Dandy adventure stories what year they were in..

[Kashgar]

Hi Paul . Kashgar is undoubtedly the best-qualified person to answer this, but in the meantime I've checked his wonderful Dandy Monster Index (sadly no longer in print! ) which confirms that the episode in question was indeed the final instalment of the fourteenth Black Bob picture series, reprinted as 'Black Bob's Big Job'. However the Black Bob Book in which it appeared under this title was actually the 1959 edition, published in late 1958 behind a yellow cover. Incidentally you can compare the covers of all eight books on this very site at:
http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Annuals/AnnualWhole.asp

- Phil Rushton

Thanks for the praise Phil but in this instance it is misplaced as the Black Bob books for 1955 and 1959 were actually put in reverse order in the original Dandy Monster Index. So for the record the 1955 book as listed in the DMI was actually the 1959 edition and vice versa.
If you need any further info Pog and feel you can still trust this 'so called expert' just let me know.
BTW 'Black Bob's Big Job' is one of four free gifts in Dandy Xtreme next week!

[Pog]

Thanks, Phil and Kashgar, for the information. I now have six of the Black Bob books, and I think I have the publishing sequence sorted out. I learned recently that some sources had 1955 and 1959 books the wrong way round, so I'm not surprised that the Dandy Monster Index fell victim to that widespread error. The dating of annuals that have no date or number printed in them is always a problem for collectors and sellers.

If I am unsure of what a seller has I always ask for the title of the first story before buying a Black Bob book.

I checked my copy of the 1955 book last night, and the last two pages of 'Black Bob's Big Job' have the same eight panels as the 1960 Dandy printing of the story.

Incidentally, I discovered at the end of the day yesterday that the book that had arrived in the post for me that morning (the 1957 book) contained, as the last item in the volume, 'Black Bob against the Salmon Poachers'. This is the story that followed 'Black Bob's Big Job' in The Dandy in both 1960 and 1979.

It looks as if the Dandy Monster Index (which I have heard of before but never seen) has all the information about the Black Bob stories published in the comic. Is there a listing anywhere of the stories that appeared in the Weekly News?

Paul

[Kashgar]

The original mix-up with the Black Bob books came in the D C Thomson Annuals Guide written by Bill Lofts and Derek Adley (an excellent ground-breaking work in all respects nonetheless) and it was remiss of me not to have spotted the error when I was preparing the DMI. Mind you I was only in my early 20's at the time so I'll claim the impetuosness of youth as my excuse.
Sadly there is no definitive guide to the Black Bob stories in the Weekly News.

[AndyB]

Three questions re Bob, the Weekly News, and the Dandy:

• Were any Weekly News stories not reprinted in the weekly comic;
  Were there any original stories in the Dandy;
  and, if so, were they reprinted in the Weekly News?

Another question is who drew the tales in the 1970s annuals?

[Kashgar]

Pure conjecture Andy as no one has ever catalogued the Weekly News Black Bob strips (as far as I know) but given that Bob appeared in the WN for nearly 1100 weeks and the Black Bob strips in the Dandy (excluding reprints) appeared in approx 750 issues then there is certainly scope for a good few WN's strips not to have been reprinted in the Dandy unless of course those 300+ extra issues were all reprints of earlier material which I think is unlikely. BTW some of the Black Bob strips printed in the Dandy Books were also originally from the WN (those published with the solid blue borders) so that will also reduce the 300+ 'missing' WN strips somewhat.
I can be more certain when I say that there were no strips printed in the weekly Dandy that didn't first appear in the WN and therefore there were no new Dandy strips that were then reprinted in the WN.
The Black Bob strips published in the Dandy Books 1977 and 1978 and the Dandy Summer Specials 1975-1977 were all drawn by Jack Prout who was coaxed out of retirement in St Ives to provide the odd strip. Jack Prout died in 1978 which sadly put an end to the classic Black Bob era although of course one or two other artists have had a go since.

[Pog]

Pure conjecture Andy as no one has ever catalogued the Weekly News Black Bob strips (as far as I know) but given that Bob appeared in the WN for nearly 1100 weeks and the Black Bob strips in the Dandy (excluding reprints) appeared in approx 750 issues then there is certainly scope for a good few WN's strips not to have been reprinted in the Dandy unless of course those 300+ extra issues were all reprints of earlier material which I think is unlikely. BTW some of the Black Bob strips printed in the Dandy Books were also originally from the WN (those published with the solid blue borders) so that will also reduce the 300+ 'missing' WN strips somewhat.

When you refer to nearly 1100 weeks of Black Bob strips in the Weekly News, and approximately 750 strips in the Dandy comic, would each of those 'strips' have been equivalent to two pages in the landscape Black Bob books, i.e. 8 numbered panels with accompanying text?

I do not have any of the annual Dandy Books. Which ones had Black Bob stories in them? I gather from what you say that none of the Black Bob stories in the older Dandy Books had appeared in the weekly Dandy comic.

My knowledge of the Dandy Books is very limited. The only one I have seen with a Black Bob story in it was the 1991 Dandy Book, which I believe had a modernized version (coloured and with added dialogue balloons) of the ever-popular 'Black Bob's Big Job'.

