Earlier this year I featured some artwork from the final Judy annual, Judy For Girls 1993. Today I'm presenting a story from 1968's edition.
Deep-Sea Debbie got the annual off to a fine start with beautiful colour art from British comics legend Ian Kennedy. The depiction of diving in the story indicates that both Kennedy and the writer had done their research.
The octopus encounter is a little cliched perhaps, but I enjoyed the use of buddy-breathing.
Ian Kennedy (1932-2022) was born in Dundee and at 17 he joined local publishers DC Thomson as an apprentice illustrator, having already received some training from Thomson employee and family friend David Ogilvie. In 1954 he went freelance and worked for Collins and the Amalgamated Press (later Fleetway/IPC) as well as DCT. Although his earliest AP work included westerns, he soon found himself producing stories based on war and aviation, the fields for which he is best known. He worked for their picture libraries such as War and Air Ace but is probably most associated with DC Thomson's Commando series. He produce over 1600 covers in addition to his interior work and continued to do covers even after his retirement in 1997.
He also worked for girls' comics such as Bunty and Judy and later produced some notable science-fiction work for the likes of 2000AD, Starlord, Blake's 7 and the 80s revival of Eagle where he worked on Dan Dare. For more information check out the following links:
