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Wednesday, December 09, 2015

The Christmas BEANO (2015)

We saw the 1967 issue in the previous post, now here's the very latest Christmas edition of The Beano which was published today. As you can see it has changed considerably since that issue of 48 years ago. Today's issue has an emphasis on gifts; a set of pranks that dominate the packaging. 

Open the card envelope and you'll find the comic itself, with a cover by Nigel Parkinson. Readers are encouraged to colour the cover and e-mail it to The Beano office, where they stand a chance of being shown on the comic's website. 

The page count of the issue is the usual 36 pages, but there's an extra-length Dennis the Menace Christmas story. Again, artwork by Nigel Parkinson...

All the top Beano stars are here, including The Numskulls by Nigel Auchterlounie...

The Bash Street Kids drawn by David Sutherland...

Plus Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger, Bananaman, Billy Whizz, and more. Hunt Emerson has a strip on the back page too!

Some characters are absent this issue. There are no mini-strips for example. We do however get two pages of Tricky Dicky's School Pranks superbly drawn by Laura Howell, even though there's no regular Tricky Dicky strip. There are also a number of feature pages which I presume are only temporary for this festive issue. 

This Christmas edition of The Beano costs £3.99 and would make an ideal stocking filler or pre-Christmas present. (I used to enjoy reading The Christmas Beano on Christmas Eve when I was a kid.) This special issue will be on sale for three weeks and the next issue will be on sale December 30th.   

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was a Beano Christmas special in my local Tesco about 6-8 weeks ago but they sold out and no more came in - so I don't understand the difference between that and this regular Beano ?

Lew Stringer said...

The other one had more pages and was a softback 'bookazine'. This one is the regular weekly. Calling them both Christmas Specials might confuse some buyers though admittedly.

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