Finally located some full strips of The Beano's ace crime-fighting team Billy The Cat ( & Katie ), from www.britishcomics.wordpress.com, so here's a couple of stories from the Beano annuals.
Let's recap: Billy The Cat ( & Katie ) were kind of the Daredevil & Black Widow of British comics, but for much younger readers.
When crime reared it's ugly head, cousins William & Kathleen Grange inexplicably gained awesome acrobatic powers ( and pervy leather cat-suits ) and took to the rooftops of Burnham to kick D.C. Thompson approved ass.
Which was lucky, as for a sleepy little market town, Burnham had almost as many bank robbers and escaped convicts as Midsummer Murders has psycho killers, and how they ever found the time to get their homework done is beyond me.
But as a small sprog, I thought they were great, and asked my Mum to buy me a school satchel just like the one Billy kept his costume in, just in case anyone tried to rob our local bank too.
Of course, being posh upper class kids in blazers, Billy & Katie were soon replaced in most kids affections by the much grittier Leopard From Lime St. ( well, grittier for kids' comics anyway ).
It represents a world long gone now, or indeed a world that never really existed, but the catlike cousins still have an undeniable charm. Billy even winks at the reader just like Superman used to do. Who does that anymore?
