Described by the comic’s current editor John Anderson as “the single most important illustrator in Beano history”, David Sutherland, who has died aged 89, was the artist behind some of Beanotown’s topmost tearaways, his brush responsible for 30 years of Dennis the Menace and more than 60 years of The Bash Street Kids. An unassuming and gentle man, Sutherland let anarchy reign in his artwork, with Dennis and his spiky hound Gnasher creating chaos for all around them.
However, it was the classmates of 2B that Sutherland first unleashed upon authority, personified by their teacher at Bash Street School. The Beano’s publisher, DC Thomson, knew that the wilder and more chaotic the characters, the more the readers loved them. The comic had let loose a legion of unruly heroes who brought pandemonium to parents, teachers and officials in ways their 1950s readers never could.
