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Oor Wullie

Oor Wullie is a Scottish comic strip published in the D.C. Thomson newspaper The Sunday Post. It features a character called Wullie; Wullie is a Scots nickname for boys named William, equivalent to Willie. His trademarks are spiky hair, dungarees and an upturned bucket, which he uses as a seat: most strips since early 1937 begin and end with a single panel of Wullie sitting on his bucket. The earliest strips, with little dialogue, ended with Wullie complaining. The artistic style settled down by 1940 and has changed little since. A frequent tagline reads, "Oor Wullie! Your Wullie! A'body's Wullie!".

Characters and story
Although Wullie's hometown was unnamed in the original Watkins strips, it has been called Auchenshoogle since the late 1990s. Wullie's gang consists of himself, Fat Bob, Wee Eck and Soapy Soutar. Wullie is the self-proclaimed leader, a position which is frequently disputed by the others. In early strips, the gang met in a wooden shed - usually located in the garden at Wullie's house. He also owns a pet mouse named Jeemy (Scots for 'Jimmy'). Wullie and his friends roam the streets of his town, though he is sometimes depicted at school, which he finds confining. Praise from his teacher, who addresses him as "William", is rare and acutely embarrassing. His adventures often consist of unrealistic get-rich-quick schemes that lead to mischief, to the despair of his parents, Ma and Pa. Wullie's Pa is called "Tam"; the only reference to this is in a strip from the 1960s during a conversation between Pa and the local policeman, Wullie's arch-nemesis, P.C. Murdoch. Famous people such as Nicola Sturgeon, Ewan McGregor, Andy Murray and Amy Macdonald have appeared in the strip over the years. When The Topper launched in 1953, Oor Wullie appeared in the masthead, although not as a story in the comic. He often appeared sitting on his bucket, though other poses were used as well. The pose on Topper No. 1 had him wearing a top hat. He had the top hat in one hand and the other hand pointing at the Topper logo. ==Annuals==
Annuals
Starting in 1940, the Oor Wullie strips also appeared in the form of a Christmas annual which alternated every second year with The Broons, another D. C. Thomson product. (No annuals were published between 1943 and 1946.) Pre-1966 annuals were undated. A facsimile of the first The Broons annual was released on 25 November 2006 and of the first Oor Wullie annual the following year, celebrating the 70th anniversaries of the strips. Following the 80th anniversary in 2016, additional annuals of Oor Wullie were issued for 2016 and 2018, breaking from the biennial pattern. Since 1996—the 60th anniversary of the strip—D.C. Thomson has also published a series of compilation books featuring The Broons and Oor Wullie on alternate pages. The early stories are often recycled in current annuals. An example being the "twin cousin" story in the 2018 annual being first seen in the fifties. ==Bucket Trails==
Bucket Trails
In celebration of Oor Wullie's 80th anniversary in 2016, he was the subject of a public art project when 55 decorated sculptures of him were placed around Dundee and its environs with another 13 touring round Scotland over an eight-week period. The Bucket Trail was the largest mass public art project to have taken place in Scotland. The project ran from 27 June for two months, with the sculptures being auctioned in September for £883,000, for a new pediatric surgical suite at Tayside Children's Hospital. In 2019 Oor Wullie's BIG Bucket Trail 2019 was launched with 200 artistic interpretations of the figure at locations in cities across Scotland, raising money for Edinburgh Children's Hospital, Glasgow Children's Hospital and the Archie Foundation. ==See also==
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