David spent more than 60 years with Beano and began illustrating the Bash Street Kids in 1962. The next edition of the comic will feature his final illustrations, drawn at the end of last year.

He worked on some of the most famous Beano strips, including more than 1,000 Dennis The Menace stories between 1970 and 1998. But it was on the Bash Street Kids, which he drew every week for 60 years, that he created his legacy.

One of his comic strips was one of the original exhibits at The V&A design museum when it opened in Dundee.

On Twitter, the Beano team said: “David viewed himself as a resident of Beanotown, living alongside our characters that he loved and he will live on there forever, and always be in the hearts of Team Beano and the millions of kids who have enjoyed his strips every week”.