Cover reveal: DANDY SUMMER SPECIAL 2018

Here's the cover to this year's Dandy Summer Special, as revealed on the D.C. Thomson website this week. It'll be published on June 13th but you can pre-order it from the publishers themselves:
https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/our-brands/dandy/dandy-summer-special-2018.html

I understand the contents will be entirely all-reprint again, as they have been for the last few years, but it'll be interesting to see what selection of stories have been chosen. 

The cover, by Ken Harrison, is brand new, and in the fine tradition of Summer Specials of old.

The Beano Summer Special is already out, and contains all-new content. It can also be ordered from the publisher.

It was a HOOT (1985)

In 1985 IPC were still developing Oink! (which had begun its genesis in 1984). The finished product wouldn't appear until May 1986 but in the meantime, D.C. Thomson launched Hoot No.1 in October 1985. 

It was probably just coincidence but I've often wondered if Thomsons had gotten wind of IPC's plans and had decided to beat them to it with their own wild, cheeky comic. Admittedly, the differences between Hoot and Oink! are like chalk and cheese but Hoot definitely had a more robust edge to its companion comics so there are similarities. Perhaps it was just coincidence and the mood of the times had inspired it, but Hoot did feature a pig hero in Piggles so I dunno. Rivalry between Thomsons and IPC was quite fierce in those days.

The similarities are minimal though, and Hoot deserves credit for its own achievements. It was certainly a very energetic comic, and using Barrie Appleby as cover artist helped in that regard. The cover strip was Cuddles, the naughty baby causing havoc for his poor parents. Later, when Hoot merged into The Dandy, Cuddles would join up with a neighbour; that comic's naughty baby Dimples, and the strip became Cuddles and Dimples. Later, the concept was tweaked and they became brothers, with one set of parents never mentioned again. 

Hoot was a very slim comic for its time; just 16 pages, and costing 20p. Of those 16 pages, 8 were in full colour, 4 in red spot colour, and 4 in black and white. Slapstick and sound effects abounded in the comic. This was a wilder, noisier, less restrained comic than The Beano of that era.

On page 2 every week was a full page illustration by Ken Harrison featuring The Hoot Squad, a modern-day Casey Court, with kids running riot in a different situation every issue. These pages deserve collecting into a book, although subsequent weeks might raise a few eyebrows these days with the boys cheekily admiring mini-skirted teachers.

Hoot made up for being a slim comic by packing in shorter strips to give value, such as this page of mini-strips drawn by George Martin featuring characters from other comics.

The centrespread of Hoot featured Dogsbody, by John Geering, featuring a boy who transformed into a dog.

David Mostyn was quite prolific in humour comics of the 1980s and his work was always a pleasure to see. For Hoot he drew Snackula...

The comic rounded off with Spotted Dick, a kid who seemed permanently stuck in hospital due to being "very spotty". Another opportunity for Barrie Mitchell to illustrate his traditional chaotic scenes to great effect.

Hoot ran for just one year before merging into The Dandy. A shame, as it deserved to last longer, but the 1980s were tough times for British comics. The boom period of the traditional weekly comic had definitely started to decline by then, and the rise of licensed comics and changing frequencies had begun. 

CRACKER No.1 (1975)

Two weeks after the final issue of Buzz was published, D.C. Thomson launched a comic that was clearly intended as a replacement. Cracker No.1 arrived on Saturday 11th January 1975, complete with 'Squeeze and Squeak' free gift. (This was basically two balloons with a tiny squeaker attached between them. Squeeze the smaller balloon, and the air passing through caused the squeak.)

As we saw in my previous post, Buzz was a 16 page tabloid comic. Perhaps realising that tabloid comics were going out of favour, Thomsons made Cracker an A4 size comic, like Beano, Dandy, and Sparky. However, Cracker had 32 pages, more than any other Thomson humour comic of the time, presumably to compete with IPC's 32 page funnies. 

Cracker's host was 'Sammy', a somewhat ugly and unpleasant looking kid that I couldn't imagine any reader identifying with. While it made a refreshing change to IPC's rather bland looking characters such as Sid or Toy Boy, 'Sammy' looked like he'd seen and done unspeakable evil. 

Cracker had a lively content of strips, including a couple of adventure serials. Stories featuring castaways had been a popular theme in UK comics for decades, and Castaways on Planet Doom featured a family mysteriously transported to another world. It also featured the most powerful binoculars in the universe apparently...

