Comics hero celebrates Literary Festival with giant Cow Pie

Published On Fri 3 Oct 2014 by Grant Hill

Organisers of the Dundee Literary Festival will next week meet up with one of the city’s most famous fictional characters to serve up a special helping of his favourite food.

Desperate Dan is renowned for his love of Cow Pie and Literary Dundee’s Anna Day and Peggy Hughes will offering up a near 3ft-diameter dish to the statue of The Dandy star in the city’s High Street on Monday, 6th October.

Model-maker Roderick Nixon initially carved the pie out of foam, moulded it in silicon then cast it in acrylic fibreglass before it was finished with a tail, authentic horns and colouring. It featured in the ‘Wha's like us? A nation of dreams and ideas’ exhibition at the National Library of Scotland, and has been gifted to Literary Dundee by the NLS, who created it in partnership with DC Thomson. It will now be used to help promote this year’s Festival, which takes place from 22nd to 26th October.

Anna Day, Director of Literary Dundee, said, "We're delighted and honoured to be taking on the care of this piece of Dundee's history. The pie is iconic and is a wonderful link to the past and present of Dundee, something that is also at the core of the Literary Festival. I hope people come along and have a look at the pie - but remember it's not for eating."

The pie ties together three of the festival events takin place on Sunday, 26th October.

‘A thoroughly decent read’ marks the centenary of DC Thomson’s much-loved The Sunday Post and takes place at Bonar Hall from 11am. The paper’s Production Editor Steve Finan will lead a fascinating wander down memory lane and recall some of the Scottish institution’s most memorable headlines, features and characters.

This year’s Dundee Comics Day takes place at the University of Dundee’s Tower Building from 1-6.30pm and will explore the diversity of the comics medium, and its relationship with other media. Leading writers and artists, including the team of John Reppion and Leah Moore, who created the Sherlock Holmes books from US publisher Dynamite, among other projects, will appear at the event.

In addition to the industry talks, workshops will be held along with the announcement of the winner of this year’s Dundee Comics Prize, which aims to nurture talent in comics and to help new creators gain recognition.

‘Scran salon’ is a special event for book- and food-lovers, taking place at Bonar Hall at 8pm. Scran Salon launched in February in Edinburgh as a monthly food shindig bringing together business owners, chefs, producers, writers, promoters, and enthusiastic eaters from across the food scene to share an evening of foodie-related chat.

Its first visit to Dundee will come with a bookish flavour and guests include Emily Dewhurst, of Kitchen Press, and Morris Heggie, The Broons and Oor Wullie Editor who will be discussing The Broons and their relationship with food.

Jackie Cromarty, who manages exhibitions at the National Library, said,  “Our Wha’s Like Us? exhibition celebrated great Scottish ideas and inventions and we were delighted to include Desperate Dan in this roll of honour. Dan is a great creation and has given enjoyment to generations of Scots. We have been very pleased to donate this replica of his favourite dish to help support Dundee’s successful literary festival.”

James Naughtie, Viv Albertine and Michel Faber are just some of the big names appearing at this year’s Dundee Literary Festival, the largest to date. More than 60 workshops, talks, book signings, readings, walking tours and other events will be held over the five-day run.

The Festival will be bookended with appearances by literary legends Jung Chang and Jodi Picoult on Saturday 18th October and Thursday, 6th November respectively. These free extension events will be held in conjunction with Dundee Science Festival and the University of Dundee’s Saturday Evening Lecture Series.

Sports, crime, comics, translation, poetry, comedy, music, politics, history and children’s books will all be covered and the Festival will spread beyond the confines of Bonar Hall as satellite events take place in libraries and pubs across the city. The winner of the Dundee International Book Prize will also be announced at the Festival.

Tickets for all events can be booked at http://www.dundee.ac.uk/literarydundee/.

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Grant Hill
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University of Dundee
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