Out now! Classic collection of Beano and Dandy covers!

You may remember that back in 2013, the company Phil Comics published an officially licensed book of Dandy and Beano Christmas covers? Well, now they've issued a companion book and it's equally as amazing as the first, - and has 100 more pages!

Beano and The Dandy - Classic Comic Covers 1937 to 1988 showcases a great selection of vintage covers scanned from the actual comics. Themes such as Easter, fireworks, the Coronation, Christmas, and more are represented with excellent reproduction. Truly a great book for all ages this Christmas! 

Here's the press release from Phil-Comics with details of how to buy a copy...

Hold the front page!
‘Beano and The Dandy – Classic Comic Covers 1937-1988’

We’re over the moon to say that after many months of hard work our brand new book has just been published!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274077259164

Following the popularity of our first book in 2013, which reprinted the classic Christmas covers of the two comics from 1937-1969, this book celebrates some of the very best front covers of our two favourite British comics from 1937 to 1988, their first fifty years.

We have searched high and low in our own collection, browsed through our auction results archive and spent several months tracking down some elusive issues to showcase in the book. We’re indebted to a variety of very good people who assisted with its production, not least a handful of collectors who diligently scanned many covers of elusive comics from their collections.

The eighty Beano covers and eighty covers of The Dandy chosen are some of the most iconic and attractive front covers, made up of firework, Easter, new year, Christmas, landmark issues, birthday numbers, free gift editions and some that just tickled our fancy. There’s a four page introduction and the added bonus of four previously unseen pages of original front cover artwork, provided by the archivists at DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.

The book is hardback with a matt laminated dustjacket and 176 full colour matt pages, so it is very much a coffee table book and collectors’ item. Collectors who own a copy of our first book will be pleased to hear that this latest edition has 100 more pages and is nearly an inch thick.

It's available to buy either direct from us or at the following eBay link:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274077259164

Please share this post, tell your collector friends and indeed anyone who may have read the comic growing up - it'll make a marvellous Christmas present!

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The New Year DANDY (1965)

Let's head back to 1965 to see how The Dandy celebrated its New Year. Snow was still on the logo from the Christmas issue (obviously a cold spell in Dandytown) and the comic was on a high, with top class artwork throughout. Here's a few examples...

The cover above is by the great Charlie Grigg, who had redefined Korky the Cat from James Crighton's original version into a distinctive character loved by millions.  

Inside, Desperate Dan was in his regular place on page two with this cracking story by Dudley Watkins...

Dirty Dick was out on the snow-covered streets of New Year's Day wearing short trousers... as we did back then 365 days of the year! (It wasn't the done thing to wear long trousers until you started secondary school at 11 years old!) It may seem very strange now, but that's how it was and we just got used to it! Art by Eric Roberts...

Brassneck had only been running in The Dandy for a few weeks by the time this episode appeared. This is only the sixth Brassneck story, but it would run for many years afterwards. Art by the superb Bill Holroyd, a master of comedy adventure strips such as this...

On the back page, Big Head and Thick Head are off to a New Year's Eve party. Ken Reid had been the original artist but after he left to work for Wham! earlier in 1964, Frank McDiarmid took over the strip. As you can see, Frank could "ghost" Ken's style very well, whilst still retaining elements of his own style...

There'll be one last New Year comic tomorrow, on New Year's Eve! Drop by to join the celebrations! 

The Umbrella Men (1965)

One of my favourite adventure strips as a child was The Umbrella Men, illustrated by Charles Grigg, that ran in The Dandy from No.1255 (December 11th 1965) to No.1290 (August 13th 1966). Not a particularly long run, but a very memorable one, and just the right length for a young reader before they grew tired of it. (Time seems slower when you're young, mainly because there are so many new experiences I guess. Every day is an adventure.)

The Dandy had a brilliant knack of taking something ordinary and turning it into something menacing in their adventure strips; a ball (The Crimson Ball), a cactus (The Red Wrecker), bees (The Stinging Swarm), and the humble brolly (The Umbrella Men). It's a wonder we didn't all turn out paranoid! Thankfully, most well-adjusted kids know the difference between fantasy and reality so these strips were just exciting escapism we looked forward to every Monday.