Billy the Kid and Pongo was pretty much Cracker's version of Dennis and Gnasher, even to the point of it being drawn by Gordon Bell, who had ghosted Dennis the Menace lots of times.

The centre four pages of Cracker were the Schooldaze section, featuring school-based strips. The centrespread featured The Headhunters, which was basically a continuation of Skookum Skool from the defunct Buzz, featuring the same class. Art by Ken Harrison... 

Kid gangs using a shed as their gang hut had been used in The Beezer's Banana Bunch and Pow's The Group, and Cracker had Curly's Commandos with the same premise. Art by Barrie Appleby...

The other adventure strip in the comic was indeed a cracker; Iron Hand, wonderfully illustrated by Paddy Brennan, one of Thomson's best artists...

Cracker included a few comedy feature pages too, such as this one on the back page...

Sadly, the 1970s were unstable times for British comics and Cracker only managed 87 weekly issues before merging into The Beezer in 1976. 

BUZZ No.1 (1973)

In 1973 D.C. Thomson launched their first new humour weekly since Sparky eight years earlier. Its name was Buzz and it was in the 16 page tabloid format like Topper and Beezer. This seemed unusual at the time, considering that the tabloid size wasn't as popular as it used to be. 

Perhaps its size proved to be a disadvantage, as Buzz only lasted for two years before merging into Topper. For today though, let's have a look at a few pages from Buzz No.1, published on Saturday 13th January 1973...

The cover strip, Hop, Skip and Jock, was drawn by Mal Judge, who had been the original artist on Billy Whizz for The Beano. The Buzz cover strip ended with a busy large panel every week in the style of Casey Court in Chips of decades earlier.

Buzz featured no adventure strips and was 100% dedicated to humour. Amongst its contents was Skookum Skool, a typical "naughty classroom" strip, drawn by Ken Harrison...

Like Topper and Beezer, Buzz had 16 pages consisting of 8 in full colour and 8 in red spot colour. The centre pages of the early issues featured The Twitz of the Ritz drawn by Bill Ritchie...

Another strip drawn by Ken Harrison was Jimmy Jinx and what he thinks, featuring a boy struggling with his conscience...

On the back page was Calamity Kate, drawn by George Martin, a master of visual slapstick...

I was 13 when it was launched so I was a bit too old for Buzz but I'm sure it had its followers who enjoyed it. The comic is barely mentioned these days and I suspect some collectors have never heard of it. If you have any thoughts about Buzz, leave a comment below...

The new DANDY ANNUAL is here!

Although the weekly Dandy went to that great newsagents in the sky back in 2012, the annual continues with all-new material. The Dandy Annual 2017 was published today so I thought I'd give you a sneak preview. Look away now if you're waiting until Christmas Day to find out what it contains. 

Firstly, an apology. Unfortunately the Korky the Cat page I did, that I previewed on my blog (here) the other week, hasn't made it to the finished book. They've chosen to use Korky mini-strips by Nigel Auchterlounie instead. A disappointment for me, but I've no problem with Nigel's work on course. I'm hoping my page will appear in the 2018 book or somewhere else. (A lesson learned though. I won't be running any more previews of my work on my blogs until I'm sure the strips are in print.)

Desperate Dan is in the annual of course, drawn by Ken Harrison (who also did the cover). It's good to see such an iconic character back in print...

Talking of old characters, Dirty Dick makes a surprising return after an absence of many years, with five mini-strips illustrated by Karl Dixon...

Recent Dandy Annuals have only featured 'classic' characters but this year shakes things up a bit by including some of the newer characters. I'm pleased to say I contributed five Kid Cops mini-strips and several pages of Postman Prat (two of which were written by David Mason). I'm particularly pleased with a two page Postman Prat Christmas story I've written and drawn, which is in the centre pages of the book...

There's a light adventure strip in the form of Secret Agent Sally, by Karl Dixon, that runs in several parts throughout the annual...

Kev F. Sutherland makes his return, with two long stories featuring various characters...

The rest of the 112 pages in the annual are packed with strips such as Winker Watson by Wilbur Dawburn, Cuddles and Dimples by Nigel Parkinson, The Jocks and the Geordies by Paul Palmer, Agent Dog 2 Zero by Wayne Thompson, Bad Grandad by Andy Fanton, My Dad's A Doofus by Jamie Smart, and much more.

The Dandy Annual 2017, R.R.P. £7.99. Available now from online booksellers and in the shops soon. 

