The Summer Specials finally arrived at my local shops yesterday (although they've been in some parts of the country for a couple of weeks). These days they're no longer in the tabloid format they had years ago, but they're twice as thick and squarebound with sturdy card covers.
The Dandy Summer Special 2014 has caused a little controversy in some fan circles because last year's edition promised to be the "Last Ever". Indeed, that was the intention, until WH Smith suggested to DC Thomson that as it sold so well it might be a good idea to continue it. This last minute decision to revive the title sadly meant that there was no time to commission new material (save for covers by Mike D) but what we have instead is a fine collection of reprints spanning the 1960s to 2010. Yes, as some have noted, one page of a Blinky story is printed twice by mistake (due to the short production time), but hopefully the other 66 pages in the comic will prove sufficiently rewarding. My opinion: focus on the positives. There's a lot of misery in life but a mistake in a comic isn't part of it.
I was particularly pleased to see one of my favourite Smasher strips by Hugh Morren from The Dandy Summer Special 1967, and a Dudley Watkins Desperate Dan from that year too. And look, - The Smasher strip features a teacher whacking him. It seems Political Correctness hasn't gone mad after all.
There are also a couple of Winker Watson strips by Eric Roberts (from the 1970s I think) and a 1983 Brassneck strip by Bill Holroyd. For those of you with more recent nostalgia, there's a good selection of material from the 1980s and 1990s too.
The Beano Summer Activity Special 2014 contains a free gift of bound-in stickers, although a few people have reported these are not in their copies so check before you buy.
The Beano one is all new, and features a good balance of comic strips and puzzle pages. Only the main Beano characters are included, so there's plenty of fun with Dennis, Minnie, Bash Street etc. but no appearances by Rasher, Tricky Dicky and suchlike.
Both specials should now be available from WH Smith, Asda, and other retailers at £4.99 each for 68 pages.
8 comments:
It's a bit strange to see a Summer Special looking like a hardback annual.
They're soft back 'bookazines' Colin. They've been in that format for 2 or 3 years now. As the weeklies are glossy full colour comics now, the specials need to look more... Special. So they went with the bookazine format.
The Bash Street strips seem to be reprints.
Yes, I thought they might be, as David Sutherland's style is slightly different these days.
Are all the Bash Street strips reprint or just some of them?
I like that "bookazine" format it looks tidy and value for money - I recall the classic originals in the 60s and even as a kid thought they were not value for money (at the time ) these new formats to me do look better value - I only bought the Dandy issue s(as not a collector /reader ) for the older strips - just how good was Bill Holroyd (Brassneck etc) and the shame is I never really appreciated his work as a kid (the shame)
I don't know, Anon. There's plenty of new material in the special though.
Paul, agreed. Bill Holroyd was a fantastic artist. Brilliant slapstick stuff and very well illustrated. Did you know he was Ken Reid's brother in law?
I wasn't aware of that Lew, that is interesting to know a talented family
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