The Dandy Detective

[philcom55]

While everyone is busily speculating about the shape of Dandys to come I wondered if any of our resident experts can say where and when an old 'Dandy' character appeared? If it's any help the image below is scanned from a DC Thomson title I picked up at a bookstall yesterday for under a pound.



- Phil Rushton

[Phoenix]

He was the hero of many novels by George Goodchild, going back at least to the 1930s, but I seem to remember him also from The Sunday Post in short stories in the fifties. On reflection, I think it might have been The Weekly News.

[stevezodiac]

He was in the Weekly News from at least the 1970s when I first started buying it until the 1990s I think. He was revived a couple of years back but this time it was his son. I have about the last four years worth of Weekly News here so will show a modern example later.

[philcom55]

Darn! I might have known Phoenix would know all about him. For the record this example appeared on the back page of The Weekly News for October 4th 1941, only a few years after the Dandy itself was launched.

- Phil Rushton

[Kashgar]

Dandy McLean had his own pocket library series in the 1930's which if memory recalls only ran to twelve issues. He was, first and foremost though, a Weekly News regular in the same way that Dixon Hawke was a regular in the Sporting Post.

[felneymike]

I think Dixon Hawke had his own library that ran to over 100 issues too. I saw somebody trying to sell about 10 issues on ebay for 400 quid once.

[Phoenix]

I think Dixon Hawke had his own library that ran to over 100 issues too

There were 576 issues of The Dixon Hawke Library between July 1919 and December 1941. In addition there were 20 issues of Dixon Hawke's Case Book between 1939 and 1948. Steve Holland produced a 32-page guide to them in 2001. See below. Please note that the title The Dixon Hawke Casebook on the cover of Steve's book is incorrect, but this is corrected inside.

[Digifiend]

I take it wartime rationing was the reason for DHL's cancellation.

[davidandrewsimpson]

Re: "I take it wartime rationing was the reason for DHL's cancellation."

It could also be that the young men who'd made up much of DHL's readership were in the forces by 1941, so not in a position to follow a regular publication.

[Kashgar]

Dandy McClean Library ran to 10 issues not 12 for five months in late 1933. He was originally invisaged as a much younger detective than Dixon Haxke and in publicity shots at the time Dudley Watkins, then aged 26, was used as the model. Similarly, head of the Thomson art dept, Mark Antony posed for Dixon Hawke stills when the need arose.