Here are the first two episodes of the serial, from The Dandy Nos.1255 and 1256, way back in December 1965... 

In 2010, for the final issue of The Dandy, (No.3610, 8th December 2012), the comic revived a lot of old characters for one last appearance, and I had the honour of writing and drawing The Umbrella Men as a not-too-serious final mini-strip...

  

The Dandy's 80th anniversary

Today marks 80 years since The Dandy No.1 was in newsagents. Truth be told, December 4th 1937 was only the cover date, so it would have been out a few days before then, but that's the date that is usually celebrated.

Sadly, five years ago this week was when the final issue of The Dandy appeared, rounding off its record-breaking 75 year run with a huge bumper issue. The comic had reinvented itself a few times over its last few years, but nothing could halt the fall in sales that had plagued every other traditional comic. What was remarkable is that it hung on for so long, in a fickle marketplace where many comics have fallen within their first year. The irony is that final issue was so sought-after that it had to go to a second printing.

Why did The Dandy eventually fold, while The Beano keeps on going? I think it was down to the content. Every week since the mid-1950s, The Beano has retained a core line-up of kid characters such as Dennis the Menace, Roger the Dodger, Minnie the Minx and The Bash Street Kids that readers can relate to, and parents (and grandparents) can recognise. Apart from Desperate Dan, The Dandy tended to change its content from time to time, never quite establishing the same recognition factor for its characters. 

It was a privilege to be one of the contributors to The Dandy during its final two years, when it had rebooted itself as a modern style comic as a change from the disastrous Dandy Xtreme magazine/comic hybrid it had become. Despite a handful of cranky critics going over the top with their condemnation of the new-look Dandy, it was well received by many children it was aimed at. However, ever-declining distribution in shops and a young new readership unaccustomed to the habit of buying weekly comics were part of the problem. At least it went out on a high, with what must be the best final issue of a British comic ever seen; a bumper issue packed with revivals of old characters and selected reprints, and a story ending with the cast of characters singing Hey Jude, accompanied by Paul McCartney (with Paul's blessing). 

That wasn't entirely the end though. The Dandy tried an online version for a few weeks, but it was beset with technical problems and quietly faded away. However, The Dandy Annual continues to be published every year, full of new material and no reprints. There's also a Dandy Summer Special every year (although that is all-reprint), so the title is far from dead yet. 

Happy 80th anniversary to The Dandy! It was the first comic I read regularly (from 1964 onwards) and remained a firm favourite of mine for decades after. It was an honour to have been part of its legacy. 

The Crimson Ball!

Until its later decades, The Dandy used to feature some distinctive adventure serials alongside its humour content. One of which was The Crimson Ball, which ran from issue No.1144 (26th October 1963) to No.1174 (23rd May 1964) and in The Dandy Book 1965 (published 1964). 

The artist was Jack Glass, who had been a frequent contributor to the weekly since the first issue in 1937. The plot was quite bizarre, and had a childlike quality that appealed to its readers; a giant ball appears one day and coaxes a schoolboy to lead it to the nearest airfield, whereupon it begins smashing up the aircraft.

Later episodes revealed that the ball had a "master"; a foreign spy inside the ball, controlling its mechanisms. Why this spy needed a schoolboy to lead him to the airfield isn't made clear, (didn't he know how to read a map?) but it was a way to introduce an ongoing young character that the readers could relate to and root for. 

Yes, the premise was very basic and naive but that was part of its charm. A story that readers could easily emulate with their toys. I loved this strip when I was four years old. It was actually the first adventure series I read. By the time I first saw it in 1964, I'd missed the early chapters but I recently bought The Dandy No.1144 where the story began in 1963, so I thought I'd show that first chapter here today. I won't show how the series ends in case D.C. Thomson ever reprint the whole saga, (although that's not looking likely). I hope you enjoy this peek into the past.

From The Dandy Book 1965, opposite a Ken Reid page.