Christmas Comics: The DANDY (1998)

Throughout its 75 year run The Dandy was a top class comic, and the Christmas issue of 1998 was no exception. A fantastic front cover by Keith Robson served as a perfect taster for an excellent edition. 

There was so much good material in this issue that it wasn't easy narrowing it down to a few to show here but here we go, starting with an Owen Goal page by Nigel Parkinson and a really nicely designed festive logo...

On page 10, Beryl the Peril by Robert Nixon, who excelled at Christmas scenes. Just look at that final panel, crammed with festive iconography...

Next, The Smasher drawn by Brian Walker. Just about as Christmas as it gets. Excellent stuff.

This issue had a number of special one-off strips, such as The Night Before Christmas by Ken Harrison...

There were three pages of jokes in this issue under the title Tis the Season to be Jolly, all by different illustrators. This one was by veteran artist Ken Hunter...

Finally, a text story, Bedtime Tales by Bradley Bedsock. Actually it was illustrated by Dave Sutherland...

Another Christmas treat soon. Which year will the Blimey-Timey Machine choose next? 

Cor! Wor Nicky joins The Sunday Post

Thanks to 'colcool007' on the Comics UK Forum for bringing this to my attention. Today's issue of The Sunday Post introduces a brand new regular comic strip; Wor Nicky, written by Morris Heggie and illustrated by Ken Harrison.

Billed as "Our first all-new cartoon since 1936" Wor Nicky is a community nurse and a "feisty lass from Geordieland". A non-Scot comics character in the Post? Yes indeed, as the paper acknowledges that one-third of its sales are in England, primarily in the North East.

Comic fans will recognise the name of Ken Harrison as the artist who has previously drawn The Broons and Oor Wullie for the paper, along with many pages for the DC Thomson comics over the years, including a long run on Desperate Dan for The Dandy. 

The Broons and Oor Wullie still continue every week of course, along with mini-strip Wee Harry, all drawn these days by Peter Davidson.

You can read all about the new strip over on the Sunday Post website.

Desperate Dan's long road to cover stardom

  
Desperate Dan was always one of The Dandy's top strips, right from his debut in issue No.1 back in 1937. How could it not be, with fantastic artwork by Dudley D. Watkins?  However, editors chose not to make him the cover star until 1984! My guess is that perhaps they felt that Korky the Cat was a more appropriate opener, with its simplicity and slapstick. I loved both strips as a child but for me Korky was the ideal cover strip.

So, Dan was kept off the cover for almost 50 years. Well, not quite. Here's an example above from The Dandy No.1398 (September 7th 1968) which actually addresses the situation with Dan wanting to know why he's not the cover star. Artwork by regular Korky artist Charlie Grigg who would also become the artist on Desperate Dan in the annuals and specials after Dudley Watkins' untimely death a year later. 

Dan also guest starred on the cover of The Dandy No.1663 (October 6th 1973) in the Korky the Cat strip promoting that week's free gift.

A rare example of Dan drawing his gun.

The idea was repeated nine years later on the cover of The Dandy No.2105 (March 27th 1982). The concussed cat could also be considered as Dan getting his own back on Korky for the prank the moggy pulled on him in 1968!

Dan gets a new shirt.

A year later and Desperate Dan takes up residence beside the new Dandy logo for The Dandy No.2149 (January 29th 1983). A waxwork of Dan also appears in the Korky strip, along with figures of other Dandy characters. Korky's star was falling...

That same issue saw the beginning of all-new Desperate Dan strips running across the centre pages. Previous to this Dan had been a single page black and white strip, and reprints of Dudley Watkins' classics had been running since 1969, with occasional new ones by Charlie Grigg. But Charlie was about to retire from regular comics work so for the new colour series came a new artist on the strip, - Ken H. Harrison - and a shift towards Dan's personality becoming more childlike...

Finally, with The Dandy No.2243 (November 17th 1984) Desperate Dan was established as the new cover strip, elbowing Korky the Cat into the interior pages, although Korky gained a place by the masthead with a vignette drawn by Charlie Grigg. (Korky's first interior strips, now drawn by David Gudgeon, were obviously originally intended for the covers as a large Korky logo and house ad took up the space where the cover masthead would have been.)

Desperate Dan appeared as the cover story for over ten years, eventually being replaced by Cuddles & Dimples, Jak and various others, but he still makes an appearance on covers at times, now drawn by Jamie Smart. You can't keep a good Dan down. Besides, who's going to argue with him?