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Bud Neill (1911–1970) was an innovative Scottish cartoonist who drew cartoon strips for a number of Glasgow based newspapers between the 1940s and 1960s. Following his death, his work has attained cult status with a worldwide following.
Neill was born in Partick and he moved with his family shortly after birth to Troon in Ayrshire. Growing up there, he spent his Saturday afternoons at the local cinema, and was particularly enthralled by silent movie Westerns This fuelled Neill's childhood imagination, and proved to be a formative influence for his future career. His other great passion in childhood was a love of horses and he would often barter some mucking out and grooming duties in return for the opportunity to ride the horses at the local stables.
Returning to Glasgow after a year spent in Canada in the late 1930s, Neill eventually found employment with the Glasgow Evening Times in 1944, and produced a series of cartoons themed around Glasgow life during wartime. This went on to spawn his most famous cartoon strip, Sheriff Lobey Dosser of Calton Creek. Started in 1949, Calton Creek was a fictional outpost of the wild west in Arizona, mainly populated with Glaswegians. The immense popularity of Neill's work led to the Lobey Dosser stories being published as small one shilling booklets after they stopped appearing in the newspapers.
Such was the affection that Glaswegians had for the cartoons that a commemorative statue was commissioned in 1992. Designed by two students from Glasgow School of Art, the statue features the two main characters "Lobey Dosser" and "Rank Bajin" astride "El Fideldo", Lobey's trusty two-legged horse. The statue was erected in Woodlands Road across from The Halt pub where the idea was first conceived.