I'm hoping to spend a few days in London at some point this year. When I do, I want to spend some of my time at the British Library's Newspaper Library in Colindale, where (according to their on-line catalogue) they appear to have all the relevant years of The Weekly News on microfilm. Given enough time, I'd like to go through them all and make a complete listing of the Black Bob stories contained therein. Whether that is actually achievable remains to be seen. There are other projects I'd like to undertake at The British Library; I just wish I lived next door to it!

[AndyB]

I was also pondering that two episodes were printed each week in the Dandy on consecutive pages in the 1970s and 1980s until the run ended. Given that these were reprints of reprints, though...!

In fairness to the other artists, Dave Sutherland did a magnificent job in the 1984 One Menace and his Dog Comic Library.

[Kashgar]

Hi Pog, Yes a page in the WN (9 panels) or in the Dandy comic (8 panels) would constitute two pages in the standard landscape editions of the Black Bob books.
The Dandy Books that contained Black Bob in the Jack Prout era were 1947 and 1948 which contained a text story each, 1949-1965 each containing at least one picture strip, 1966-1969 each, once again, containing a text story and then 1977 and 1978 back to picture strips again.
The Dandy/Beano Summer Special for 1963 also contained a strip as did the Dandy Summer Specials for 1964-1968 and 1975-1977.
BTW Black Bob first appeared in the Dandy in issue No 280 (25/11/44) and between 1944 and 1955 appeared in 21 text serials in the comic then between 1956 and 1982 this was followed by 52 picture serials (77 inc reprints) culled from the pages of the Weekly News where BB appeared continuously between Oct 5th 1946 and Sept 2nd 1967.

[Pog]

Thanks, Kashgar. I find all this very interesting, and I am afraid the information you supplied has immediately generated more questions!

How were the Black Bob pages laid out in The Weekly News? Were there three rows of three panels each? I believe from other comments you have made (quoted on Peter Gray's website) that Black Bob always shared a full (tabloid size) page of The Weekly News with Dennis the Menace. I presume that means that the individual panels would have been smaller than the ones in the Black Bob books.

Were all the Black Bob text stories and picture stories in the Black Bob books reprinted from the Weekly News, or were some or all of them done especially for the books? I would guess that at least the cover pictures, the endpapers, and the frontispiece and colophon illustrations (i.e. the ones on pages 2 and 128), must have been done expressly for the books.

If the stories were reprinted from the Weekly News, I would guess that one panel in every nine was omitted for book publication, and the text was redistributed amongst the remaining panels (numbered 1 to . If that is the case, then what happened with the 1965 book, the last one, which is in portrait format and has only six unnumbered panels per page?

In your message on Monday you said that some of the stories in the Dandy Books were reprinted from the Weekly News, and that these stories are identifiable by their blue borders. Are the stories without blue borders new? Or are they reprinted from the Dandy comic, and thus in effect second-generation reprints from the Weekly News?

Are the stories in the Dandy Books, and the 1960s and 1970s Summer Specials that you mentioned, all different from the ones in the Black Bob books, or is there some overlap?

[Pog]

I also meant to ask: Do all 21 volumes (so far) of the Beano and Dandy Golden Years/60 Years/70 Years series of annual-sized hardcover volumes with white dust jackets contain Black Bob stories? Is there any overlap with the Black Bob books?

[Peter Gray]

1961.
Such great stories..
seeing the Statue of Liberty lying down in the sea face down..
and the train smashing down...what epic scenes..
If adventure stories do return to The Beano..
I hope they bring back the eye catching scenes..action...drama..high stakes..

[Peter Gray]

1952 Dandy
eat your heart out Spider-man...we had The Vulture before you..

who is the artist?
thanks in advance..

[Lew Stringer]

The artist of the Little White Chief strip is George Ramsbottom and it's a reprint of a 1939 Dandy strip.

Speaking of reprints, The Purple Cloud was reprinted in The Dandy in 1969. Artwork is by Charles Grigg.

Info via Ray Moore's Dandy Monster Index.

Lew

[Digifiend]

If adventure stories do return to The Beano..
I hope they bring back the eye catching scenes..action...drama..high stakes..

Yeah, you're referring to them asking the readers on the website about that, on the General Jumbo download topic, aren't you? It does sound like it might be being considered. The only adventure strips I can see The Beano using any time soon though are General Jumbo and Billy the Cat (after all, both would be familiar to the readers, having appeared in the annuals - and Billy in the comic too, although that series was not a success). I do think if they bring back either, they should use Nigel Dobbyn for the artwork. Modern and detailed, and he's done them before.

[Peter Gray]

This is Eric Roberts last comic work for The Dandy comic..what a dramatic ending!!

He did some pages in Dandy annuals after 1979..But this is the last Winker Watson..

thanks Lew for looking up artist name..may use this in a future post..

Yeah, you're referring to them asking the readers on the website about that, on the General Jumbo download topic, aren't you?

Yes I was....just hope they can get more action and thrills into it next time..Billy the Cat didn't do much.and the jellymen story needed more pages and story..