THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING WILLY...

Willy sets forth on his maiden voyage

I was walking through my local branch of JOHN
MENZIES (now WH SMITH) one Winter's day back in 1976, when I spied a big square table laden with annuals. Prominent among them was one I hadn't seen before, although the art style was familiar to me. "Only £1?", thought me - "I'm having that!" And thus was I introduced to the legendary LEO BAXENDALE's latest comic creation - WILLY THE KID.

Ooer! And he's not even out of the harbour yet

The annual was laugh-out-loud funny - and an absolute steal at a measly quid. I couldn't have been the only person who suddenly found themselves wishing their life away 'til next year's annual came out. So impressed was I with Bax's latest madcap masterpiece, I even bought copies for friends - who  also fell in love with the lunatic antics of the turnip-headed Willy. And that's no mere hyperbole - Leo really did base Willy's head on a turnip. ("...when I created the first Willy book...my inspiration in drawing Willy was a turnip." Leo Baxendale, 1995.)

A lovely colouring job from Leo

According to that first annual, there was going to be a new one every year, and each book would be kept in print forever. When the second annual came out in 1977, I snapped it up and gleefully looked forward to the next one in what was going to be an endless succession of yearly Willy the Kid publications for all eternity. I was deliriously happy. Experience has long-since taught me that nothing is ever that easy and that the fates often conspire against us, but back then I was still an optimist. 

At least it's not under his bed

Anyway, in 1978 I bought Leo's autobiography, A VERY FUNNY BUSINESS (which everyone should read), but, apart from a picture of it on the back of the cover, I simply couldn't find a copy of the third annual in any shop through which I searched. Many years later, in response to my enquiry, a dealer told me not to waste my time looking for it as it had never been printed. That would certainly explain why I couldn't find a copy at the time. I was left to wonder why I never saw a Willy the kid Annual in the shops again in subsequent years - wee Willy had simply vanished from the face of the earth without even saying goodbye.

Sometime later, in the mid-'90s, I ordered some books from Leo and took the opportunity to ask him about the annual, and he generously took the time to reply and explain what had happened with it. Here's Leo in his own words from his November '95 response:

Never printed? Well here it is - and it's mine

"Yes, the third Willy the Kid book was published, in September 1978, simultaneously with my autobiographical 'A Very Funny Business'. But because writing the autobiography took 4 months of my time in the summer of 1977, I was that much late in starting writing and drawing the third Willy the Kid book, and as a result, being late, it missed the annual distribution set-up, and was published as a 'posh' book with a wrap-around loose cover, at £2.50 (by contrast with the first and second Willy books, which were £1 each) - what's more, the print orders for Willy Books 1 and 2 were in both cases circa around 150,000, and they were sold along with the other annuals (Beano annual and whatnot), but the print order for the third Willy book, being a 'posh' book, had a print order of 10,000, and was tucked away in bookshops, instead of being sold alongside annuals."

So there you have it from the man himself - the book WAS published - and don't let any dealer ever tell you different. Leo then went on to say the following:

Nope, it's not for sale - don't ask

"So, alas, alas...lots of dedicated readers couldn't find it, and in many cases have spent the rest of their lives looking for it ( funnily enough, the day before I received your order, I'd had an order for prints and books from a young man in Catford in London, with a covering letter telling me jubilantly that only the previous week, he had finally found a copy of the elusive Willy the Kid Book 3 in a junk shop in Wales.) So never give up hope."

I eventually managed to track down a copy of the book on the internet in 2009. It may have taken me 31 years, but I can now finally boast a complete set of 1970s' Willy the Kid Annuals. They're well-worth having, although the third book has fewer pages than its predecessors. Incidentally, the "ripples" in the accompanying photographs of Book 3 are on the protective clear sleeve, not the dustjacket itself. I wasn't going to risk damaging it by removing it to scan.

So, you're all no doubt wondering, why didn't the annuals continue to appear? Details can be found in Leo's book, THE BEANO ROOM & OTHER PLACES, available from REAPER BOOKS - http://www.reaper.co.uk/ - click on the link now.