2010 Annual

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

I'm only 60 miles from Dundee, Lew, and still not hide nor hair of any Thomson annuals!

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Steve Henderson
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Steve Henderson »

I hope waiting till the price drops dosent effect the likelyhood of there being more annuals, we all like a bargain but the unfortunate fact is that if they dont make money they will stop making them. Saying this I dont know if its of any real threat!

Lew Stringer
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Lew Stringer »

Digifiend wrote:My local newsagent has the Beano and Dandy annuals, but not the Beano, BeanoMax or Dandy Xtreme comics. Very strange. :?
Surprising. My newsagents haven't taken annuals for years, saying they were "a nuisance" and "a waste of time" because they took up shelf space for too long without selling.

Only places I can get them locally are WH Smith and Waterstones, neither of which have them yet.

Lew
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Digifiend
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Digifiend »

The newsagent in question just had a refit, having been taken over by Martin McColls, so I think their range has just changed. They've never sold Beanomax, but I'm sure they used to sell Beano and Dandy. It's actually surprising to me too, as in past years they haven't sold annuals at all. McColls must have a different policy to the previous owners who had traded as Premier (a franchise) since United News sold off most of its shops.

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Sidnny
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Sidnny »

I haven't seen any new annuals in the shops yet either. Not that I will be buying them any time soon. I always wait until my town has its annual late night shopping (a special event) at the beginning of December.
Reading comics since 1969. My comics are: The Dandy Xtreme (since 1969), 2000AD (since 1977), Judge Dredd Megazine (since 1990) and Spaceship Away (since 2003).

Lew Stringer
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Lew Stringer »

Just bought the Beano Annual from my local Smiths but apparently they're not sure if they're having any other Thomson annuals this year. Incredible how times have changed.

By the way; the revival of the Century 21 Annual I mentioned on another thread has been canceled before publication due to poor response from retailers. Orders were too low to warrant publishing it, presumably because today's spotty herberts doing the orders either didn't know what Stingray and Thunderbirds were, or were not aware there's an adult following for those TV21 strips.

Seems a generation of license-based comics has created inwardly-looking people who only order books with characters they've heard of. :(

Lew
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Digifiend
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Digifiend »

:shock: WHAT!?! Did you just say WHSmith aren't selling the Dandy, Bash Street, Dennis & Gnasher, Beano/Dandy Winter Games, Bunty 50th anniversary, Broons and Oor Wullie annuals? Very surprising and disappointing news. :(

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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Lew Stringer »

Digifiend wrote::shock: WHAT!?! Did you just say WHSmith aren't selling the Dandy, Bash Street, Dennis & Gnasher, Beano/Dandy Winter Games, Bunty 50th anniversary, Broons and Oor Wullie annuals? Very surprising and disappointing news. :(
No, I only said my local branch might not be having them.

Lew
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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Imagine if we have to order comic/cartoon books by online dealers only.....mind you, it's happening already...even I'm doing it! I prefer looking through the books in the shops, though.....

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Digifiend
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Digifiend »

That's a sentiment I agree with ISPY. If you can't look through them at the shops, nobody's gonna buy something they don't recognise. In other words, they'll buy the stupid tat such as Hannah Montana (!) and Ben 10 instead of those based on proper comics. Which would mean the end of almost any non-licenced title, including DCT's unfortunately.

Fleetway's annuals have been gone for some time (since 1994 isn't it? I'm not counting Egmont since those are all licenced titles) and DCT's could wind up going the same way - Bunty already has apparently, being replaced with a book more akin to the Beano/Dandy 70 Years one. Of course, the problem is that comics themselves have all but disappeared in their traditional form - I had an argument yesterday on another forum with an American who didn't realise British comics weren't anything like US comic books (almost 100% strips and advertising, none of this video game/TV/movie review nonsense) any more. They thought the licenced tat I refer to weren't comics but magazines. That's not what British retailers would say, unfortunately. Oh, for a return to the old days. By the time I started collecting (mid 90s), the comics industry was already in terminal decline. The annuals have, I'm sad to say, done well to last this long. If distribution is going to be a problem, DCT need to get them out early like every other publisher does now. If they don't get it right next year, at minimum, I'd say the Dandy Annual is doomed, since Dandy Xtreme is also struggling. If that stops, it will be a sad day. :(

From what you've said Lew, it looks like only larger branches of WHSmith are stocking all the annuals. Which gives me two retailers I can realistically use - the largest of Hull's 4 WHSmith branches, and Waterstones. I intend to check those tomorrow.

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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Lew Stringer »

Digifiend wrote: From what you've said Lew, it looks like only larger branches of WHSmith are stocking all the annuals.
Digi, I've already said I was only talking about my local branch, ie: the shop in my town. I've no idea what other branches are doing. And even then, as I said, they said they didn't know if they'd have the rest of the Thomson books. Perhaps the staff member I spoke to just didn't know, you see? These are people who stack comics upside down because that's how they pick them up off the delivery trolley, so I'm not putting much faith in their knowledge of the ordering system.

Lew
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PaulTwist
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by PaulTwist »

Worryingly, on Tuesday and Wednesday my local WH Smith had empty shelves with ads proclaiming "buy one annual get one half price", along with a print-off for staff showing how the annuals should be racked.

Today I expected the shelves to be full of annuals... imagine my surprise when any POS info referring to annuals had disappeared, and instead there was a "3 for 2 on all children's books" (or similar) offer instead.

What happened to the annuals?!

(I spent quite enough in WH Smith today anyway - a copy of SFX's Comic Heroes special, Edge, Private Eye, 2000 AD and Spongebob comic for my god-daughter... yeeesh!)

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Digifiend
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by Digifiend »

:shock: :? They've withdrawn them!?! Something weird's going on here, it's still the first week of September and they've taken them off the shelves? They should be only just putting them out!

I assume that SFX mag is all DC and Marvel stuff?

PaulTwist
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by PaulTwist »

They were never on the shelves to begin with! There was a space for them for a couple of days but general kids' books have taken their place. Most odd.

The SFX mag is mostly filled up with reviews of 170 comic-to-film adaptations, as well as the Marvel/DC stuff you predicted (I think there's a feature with Stan Lee and Mark Millar interviewing each other IIRC), but there's also a history of Judge Dredd. In fact, Dredd's the cover star.

There's also a bunch of free tat with it - some Watchmen badges (of the movie), posters and a random free comic. Mine was an issue of Wolverine.

To be honest I've only had a quick flick through it so far. Probably wasn't worth the £8(!) it cost but there are quite a few articles of interest nonetheless.

ComicCrazy
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Re: 2010 Annual

Post by ComicCrazy »

This years Dandy annual was quite good... lots of great Dan strips from Jamie Smart (including an 8-page story) A bunch of 1 pager Blinky strips. Several nice Puss'n Boots strips. Also in one of the Jak and Todd stories of can spot some classic Dandy characters in frames like Smasher. The only downside is that 2 of the Beryl strips were repeated from last years Annual!

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