Angus Og
Ewen Bain (b. Maryhill, Glasgow, c. 1925; d. 18 December 1989) was raised in a Gaelic-speaking home, spending summers on the island of Skye. He enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art in 1942, but was called up to the Royal Navy within a few months. He returned to Glasgow School of Art in 1946, drawing his first cartoons for the student magazine Ygorra in 1947, and graduated in 1950, initially becoming a teacher. He did some illustration and cartooning on the side.
In 1960, while still teaching, he was also creating a single-panel cartoon series called The Bleeps for the Scottish Daily Express, when Ian Howard, the features editor, suggested he create a full-length daily strip. In response he created Angus Og, a beatnik highlander living on the fictional island of Drambeg in the Outer Hebrides. However, a new features editor had taken over, and not only declined the new strip, but dropped The Bleeps. Bain took Angus Og to the Glasgow Bulletin, where it appeared for six months before the paper folded, and the to the Daily Record, where it became the most popular strip the paper had ever run, and later appeared in colour in its sister paper the Sunday Mail.
A supporter of the Scottish National Party, he also drew political cartoons for the Scots Independent. He died of influenza at the age of 64.
References
- Martin Conaghan, "Sláinte to a real character", The Herald, 18 December 1999, and Sheila Bain's reply, 23 December 1999
- Angus Og, The Croft, 10 March 1008
