Bought a copy of the Beano book 1952 (all the pages this time) was quite an interesting annual. With some pre-dennis the Menace artwork by David Law.
Also got a reprint of the Magic Beano book from 1944 off the Beano website. The highlight of the annual were Dudley Watkin's Lord Snooty strips but they have a bit of a flaw. They are printed across two pages in portrait, but because of that a good chunk of the centre panel is obscured. It makes reading it very difficult. You can sort of see the problem here on the Beano's website page about the annual:
https://www.beano.com/posts/archive-bea ... beano-book but because of the way the book is bound its even worse in the reprinted edition.
What I found interesting though was the differences between the two annuals only 8 years apart. None of the iconic characters, like Dennis, had been introduced by the 1952 annual but we already start to see David Law working in the annual. And in general I just find the 1952 annual a lot more modern and "better drawn" than the 1944 one. There's a load of new characters by then with Biffo, Bucktooth, Ding Dong Belle, Danger Len at Work and have a go Joe. Just looked it up and it looks like other than Dudley Watkin's Biffo these are all by Bill Holroyd. I think I just really like Bill Holroyd's work, it feels a lot less old fashioned than what was in the 1940s annual. And his strips are a lot more down to earth than some of the more old fashioned strips which all seem to rely on some sort of wacky magic object be they lollipops, rubbers or magical guns. The 1944 annual is also really interesting because of how it subtly mentions the war. I haven't picked up a recent beano in a while but I wonder if there is similar stuff in there with how they reference this whole Coronavirus pandemic.