Comics UK

Dave done some lovely details in the strip of Fred Bed.
very pleased he is drawing more..what a trooper..

Did anyone else notice how Dennis wasn't in the long story in the Christmas issue? It will have been because of the TV series style, as Dennis is now different from all the other strips in the comic. Although it's understandable, it felt rather strange in an 'All-stars' story that the biggest star was missing!

what I want to know is: was it worth £3.99? I ask, as I've never paid that much for a comic.

I'd say at least £1 of that was to pay for the ten part prank pack. You get 48 pages instead of the usual 32, which is 150% of the size of a normal issue. The normal price is £1.35, which tripled makes £4.05 - the comic was virtually triple the normal price, for only 1 and a half times the normal content. Even taking into account the fact that issues with large or multiple gifts are often priced at £2.25 (£1.99 until recently) it still works out just under double the normal price, for less than double the normal content. In short, you're paying a premium for this issue. Is it worth it? Only you can decide that. Like anything, it's worth what you're willing to pay!

good, well-balanced assessment, Digi: if this issue does indeed come accross as 'special', it will likely stick in the memory, which is a lot more than can be said for 4 quid spent almost anywhere these days........

I thought the Christmas Beano was good, even though it was a tad on the expensive side.

Looking at it, the positive points included Dave Sutherland on Fred's Bed, the return of Johnny Bean and a 10 pager from NP. I also thought it was good because there were noticeably fewer reprint pages than last year (last year's Christmas issue had reprints of Billy Whizz, Ivy, Fred's Bed, Dennis, Too Riski and a non-Christmassy Les Pretend). Of the 4 reprint pages this time around (two 2-page stories), the Calamity James was a great story anyway. I do wish that they'd chosen a more festive Ivy strip though, it did stand out rather despite the attempts to pass it as a Christmas story.

I can't fault your enthusiasm, Jonny......spot-on observation, without once venturing into 'trainspotter' territory.........there IS a large difference. Well done, young lad!

Thanks! Though I can go into trainspotter territory if you want me to...

I do wish that they'd chosen a more festive Ivy strip though, it did stand out rather despite the attempts to pass it as a Christmas story.

I don't know if you didn't notice, or were too polite to point it out, but the Johnny Bean was completely un-Christmassy too! That episode wasn't intended to be in the Christmas issue, so I didn't draw anything festive in it. If I'd known beforehand, there would have been snow on the logo and a bunny in a santa hat for sure!

Yeah, I noticed. However, I was just glad that Johnny Bean was in the comic again!

To be fair, the script was changed a bit when it was printed in the comic to make a (tenuous) link. It's not unlike what happened with Lew's Fred's Bed strip a couple of years ago - the script wasn't originally a Christmas theme, but when it was printed the script was altered so it was Christmassy.

I take it that the caption "It's the annual Christmas gurning competition today!" and Johnny saying "he looked like he'd just eaten one of his own mince pies!" weren't in the original script then?

I think you're right, they're probably the main things that were changed from the original script. It's nothing compared to the number of changes they made to the Ivy script though - I'm exaggerating this of course, but it seemed like there was at least one reference to Christmas in almost every panel! It's actually quite funny when you read the strip, because it clearly doesn't fit.