Duncan Harley

Alongside the usual kettles, teabags, coffee filters and coffee makers my George Square kitchen is littered with pictures. On the upper left resides an image from Lake Garda alongside a redundant flat-screen TV which hides a hole in the wall made by a previous incumbent of the property. We are talking lath and plaster here, not plaster-board, and the fragile lath option is less than forgiving. On the far bottom right is an illustration an artist- son Ben penned for some long-forgotten illustrator who had, at one time worked as a cover- artist for a latter-day Pink-Floyd. Above the redundant flat-screen, is an illustration for a 2017 Leopard article. Oldmeldrum was the theme as I recall and for some unknown reason the line-drawn graphic, in all its magnificence, failed to make it into print. But, it did make my kitchen wall. As for Bob, well, he was a fictional character in a short story competition. I don’t often enter such things, after all most entrants are pretty much bo...

A number of eons ago I knew a man by the name of Graham Murdoch who along with Dave Smith published a series of comics with a distinctly Scottish Theme under the name of "Keltic Komix".  Titles such as "Last Quango in Harris" and "The Mystery of Achnagoulash" took Scotland by storm as the pair travelled from town to town selling the comics from an old pram which they steadfastly pushed from Aberdeen to Inverness and beyond. Graham moved on to write and illustrate "Black Bag - The Faithful Border Bin Liner" in the adult comic Viz under the pen name of Snoddy (his pet cat). Black Bag of course was a spoof of the comic strip Black Bob the Faithful Border Collie, which appeared in the DC Thompson comic "The Dandy" from 1944 to 1965.  In the original story line, Black Bob helps his owner, a shepherd round up sheep while also solving crimes, apprehending villains and generally doing splendidly good deeds. In the Snoddy version, an upper-...