The front covers to some of the 2013 annuals have been revealed on the websites of online mail order companies. Amazon has a fair number of covers shown but it's Play.com that have the images to the comic annuals on display. As you can see above, The Beano Annual 2013 and The Dandy Annual 2013 (cover by Nigel Parkinson) both celebrate the 75th anniversaries of their titles.
There'll be more than a hint of nostalgia to this year's Dandy Annual as it'll be packed with old favourites given a new spin. I've done six single page strips for the book, three of one character and three of another. I'll keep one of those secret for now but today I'll reveal that one of them is... The Smasher! The original strip began in The Dandy in 1957, drawn by Hugh Morren, and had a very long run. It was later drawn by Brian Walker. I haven't even attempted to mimic the styles of those two greats but I hope readers enjoy my version. I wrote the scripts for the three strips as well. As a nod to the past, Smasher retains his black mop of hair and the diamond pattern on his top. I've also used a couple of the 1960s logos which I scanned from the comics, cleaned up in Photoshop, and recoloured. Smashin' nostalgia, hopefully! The image shown is the opening panel to one of the stories.
The 2013 annuals will begin to arrive in bookshops from early July. As usual, the listings are dominated by licensed titles. Here's just three of them...
There's also titles for older readers, including The People's Friend and My Weekly annuals with prose stories for your mums, aunts and grandmas...
Last but not least, the Oor Wullie book, which still appears every other year alternating with The Broons...
