fictional Calton Creek (CaltonCalton, Glasgow
Calton is a district in the Scottish city of Glasgow. The name Calton is derived from the Gaelic "coillduin", which means "wood on the hill". It is situated north of the River Clyde, and just to the east of the city centre...
is a district of Glasgow) was an outpost of the wild west
American Old West
The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
, supposedly located somewhere in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, but its inhabitants bore an uncanny resemblance to Glaswegians and spoke with Glasgow accents. "Lobey Dosser" was the pint-sized, whiskered Sheriff of Calton Creek who, assisted by "El Fideldo" (Elfie), his resourceful two-legged horse, strove to maintain law and order and protect the citizens against the evil plans of "Rank Bajin" ("rank bad yin/one"). The character names drew heavily on the Glasgow vernacular and were often only comprehensible to Glaswegians.
Given Neill's childhood exposure to early Westerns, and his passion for wartime theatre and pantomime, it was no surprise that the Lobey strips exhibited many of those genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
's stylistic devices: depiction of good and evil as white and black respectively, the overblown evil machinations of "Rank Bajin" and the rhyming speech of "Fairy Nuff" are good examples. The compliment was repaid in the early 1950s when a Lobey sketch
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
was included in a production of Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood, also known as Little Red Cap, is a French fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story has been changed considerably in its history and subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings....
at the Citizen's Theatre in Glasgow.
Main characters
- Lobey Dosser - Sheriff of Calton Creek. (The name is derived from "lobby dosser", meaning a vagrant who slept in tenement entrance "closes").
- El Fideldo (Elfie) - The Sheriff's trusty two-legged horse.
- Rank Bajin - Calton Creek's resident villain. (The name refers to "rank bad yin", "yin" being GlaswegianGlasgow patterGlaswegian or The Glasgow Patter is a dialect spoken in and around Glasgow, Scotland. In addition to local West Mid Scots, the dialect has Highland English and Hiberno-English influences, owing to the speech of Highlanders and Irish people, who migrated in large numbers to the Glasgow area in the...
for "one"). Bajin is the only main character in the strip who speaks standard English. - Big Chief Toffy Teeth - Chief of a Pawnee tribe that originated somewhere in GovanGovanGovan is a district and former burgh now part of southwest City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick....
. - Rid Skwerr - haunter of the local cemetery, betrothed to Fairy Nuff. ( An ex-spy, the name is a GlaswegianGlasgow patterGlaswegian or The Glasgow Patter is a dialect spoken in and around Glasgow, Scotland. In addition to local West Mid Scots, the dialect has Highland English and Hiberno-English influences, owing to the speech of Highlanders and Irish people, who migrated in large numbers to the Glasgow area in the...
rendering of "Red Square"). - Chief Rubber Lugs - Chief of a Blackfeet tribe, apparently from New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, and in dispute with the Pawnee. - Fairy Nuff - A fairy who wears "tacketty bootBootA boot is a type of footwear but they are not shoes. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle and extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece....
s" and speaks mostly in rhyme.
Legacy
The immense popularity of Neill's work led to the Lobey Dosser stories being published as small one shillingShilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
booklets, and a decade after the strip ended he was still getting enquiries from around the world from fans desperately trying to purchase one of these increasingly rare volumes. By the mid 1970s Glasgow artist Ranald MacColl had begun collecting material for a biography. The Daily Express closed its Glasgow print works and dozens of bin bags of Neill's original work were thrown out, fortunately another local artist Calum MacKenzie, Director of The Glasgow Print Studio and Gallery found and saved some of the works which eventually were exhibited in the exhibition, The Scottish Cartoonists (1979).During Glasgow's European Year of Culture Ranald MacColl organised a comprehensive exhibition of Bud's work,including unpublished pieces, at Glasgow's Art Galleries and Museum. Julian Spalding
Julian Spalding
Julian Spalding is a British art critic, writer, broadcaster and former curator. Considered to be a controverial maverick and outspoken critic of the artworld, he's been a regulator contributor to arts, news and current affairs programmes on radio and TV.Spalding grew up on a council estate in St...
, the Director at this period, pronounced the show one of the most popular of that year.
The statue
The Lobey legend has proven to be Neill's enduring legacy to Glasgow, and has been marked by the erection of a bronze statueStatue
A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...
in Woodlands Road, Glasgow, across from The Halt Bar
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
. The idea came up in that pub in 1989 during discussion between the artist and stained glass designer http://www.cannon-macinnes.co.uk/php/project.php?proid=callu Calum MacKenzie and friends about Glasgow's 1990 European City of Culture status, and the statue was funded by donations following an appeal in the Glasgow Herald
The Herald (Glasgow)
The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...
. Ranald MacColl drew up the crosslegged Elfie/Lobey/Rank statue concept and art students Tony Morrow and Nick Gillon sculpted and erected the statue in 1992 which features "Lobey" and "Rank Bajin" astride "El Fideldo". The statue has the unique distinction of being the world's only two-legged equestrian monument
Equestrian sculpture
An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin "eques", meaning "knight", deriving from "equus", meaning "horse". A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an "equine statue"...
.
The inscription on the plaque below the statue reads:
Statue erected by public subscription on May 1st 1992 to the memory of Bud Neill, 1911-1970, cartoonist & poet, creator of Lobey Dosser, Sheriff of Calton Creek, his sturdy steed El Fideldo, resident villain Rank Bajin, and many other characters.
Unfortunately the statue has been subjected to occasional vandalism, and is often seen adorned with a traffic cone
Traffic cone
Traffic cones, also called traffic pylons, road cones, highway cones, safety cones, construction cones or witches' hats or safety wizards, are usually cone-shaped markers that are placed on roads or footpaths to temporarily redirect traffic in a safe manner...
after weekend revellers have passed by, something that has come to be known as the traditional headwear of the Glasgow statue.
Re-publication
Also in 1992, Ranald MacColl published Lobey's the Wee Boy! reprinting five of the rare shilling booklets together with a brief biography. The stories are set in a logical order rather than in the order they appeared in the newspaper, and start with Lobey's tale of how he came to Arizona as a runaway baby on a pirate ship, including his adventures on a desert island meeting "cannibals" ("He cannibal-eve it!") who turn out to be from ClydebankClydebank
Clydebank is a town in West Dunbartonshire, in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, Clydebank borders Dumbarton, the town with which it was combined to form West Dunbartonshire, as well as the town of Milngavie in East Dunbartonshire, and the Yoker and...
and take him on an expedition during which they find a rare herd of two-legged horses. When a wee horse is "stunned wi' fallin" ("Haw, there a wee foal fell, well!") and is rescued by Lobey, the two become inseparable. Less publicly, Neill modestly claimed that Elfie began because four legs were too much trouble to draw.
This book was followed by Bud Neill's Magic! again with biographical notes, and with a selection from the many pocket cartoons, showing their changing subjects and styles over the years. Further Adventures of the Wee Boy tells the story of the bronze statue in a foreword, and reprints a further five of the shilling booklets. These stories are patchy in style, including some where more realistically drawn characters mix with his cartoon figures, but give more examples of Neill's quirky humour and fine touch with pen and lamp-black ink.
See also
- Glasgow's public statuesGlasgow's public statuesPublic statues in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, have been used to display the wealth and history of the city over centuries. The most prominent are those erected by the municipality or by public subscription, but others adorn the façades of the great commercial buildings.-George...
- List of famous Glaswegians
- :Commons:Category:Lobey Dosser (additional pictures of statue)