Prat returns!

The Dandy Annual 2018 will be out very soon, and Postman Prat returns in its pages. Here's a clip of one of the pages I did for the book.

You can order your copy directly from D.C. Thomson...
https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/our-brands/dandy/dandy-annual-2018.html

Christmas comics: THE DANDY (1966)

This Christmas issue of the much-missed Dandy was published exactly 50 years ago today. (Despite its cover date it was published on Monday 19th December 1966.) Full of traditional festive fun, the cover star was of course Korky the Cat, drawn by Charlie Grigg. That final panel covers a lot of the sort of presents that children would have had back then, although for commercial reasons the biggest toy of 1966, Action Man, isn't amongst them. Perhaps Korky was holding out for an Action Cat instead. 

The Dandy only had 16 pages a week in the 1960s, but it made the most of it, with Desperate Dan for example having 19 panels on one page. Artwork by the legendary Dudley Watkins...

D.C. Thomson always did compelling adverts for their annuals, as this one proves. A simple but lively layout that made the book a must-have Christmas present. The price of 8/6d (42 and a half pence) seemed expensive then...

The centre pages at this time were always taken up by Corporal Clott, drawn by Davy Law. Genuinely funny stuff...

The Smasher, by Hugh Morren. (For the Smasher's latest exploits, which I've drawn, see this year's Dandy Annual.)

Finally, in this selection, the popular Brassneck, illustrated by Bill Holroyd, one of the best (and often underrated) artists that worked in comics...

The sad thing is that all of the artists who drew these strips have passed on now, but at least they leave behind a legacy of laughs and wonderful artwork we can still discover and appreciate. 

Tomorrow; a journey even further back in time! See you on Tuesday!

Korky Christmas Card

I showed this on my blog six years ago but Craig Graham at D.C. Thomson has sent me a nice large version of it so here it is again. This is the original art for a Christmas card that would have been sent to Dandy contributors many years ago. It looks like James Crichton's version of Korky to me, so I'm guessing it's from the 1950s or at the latest before 1961 when Charlie Grigg took over the Korky strip. 

By the way, today, December 4th, is significant for a few reasons. One, it's the 79th anniversary of The Dandy comic, launched in 1937. It was also this day in 2012 when, after 75 years, The Dandy ended.

Today will also be a sad one for the family of Charlie Grigg, who passed away three years ago in 2013. I wrote a tribute to the great man back then so today seems an appropriate time to repost the link as we remember them in our thoughts:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/charles-grigg-1916-2013.html

Korky's Halloween (1981)

Back in the days when Halloween wasn't such a big thing in the UK, this cover strip by Charlie Grigg was The Dandy's only mention of Halloween in the entire comic. And not a bat or spooky cosplayer in sight!
The Dandy No.2084 (1981).

Ken Reid's ALI HA-HA (1960)

Just time for a quick post today. Here are a few samples of a strip that Ken Reid drew for the back page of The Dandy back in 1960. Ali Ha-Ha and the 40 Thieves began with the one above in The Dandy No.986, dated October 15th 1960, the first issue billed as "The New BIG Dandy" when the comic increased its page count from 12 to 16 pages every week. That may seem miniscule by today's standards but not in post-war Britain when many comics only had 16 or 20 pages. 

Here are the other two examples I have, scanned from my collection. The second episode from The Dandy No.987 (October 22nd 1960)...

...and the fifth episode from The Dandy No.990 (Nov.12th 1960). My apologies for the poor state of that bottom left hand corner, which was torn and repaired with magic tape...

Ali Ha-Ha and the 40 Thieves ran in The Dandy from No.968 (15th Oct.1960, as shown at the top of this post) until No.1117 (20th April 1963). It was then replaced by another series Ken drew; Big Head and Thick Head. There are already some examples of that on my blog but I'll show more in a future post.

Five year Flashback: The new-look Dandy

Cover by Nigel Parkinson.

