Korky the Cat his eyes (though the picture of him next to the Dandy logo was never changed). The focus of the strip also switched more to the Kits, who had been promoted from their originally minor role. So much so, that at one point the strip had been renamed Korky the Cat and the Kits. When Nixon went into semi retirement at the beginning of 1999 (relinquishing Beryl the Peril at the same time) several different artists took up the pen, including David Sutherland (who also draws The Bash Street Kids from "The Beano", and used to draw Dennis the Menace) at
Korky the Cat first, Steve Bright, Lesley Reavey, Dave Windett later on (who introduced a mouse called Squeak and his friends to the cast), and, by 2003, Henry Davies, who was creating hybrid strips from Charles Grigg's classic Korky strips and new elements drawn by Davies. By 2004, though, the popularity of Korky with readers had significantly dropped. In that year's readers poll, Korky had failed to receive a single vote, either as a favourite character, or a least favourite. With this in mind, it was decided to retire the character after almost 70 years. His apparent last appearance was in issue 3294,