Comics UK

So, there's a small child who is a regular at my shop, and he's the only kid who buys the Dandy from us (it gets put away from him each week). He loves it, which is nice, but today I gave him a pile of Dandys from 1991-1997, around twenty of them. He seemed really excited to see them, so I'll see what he thinks of the "old" Dandy tomorrow. A bit of research, yes!

Anyone else (as in, those without kids) tried to "sway" people in such a way?

I always recommend the Beano and Dandy to new parents at work. In fact somebody there has just had a second baby, and another guy's wife has one on the way. In fact I'm none too interested in keeping the Dandy's I have cluttering up my room, I bought them to prop it up but the content doesn't interest me much. I ought to pass them along...

I suppose I ought to promote The Pheonix a bit better too. Once my folder is full I may dump it down on the canteen table one day for people to browse.

I also allow the people in the canteen I use to have the first look at The Red, White & Blue

I tried a recent Dandy and Beano on the wee kid across the street and his mum said he was frightened by the Harry Hill strip (he's at primary school). Beano was o.k. but he hasn't asked her for more. He seems to prefer Ben 10 and Spiderman.

To be fair, so do I.

I used to coach a trampolining class of 10-year-olds. I'd occasionally mention the Beano or the Dandy and get blank faces. Many of them had never heard of either comic. If I mentioned Dennis the Menace I'd get a bit of a more positive response, I suppose they'd seen him on TV.

There's been such a change in the importance of comics to children. I'm 18 years old but all of my generation read either the Beano or the Dandy when they were kids - and that was less than 10 years ago.

Well, the kid came in today and he seems to've liked the Dandys I gave him. I asked him whether he liked the old ones or the new ones best and he said he liked them both the same, thus concluding my extensive market research.

Meanwhile, someone in his late 40's was standing around later on when he spotted the Dandy, and he expressed his surprise, assuming it wasn't around anymore. When he looked inside it, his remarks were somewhere along the line of "What on Earth is THAT?!?". Made me laugh anyway!

Did he really expect it to be the same as it was in the 70s and 80s?