Five years ago today, on October 27th 2010, comic readers had their first view of the new look Dandy as it went on sale in newsagents across the UK. A complete revamp that jettisoned the Dandy Xtreme magazine/comic hybrid version to return to the traditional all-comics format. It was a bold move but the reaction from many was positive, welcoming the changes and enjoying the comic for what it was; 32 pages of all-new, all-daft fun for kids of all ages. 

Sadly the revamp probably came too late to halt the decline in sales that had begun years before. After the expected rise in circulation due to speculators, collectors, and curious types, the sales dipped again (not helped by shops cutting back their orders after the initial push) and The Dandy closed for good in 2012 on its 75th anniversary. But we went out on a high with a bumper issue and it was a comic we were all proud to contribute to. Typically, those speculators, collectors, and curious types came back for the last issue and it had to be reprinted to satisfy demand! That's the comics biz! 

You can read the post I did five years ago about the revamp here:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/dandy-xtreme-is-dead-here-comes-new.html

Thankfully The Dandy Annual survives, and the 2016 dated edition is out now. We're also currently hard at work drawing pages for the 2017 edition, out next July.  

This week in 1965...

I haven't done one of these for a while, where I look back at several comics from years ago that were published in the same week. Above is my photo of how a newsagents counter may have looked this week exactly 50 years ago when all of these issues were on sale! Half a Century ago! Blimey!

Let's start off with the issue of Valiant that went on sale Saturday 20th February 1965. Cover by Mike Western which looked back on other events of this week in times past...

Inside, the dark, tense artwork of Solano Lopez with the latest Kelly's Eye chapter. These old strips certainly knew how to deliver a great cliffhanger!

As the topline on the cover promised, this issue saw the start of a new adventure with The Wild Wonders, drawn by Mike Western...

A good horror/mystery serial in Valiant at that time was Jack O'Justice, drawn by Tom Kerr... 

That issue also carried a half page ad for that week's Buster and The Big One which featured a free gift...

Monday 22nd February 1965 saw the publication of The Dandy No.1214 with a very amusing Korky the Cat strip drawn by Charlie Grigg...

Inside, Dudley D. Watkins proved what a master comic artist he was with a Desperate Dan strip with 17 panels on one page...

The Smasher was up to mischief as usual, drawn by Hugh Morren. Note the advert at the foot of the page, heralding the start of Greedy Pigg the following week! (Greedy Pigg would replace George Martin's Sunny Boy which ended that week.)

The Dandy carried a regular feature page back then called My Home Town. Humour illustrations by Frank McDiarmid, with the 'straight' artwork by Thomson staff artist Alan Gibson. (Thanks to Ray Moore for correcting me on that.) Note the ads for that week's Bimbo and Diana at the bottom of the page...

The same day saw the publication of Wham! No.37, with a cover by Graham Allen doing his best to 'ghost' Leo Baxendale's style...

This issue of Wham! saw the debut of two new strips. In actuality they were both reprints from Swift. Western serial Johnny Straight by Don Lawrence was a re-lettered reprint of Wells Fargo...

...whilst The Bouncers by Peter Maddocks was also reprinted from Swift.

The rest of Wham! was still all-new though, and worth every penny. Especially with Leo Baxendale's glorious centre-spread strip Eagle Eye: Doomsday School...

This week in 1965 saw the publication of TV21 No.6. (Apologies for my copy having a bit missing from the cover.)

An important issue as it saw Mike Noble's arrival to TV21, taking over the art duties on Fireball XL5...

On the back page, The Daleks were proving to be more devious and cunning than they'd be portrayed in some of their TV appearances. Artwork by Richard Jennings...

Sparky was also on issue No.6 that week. Cover by Ron Spencer. My apologies if anyone is offended by the strip. Presented as it was in different times. Thankfully things have moved on since.

The centre pages featured another adventure with Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora with artwork by George Ramsbottom. (Thanks to Ray Moore for that info.) One of the weirdest things about this strip was that every week the sleepy siblings shared the same dream! 

On the back page, another nice Moonsters strip by Bill Ritchie...

Just a few examples of the wide variety of strips from the many British comics that were available 50 years ago. It was a great time to be a child!