It's another busy week here at Stringer Studios (well, my spare room). There's a Beano page to finish, an article for Comic Heroes to write, a Kid Cops to draw, and the first Team Toxic of 2011 to script, but here's a very quick look at a couple of comics that have just arrived in the newsagents today...
The Beano No.3559 kicks off with an energetic Dennis and Gnasher cover drawn by Jimmy Hansen who also contributes a two page Dennis strip inside. The Dandy No.3509 announces itself as "the comic EVERYBODY'S talking about" and it was certainly one of the most discussed comics last week. I suspect the new look will continue the momentum this week too.
Inside The Beano, Ken Harrison displays his superb artistic talents with a nicely detailed Minnie the Minx strip, Hunt Emerson brings us his 167th Ratz strip, (Hunt numbers all his pages), and David Sutherland is still the definitive Bash Street Kids artist. There's also a nicely drawn Ivy the Terrible page by new artist Diego Jourdan Pereira and another installment of of barmy cat vs dog rivalry in Meebo and Zuky drawn by Laura Howell plus a Super School page drawn by me.
Inside The Dandy there's another great four page Harry Hill's Real Life Adventures in TV Land strip by Harry Hill and Nigel Parkinson, Kid Cops and Postman Prat by me, Robot on the Run by Alexander Matthews, the totally loopy Pre-Skool Prime Minister by Jamie Smart and tons of other strips. Even Bruce Forsyth returns to comics. Shades of Film Fun!
The Dandy even features Bonfire Night in its contents this week, which is something UK comics have carefully avoided on the whole for years. "Hi there, kids! Guy Fawkes here with some right rocket riddles!" says the cheerful gunpowder plotter. On another page there are Desktop Fireworks to cut out and provide hours of fun. "Bonfire: Fold in the middle and stand on any flat surface. Want a BIGGER bonfire? Just move closer!"
The Beano is still the more traditional of the two comics, and that of course is part of its popularity. Even its logo is a slight variation on the one that was introduced in the early 1970s. Long-running strips such as Roger the Dodger, The Bash Street Kids, Dennis the Menace, and Minnie the Minx have become what generations expect to find in its pages.
For better or worse The Dandy was never one to rely on characters with such longevity. Each decade has brought in fresh new characters although Desperate Dan, Korky the Cat, and Bananaman are still around albeit with modern new designs. The Dandy has always been the one to take more risks and, having had three revamps in six years, let's hope that it's third time lucky for the all-fun, all-new, back to basics Dandy of 2010.
Just in case you thought Dandy and Beano were the only fun comics on the shelves there's also Toxic from Egmont. Yes it's mostly magazine content but strips are still a regular part of the mag. Eight years old and still popular the latest issue features my Team Toxic strip in a classic reprint. Budget cuts? No, I just needed more time to work on an upcoming issue for the Christmas Toxic which will be a bumper issue and Team Toxic gets a double-length story.
I haven't seen the current Toxic myself yet but here's the ad for it from Egmont:
Dandy, Beano, and Toxic. If you're feeling generous this week buy 'em all, and leave a comment to let me know what you think.
TOXIC website: http://www.toxicmag.co.uk/
THE BEANO website: http://www.beanotown.com/
NEW! THE DANDY website: http://www.dandy.com/
13 comments:
wow! cover of #2 dandy so similar to first issue. ok so harry looks left this time and bg color is yellow not blue! but it looks the same basically!!!!
not so inspiring marketing...
It's Beano 3559, Mr Stringer! Not 2559. Great work as always!
Ah well I was only a thousand issues out. :-) Thanks for letting me know.
Reading back on that, it sounded like I was a bit snippy, which wasn't the intention.... Sorry 'bout that.
No worries. I didn't take it that way at all. :-) Sorry my reply was brief but got a lot to do this week.
Anon; yes the figure was similar but I suppose they're trying to attract attention. The bright yellow background should easily show it's a different issue. Anyway, covers of the 1960s/70s issues looked very similar at a quick glance and it never hurt those sales.
I'm not much of a Dandy fan but I have been enjoying the new ones.The covers do need to be different.What about having Harry sharing the big picture with one of the new characters every week?Are they allowed to do that?
Have to say this week’s Dandy is even better than the last issue.
Both my kids loved it, so much in fact that after my 8 year old daughter had read this week’s issue, she immediately picked up last week’s issue and reread her favourites again (Harry Hill and Pre School Prime Minister).
I thought this weeks issue was even better as well.The Harry hill strip,the Madvertisement and Kid cops were all laugh out loud funny.I can see what people mean about the cover being very similar to the previous week,(my girlfriend thought I was rereading last weeks issue when she saw me with it!) but I wondered if they are just trying to establish Harry as the cover star using a similar image maybe for the first month or so, and once his involvement is widely known then they can start playing with the cover format a bit more. I for one would like to see a cover featuring just the dome of Harrys head and his specs visible maybe with a knitted character sat on top.erm,just a thought?!
Keep up the good work Lew!
Oh forgot to ask Lew, don't suppose you know when the new Dandy website will be up and running, keep clicking the link but it still takes you too the old site. thanks :-)
Hi Peter, The link seems to work ok from here. It takes you to the new site featuring Harry Hill on the home page. Could your computer be showing you a page from your cache?
Dandy covers could feature Harry in a scene from his strip (not an actual panel from the strip though) just like Beano does with Dennis. That should provide enough variety.
And Peter, Lew's right, I had to refresh to get the new site to show up once I saw the Twitter post saying it was live last week.
Postman Prat is the best thing in it!! Well done Lew on achieving that lifelong ambition!
Thanks! Coincidentally I'm just colouring the Postman Prat for issue 3513 right now!
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