Angus Og

10Mar08

 

Angus Og was a comic strip which ran in the Daily Record and The Sunday Mail drawn by Ewen Bain. Set on the fictional island of Drambeg, fairest island in the Utter Hebrides, it featured the eponymous Angus Og, and a whole host of other characters, including his mother Mrs Og, Rosie the Highland cow, Lachie Mhor, Granny McBrochan and the ever suffering Mairileen.

The artwork is fantastic and the tales even more so, hilarious, imaginative, surreal, wry and just the right side of parochial. Always scheming, our protagonist’s adventures take in miraculous hangover cures, “Instant Thrift” potions, “The Peat Reek” enterprise, speaking cats, Council Hypnotism, Kelpies, “Flattermatic” cameras, enchanted chanters and much much more. Inevitably Angus’ get rich quick schemes collapsed around his ears but not before throwing a thousand laughs our way.

Collections of his work seem to be hard to get hold of, appearing on Amazon and Ebay from £75.00 upwards. I’d like to set up a dedicated website and reproduce the strips online (with permission of course) eventually. Meantime I’ll have a go at posting a few strips to build up the stories on here each week.

( Òg is Scottish Gaelic for “young”, my Granddad was called Willie Òg in the way Lewis folk call people by their first name and an applicable characteristic or trade eg Donnie The Post etc. Guess that explains my babyfaced youth then…)

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