Oor Wullie and The Broons are Scottish icons. As Scottish as Irn-Bru or haggis, kilts or bagpipes.

In an online poll conducted by a haggis producer a few years ago, Oor Wullie was voted Scotland’s top icon. He beat William Wallace and the most famous living Scotsman, Sir Sean Connery, who were second and third.

Oor Wullie and The Broons inhabit strip cartoons in the Sunday Post, a newspaper printed in Dundee by DC Thomson, who are also publishers of The Beano. Often regarded as Britain’s top comic publisher, DC Thomson have also published since 1961 Commando comic, Britain’s longest-running war comic.

Oor Wullie and The Broons have been going since 1936. Oor Wullie has spiky blond hair and wears black dungarees and is famous for sitting on an upturned bucket. Other characters in the strip are his pals Fat Bob, Wee Eck, Soapy Soutar, pet mouse Jeemy, girlfriend Primrose Paterson, and his arch-nemesis, local policeman P.C. Murdoch.

The Broons family consists of Paw Brown, Maw Brown, Granpaw Brown, Hen Brown, Joe Brown, Maggie Brown, Daphne Brown, Horace Brown, The Twins and The Bairn.

Both were drawn for decades by illustrator Dudley D. Watkins, who also drew Desperate Dan for many years.