A RARE collection of Dandy comics, scripts and correspondence which belonged to one of the comic’s illustrators has been put up for sale.

Jimmy Hughes, who worked under the name JC Hughes, died three years ago aged 78 and his niece Joan Arthur is selling the 400 comics he had kept during his time with publisher D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd.

Some of them come with the script and relevant correspondence sent to Mr Hughes by the editor. There are also some of his original storyboards for sale.

Mr Hughes, who worked from his home in Kinghorn, drew Dandy characters including Bully Beef and Chips, the Jocks and the Geordies and Corporal Clott for around 30 years, starting in the early 1960s.

Mrs Arthur told The Courier that few people had seen the collection.

While she has kept some of the items for herself —including a storyboard her uncle drew for her 50th birthday—she is keen that the collection goes to someone who will treasure it.

Ken Robb, of Kingdom Antiques in Cupar, which is selling the collection on Joan’s behalf, said it could go for a five-figure sum.

He said, “This is quite a rare find and there is an international market for comics. It might be surprising how much it goes for.”

Former Dandy editor Morris Heggie said Mr Hughes had never had an art lesson.

He said, “D. C. Thomson were looking for artists and he entered a competition and came out very highly placed.

“The then editor Albert Barnes gave him a page to draw and he started with D. C. Thomson, always working for the Dandy.”

Mr Hughes lived with his mother and worked from a caravan in his garden, very rarely making the trip to the firm’s offices in Dundee.

Mr Heggie said, “In my time as editor I met him in the flesh once but we were on the phone every week.”

The comics are not the first D. C. Thomson-related memorabilia to turn up in Kingdom Antiques.

Earlier this year a Canadian air force jacket which belonged to the real-life inspiration for Oor Wullie was sold to a collector in Canada.

Ron Low, whose father was Oor Wullie and Broons creator R. D. Low, was sketched as a child by Oor Wullie artist Dudley D. Watkins. He grew up to become a pilot and a surgeon.