Bad Grandad hunts down a pet dragon

Andy Fanton's comic strip legend Bad Grandad has always been a worry for anyone within a five-kilometre radius. Originally published in The Dandy, the cantankerous old codger has spent decades terrorising garden gnomes and outsmarting next-door neighbours. This time, he's set his sights on something far more ambitious than rearranging the recycling bin.

Fanton's signature blend of medieval mayhem and suburban grumpiness reaches new heights in this storyline. The strips mix swords, scales, and fire-breathing with backyard fences, Hills hoists, and the petty grievances only a grumpy Aussie grandfather could harbour. It's a combination that has kept readers chuckling since the comic first hit the newsstands.

The spark of a ridiculous idea

Bad Grandad is watching a wildlife documentary one arvo when the notion of owning a dragon takes root in his thick skull. A komodo dragon appears on the screen, and the old fella decides that if Indonesia can have giant lizards, then surely Australia can manage something a bit more impressive. He wants wings. He wants fire. He wants a pet that will make the Patterson boys across the street look like amateurs with their budgie.

The decision is made over a cup of tea and a slice of fruit loaf, as most catastrophic decisions are in Fanton's universe. Bad Grandad pulls out butcher's paper and starts sketching plans for a dragon enclosure that would make the local council's eyes water. The first strip ends with him sharpening a wooden sword, looking terribly pleased with himself.

Setting off into the bush

Naturally, a man on a quest for a pet dragon doesn't order one online. Bad Grandad packs a battered esky, a thermos of cheap instant coffee, and climbs into his ancient Kingswood for the trip out west. The landscape changes from suburban driveways to red dirt and scrub as he leaves Melbourne behind and heads towards the sunset.

The horizon stretches out forever, dotted with the occasional roadkill roo and a wedge-tailed eagle circling overhead. Bad Grandad interprets every shadow as a sleeping dragon and every dust devil as the breath of some massive beast. The visual gags write themselves, and Fanton lands every one with the timing of a seasoned comic craftsman.

Seeking local knowledge

Every good quest needs a guide, and Bad Grandad consults the experts at the local pub in a dusty town called Woop Woop. The locals, nursing their schooners, are certain that dragons used to live in the old mining shafts just outside town. One bloke swears black and blue that his grandfather saw one back in the fifties, though that grandfather also claimed to have wrestled a crocodile in the town square.

The dialogue in these strips is pure Aussie gold. Bad Grandad calls everyone "sport" and "old mate", while the locals speak in the kind of laconic drawl that suggests they've been sitting on the same barstool since the Hawke government. Fanton has a real ear for Australian speech, and the exchange between the city slicker and the bush characters is one of the funniest in the run.

The supposed dragon encounter

Eventually, Bad Grandad finds what he believes to be a dragon lurking in a cave behind a servo on the edge of the Simpson Desert. The creature has scales, a forked tongue, and a general disregard for personal space. Bad Grandad approaches with the confidence of a man who has never watched a horror film, offering the beast a meat pie as a gesture of goodwill.

The reveal is that it's not a dragon at all. It's a goanna, a massive monitor lizard that has grown to absurd proportions on a diet of discarded dim sims from the roadhouse bins. The strip plays out with Bad Grandad trying to ride the confused reptile while it scuttles back under the petrol pump canopy. Fanton's artwork captures the chaos beautifully, with the lizard's claws scrabbling across concrete and Bad Grandad's dentures flying out in a separate panel.

Negotiating with a mythical beast

Having failed to secure a dragon from the wild, Bad Grandad tries his luck with a breeder. There's got to be someone in the eastern suburbs who deals in exotic pets. He rocks up to a shop in Sydney's Surry Hills wearing his best flannelette shirt and carrying a chainmail lead he welded himself.

The shopkeeper, a young woman named Bindi who has inherited the family business, takes one look at Bad Grandad and immediately starts quoting council regulations. Fanton uses these panels to poke fun at the paperwork required to keep anything more exciting than a goldfish in Australian households. The punchline involves a very confused axolotl and a fire extinguisher.

Bringing the beast home

Against all odds, common sense, and several local ordinances, Bad Grandad acquires something dragon-shaped and brings it back to his fibro cottage in the suburbs. The final strips deal with the practical realities of owning a mythical creature in a typical Australian backyard. The dragon, it turns out, is terrified of magpies. Every swooping season sends it into a panic, and Bad Grandad spends his spring standing on a ladder waving a broom at aggressive birds while his pet hides under the Hills hoist.

Fanton ties the whole storyline together with a final gag that brings everything full circle. The last panel shows Bad Grandad sitting on the back verandah, sipping a beer, while the dragon curls up at his feet like a very large, scaly blue heeler. The old bloke looks genuinely content for the first time in the run, which is perhaps the most surprising twist of all.

Tracking down the full strips

The Bad Grandad dragon saga is one of Fanton's most beloved storylines, and fans often hunt around trying to find where to read the complete sequence. The strips are available alongside his other work, including the wonderfully chaotic Carrotty Kid review and the ongoing adventures of George vs Dragon.

Readers who want to dive deeper into the Fanton universe can spend a happy arvo working through his back catalogue. The humour holds up remarkably well, and the artwork has that timeless quality that makes a great comic strip feel at home in a newspaper today as much as when The Dandy was still on the shelves at the local newsagent. Jump online today and browse the portfolio, and you'll find plenty more where Bad Grandad and his reluctant dragon came from.