Ian Gray: Ian Gray, long-time scriptwriter for Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, the Bash Street Kids, Desperate Dan, Biffo the Bear and other perennial favourites from the Beanoand the Dandycomics, has died after a heart attack, aged 69.
He was also the co-creator of Dennis's wild and woolly dog Gnasher, and became something of a legend for his passion for animals, folk music and the countryside, and his exuberant sense of humour.
Gray was born in Arbroath, the Scottish town renowned for the smoked haddock delicacy known as Arbroath smokies. He was nicknamed Smokie Gray after them, and after a folk music band called Smokie Folk in which he later performed. He grew up reading the Dandyand the Beano, brought home by his father Walter, who was a reporter for the comics' publisher DC Thomson's newspapers in Dundee and went on to become a subeditor on the Weekly News.
Gray attended Inverbrothock primary and Arbroath high school. He had wanted to become a vet but failed at maths, physics and chemistry. So instead, at the age of 17, he followed in his father's footsteps to Dundee and a job in journalism. He was hired by managing director RD Low, who assigned him to Thomson's comics department. He began working under editor George Moonie on the Beano, which was enjoying remarkable success, thanks to a wave of anarchic new characters, led by Dennis the Menace in 1951.
Gray's inventive, uncredited scripts for these and other series would help boost sales of the Beanostill further and push them way past those of the Dandy. He wrote for three newly arrived cartoonists who were revolutionising the Beano- Davey Law, Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid. He would often supplement his stories for them with extra crazy gags and asides which in turn stimulated the artists, whom he admired greatly, to respond in kind.
Throughout these partnerships, Gray never tired of the excitement of seeing how they had illustrated and elaborated his scripts. He was the first each week to open the rolls of artwork they delivered and laugh out loud at Law's Dennis, Baxendale's Little Plum ("your redskin chum"), Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids, and Reid's Roger the Dodger. The popularity of his tales with Baxendale of the constantly hungry Three Bears in Little Plum led to them being awarded their own page.
Apart from national service as a telephone operator at the RAF base in Leuchars, Scotland (1957-59), Gray continued full-time on Thomson's comics until he took early retirement in 1992. In 1968, he caused problems for the obsessively self-critical Law when he asked him to draw a dog into a Dennis the Menace script. "For Davey's benefit, I said 'You can draw Dennis's hairstyle, can't you? So put a leg on each corner and put two eyeballs at that end'." Thus, the mischievous mongrel Gnasher was born.
In 1977, Gray left the Beanoto edit a new photogravure-printed comic entitled Plug, which starred the "plug-ugly" Bash Street Kid. In 1982, he launched the Beano Comic Libraries, pocket-sized 64-page booklets that became a huge success. He then joined the Dandy in 1989 as chief subeditor to script Desperate Dan, a character he loved but had never had the chance to write. He worked with the artist Ken Harrison on the super-powered Cactusville cowboy until he retired to pursue other interests.
Since his youth, music-making had been important to Gray, going back to the 1950s when he performed with the skiffle groups Der Scorpions and the Folk and Blues Sextet. He was enthusiastically involved in the Arbroath folk music revival from the 1960s and became a comedian, singer and guitarist much-loved in his home area for his self-penned comic songs. A Robert Burns enthusiast, he entertained at Burns suppers and was a keen five-a-side footballer.
Holidays as a child in Glenesk in the Grampians, watching shepherds and their dogs, instilled in Gray a love for the great outdoors. Shortly before joining the RAF, he had started racing pigeons. He kept up this sport throughout his life, coming third in this year's Scottish championships. He also competed in sheepdog trials, winning several titles and appearing on television. In later years, he and his wife Ann ran the Cats' Cradle cattery near Forfar.
Ann and children Ian, Binnie, Andrew and Debbie survive him.
Ian Robertson Gray: born March 31st, 1938; died September 6th, 2007.