Lord Snooty

Lord Snooty is one of the most famous characters from The Beano, first appearing in the first issue, dated 30th July 1938, and drawn by Dudley D. Watkins.

The Central character was Lord Marmaduke of Bunkerton, but known to his friends as Snooty. The original premise was quite simple and conventional. It consisted of Snooty being fed up with living in a castle under the watchful eye of Aunt Matilda and doing things he didn't want to do, so when he had the chance, he would change into different clothes and have fun with his friends from Ash Can Alley. These consisted of Scrapper Smith, Hairpin Huggins, Skinny Lizzie, Rosie, Happy Hutton, Gertie the Goat and later Snitch and Snatch. This basic plot remained for the first few years. During the second world war, however, the storylines began to change, and sometimes would consist of Snooty and his pals trying to foil the Nazi's (and sometimes even Hitler's) plans. After the war, the storylines became more like how they'd stay, and would often be set in the castle, despite the fact that the trash can alley gang were always present.

The First series of Lord snooty came to an end in 1949, returning towards the end of 1950. The first strip of this series was the final appearence of Skinny Lizzie, Hairpin Huggins, Happy Hutton and Gertie the goat. The following week, Snooty's new pals were introduced. These had all appeared previously in retired strips. They were Big Fat Joe, (Just called Fat Joe in the Lord Snooty strip), Swanky Lanky Liz, Doubting Thomas and Polly (Originally Polly wolly doodle and her great big Poodle). This series of Lord Snooty continued until 1958, but a Large amount of strips weren't by Watkins; some of them were by Leo Baxendale, who also drew several Biffo the Bear strips from around this time.

The third-and longest running- series, began in 1959. To start with most episodes were reprints. However, by the mid-sixties Watkins was drawing new strips. Watkins stopped drawing Snooty in 1968, a year before he died. This was when Bob Nixon took over, and produced a fair representation of Watkins' style.

In 1973, Nixon left DC Thomson to work for IPC and his work in The Beano was taken over by other artists. Both Lord Snooty and Grandpa were taken over by Jimmy Glen, who drew in a similar style to Nixon. He continued to draw Lord Snooty for fifteen years, although during the eighties the strip was sometimes only half a page as opposed to a full one. He finally stopped drawing Snooty in 1988, when Ken Harrison took over. However, a lot of the strip's original charm was now lost, and Snooty's personality took a turn for the worst. Ken continued to draw it for several years, with John Dallas filling in on occasion. He stopped appearing regularly in 1990 and his final appearence was in 1991. The reason why he was axed was due to the fact that it was difficult to write his strips and readers could not relate to Snooty or his pals anymore. Former Beano editor Euan Kerr stated that Lord Snooty was always his least favourite character to write for, while Alan Digby (who later replaced Euan as the comic's editor) also said that he did not like the strip. The Sunday Times reprinted old Lord Snooty strips in The Funday Times for a short while afterwards.

Lord Snooty made several appearences since he was axed. An example was a strip of The Sort Out Squad in 1995 (Drawn by Nixon). He appeared more prominently in the Beano issue 3093 (27 October 2001) Where he appeared in a one-off strip called 'Lord Snooty's Day out'. In the 65th anniversary issue, Snooty is one of the characters from The Beano's first issue that features in a strip; the one he appears in is The Bash Street Kids. He also made a brief appearence in the 70th Anniversary issue of the Beano in a specially-drawn Fred's Bed Strip (Which was usually reprints at the time)

In 2008, Lord Snooty III appeared as a regular strip in the Beano, Drawn by Nigel Parkinson.