Carrotty Kid squares up against a giant chess game

Carrotty Kid is one of Andy Fanton's most beloved creations, a ginger-haired troublemaker whose short fuse made him a recurring star inside the pages of The Dandy. Fanton, a cartoonist, writer, and comedian based in the UK, has long had a soft spot for the Australian audience, with fans in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane keeping his back-catalogue in steady circulation. The character's bright orange quiff and perpetual sense of injustice have earned him a place alongside other Fanton favourites like George vs Dragon, Boo!, and Bad Grandad.

Among the many misadventures of the strip, the giant chess game remains the best remembered and most reprinted. It pits Carrotty against an unseen but crafty opponent across a life-sized board where the pawns are people from the local village. Fanton's signature medieval humour turns a simple board game into a sprawling, slapstick epic that still rewards rereading decades after it first ran.

The origins of Carrotty Kid in The Dandy

Fanton introduced Carrotty Kid as part of his contributions to The Dandy during a fertile period of British comics. The character arrived fully formed: impatient, hot-headed, and perpetually convinced the world was conspiring against him. Within a few episodes, he had developed a rogues' gallery of rivals and a habit of escalating minor disputes into full-blown catastrophes.

Readers responded to Carrotty Kid because his frustrations felt universal. Fanton drew on a tradition of British comic everymen, then gave the formula a Fanton twist by leaning into absurdity over sentimentality. The giant chess game was the logical endpoint of that escalation: what could be more frustrating than a board you cannot leave?

Setting the board for the giant chess caper

The premise is gloriously silly. Carrotty wakes up to discover his street has been replaced by a life-sized chess board. The houses are black and white squares, the lampposts are rooks, and the bus stop is a bishop. The fish and chip shop becomes the central pawn, while the pub is crowned the king. Carrotty, of course, is the knight, suiting his restless personality.

The genius of the storyline lies in how Fanton translates chess notation into physical comedy. Every move Carrotty makes in an L-shape brings a pratfall, a near-miss, or an argument with a stubborn pawn. Fanton uses the chess framing to justify set-pieces, and the result is a strip that reads like a chess lesson written by someone who has never won a game.

Knights, pawns and Carrotty's wild moves

The chess sequence runs for several episodes, each one built around a specific gambit. Below is a comparison of how key characters function on the giant board.

Piece	Character	Role in the story	Notable moment
Knight	Carrotty Kid	Reluctant protagonist, always moving in L-shapes	Stuck on a roundabout for three panels
King	The Pub Landlord	Stays put, panics about his beer supply	Refuses checkmate unless the off-licence is saved
Queen	The Newsagent	Most powerful piece, notoriously moody	Spends four strips issuing impossible demands
Pawn	The Fishmonger	Sacrificial piece, but surprisingly resilient	Promoted to knight after surviving a stampede

The chess game structure lets Fanton play with time and space. Episodes end mid-move, with Carrotty frozen before deciding between two equally bad options. Readers mentally finish the move, then laugh when Carrotty inevitably picks the wrong one. It rewards casual readers and dedicated Fanton completists alike.

Australian echoes in the comic strip

Even though The Dandy is British, Carrotty Kid found a warm reception in Australia. Sydney's Inner West scene has always had a soft spot for Fanton, with shops in Glebe and Newtown stocking imported copies. Melbourne's laneway galleries have hosted Fanton exhibitions, and Brisbane's Supanova regularly draws a Fanton panel.

The strip appeals to Australian readers because it focuses on the everyman hero fending off forces beyond his control, a theme that resonates in a country where sport, weather, and regulations conspire against the individual. Fanton has noted the Australian fanbase is among the most vocal, sending him letters and Vegemite.

Collecting Carrotty Kid down under

Fanton memorabilia has become a quiet but steady market in Australia, with vintage copies of the giant chess game storyline commanding respectable prices. Original Dandy annuals from the relevant period can fetch a decent sum, especially those with Carrotty Kid covers in good nick. Local collectors prefer crisp pages to dog-eared reprints.

The collecting instinct extends beyond comics. For readers curious about how similar artistic objects gain value over time, the vinyl soundtrack revival tells a remarkably parallel story of sound, nostalgia, and the collector as a second career. A well-loved Fanton page and a well-loved record share the same magic: physical objects that age into cultural currency.

From page to workshop: learning Fanton's craft

For aspiring cartoonists who want to understand how Fanton builds a strip, the best starting point is his workshops page, which lists upcoming sessions and tips. Fanton has long been a generous teacher, and his workshops cover everything from thumbnail sketching to inking technique, with a particular focus on the four-panel gag format that made his Dandy work famous.

The workshops also serve as a reminder that Fanton's craft is built on discipline, not just talent. The giant chess game, for all its chaos, is tightly plotted, with each move mapped in advance to maximise comedic payoff. Students often remark that the wild punchlines result from careful setup. That combination of structure and surprise is exactly what makes his strips so durable, and it is a lesson any cartoonist can take to the drawing board.

Why the giant chess game still endures

There is something timeless about a strip that turns a quiet suburban street into a battlefield of wits. The giant chess game works because it amplifies the slow agony of a long chess match through Fanton's gift for the absurd. Chess is having a quiet renaissance in Australia, with clubs in Carlton and Adelaide reporting a surge in junior members, and Carrotty Kid remains an unlikely ambassador for a game he keeps losing.

Fanton fans can dive deeper into his wider catalogue through this insights checklist, which sits alongside his library including Boo!, George vs Dragon, Carrotty Kid, Bad Grandad, and a growing archive of mini-strips. Grab your copy, dust off an old annual, and meet the ginger-haired knight on his giant board, ready to make the wrong move with absolute conviction.