Billy Whizz
Billy Whizz is a comic strip character that appeared in the Beano comic. Billy Whizz first appeared in Beano in issue number 1139 on the 16th May 1964 and appeared regularly until 2007 since when he has only made occasional appearances. Billy is a boy who can run extremely fast and most of his adventures come from problems relating to this or his speed is his method of getting out of trouble. Unlike most other Beano characters Billy does not live in Beanotown but lives in nearby Whizztown.
The strip was originally created and drawn by Malcolm Judge but since his death in 1989 it has had a number of artists responsible and consequently the style, character and appearance of Billy and the strip has changed over time.
Billy the Whizz through the years
Billy started off as a small boy that "whizzed" around everywhere, this whizzing being depicted by a vapour trail or blurred spinning legs or by trails of dust. He started off wearing normal kid attire of the era with shorts and t-shirt but this evolved over the years as his dad persuades him to wear trousers in his effort to slow him down, unwittingly prompting Billy to opt for tracksuit trousers which have the opposite effect, this in later strips morphs into a futuristic tracksuit. In the first story that Billy wears his new thunderbolt tracksuit so fast that he is mistaken for a lightning storm.
His family is not covered in much detail in the strip and his mother and father are not given a name. He does have a brother, Alfie, who appears regularly in the strip. Alfie starts out having the same superhuman speed as Billy and is even faster initially but has now developed into a normal child with no special powers.
Beano Annuals at Amazon
Other Billy Whizz images
Billy Whizz Merchandise
There are a few places that you can get merchandise featuring Billy Whizz.
- 1. One of the best places I've found is the superbly named moreTvicar T shirt place, this has a great Billy the Whizz T Shirt amongst other superb T-Shirts.
2. There's also some great signed Beano Comic Art at the Book Palace which includes the Billy Whizz masthead print.
