Comics UK

I think The Beano on sale at the moment is a cracker, with no less than 12 pages of Nigel Parkinson work in it. The ten page Bash Street story includes a game, which is a nice reader-participation aspect similar to the type of thing that Denis Gifford and Jack Oliver excelled at for IPC.

No Super School this issue but if you have the Beano Fun Size No.303 free with the comic it reprints a 14 page Les Pretend story I drew back in 2002.

Lew

It was nice the Bash Street story.and love the written jokes scattered in the background......also a nice game.more games like this please..

Beano Manga is great at bringing back old characters...maybe she should do the Pup Parade has the website young kids are asking for them back and Biffo..

Also love seeing the running haggises...reminds me of the Mc Tickles...

Peter Gray wrote: Beano Manga is great at bringing back old characters...maybe she should do the Pup Parade has the website young kids are asking for them back and Biffo..

I'm not sure how young those kids are if they can remember Pup Parade and Biffo. When was the last time those strips were in The Beano?

Lew

Biffo, apart from the 70th birthday issue, last apeared in 1999. Pup Parade has appeared even more recently, but only lasted a few months that time. It originally finished in the late 80s. But yeah, I'd wager the guys saying Bring Back Pup Parade and Bring Back Biffo are at least my age (mid 20s).

Perhaps younger readers don't associate Pup Parade with the bash Street Kids. Maybe it should be retitled The Bash Street Pups?

Pup Parade was in a few Bash Street annuals not so long ago, and those actually used that as a subtitle.

I would guess that the kids have collections of older annuals with all these characters in, maybe inherited from their parents. Mind you, I'm still amazed they seem to know as much about the artists' names as they do - unless they really are all secretly 20, 30 or 40-somethings

I started reading the Beano in 2002, so I've never read Biffo in a 'current' Beano, aside from the 70th birthday edition. I have however seen him in Classics, the History of the Beano, the 2010 annual and some old 1998 issues - they also had a Biffo strip on the website recently, but I didn't download it.

On the other hand, I do remember the last time Pup Parade were in the comic. They returned from issue 3162 (22nd February 2003), the first time they'd been in the Beano since the late 1980s, and appeared reasonably regularly up to about October, after which they only made a couple more appearances, the last coming in issue 3230 (12th June 2004). All these strips were drawn by the original artist Gordon Bell.

The new issue..

Minnie the minx was made more funnier by the captions being changed..
very funny the people paddling in the pool are looneys because its too cold!!
Summer was made to look like Feb......
those sunflowers are plastic readers!! they should have also added..

Yes, they really should have chosen one a bit more appropriate to the time of year - but we don't care because it makes it even funnier! How many people do you see swimming outside in February, and when is the weather like that at this time of year?

They did the same with Ivy the Terrible in the Christmas issue, where they added loads of references to Christmas but there was no snow on the ground, because it wasn't meant to be a Christmas strip.

I assume this reprint was because Ken Harrison didn't have time to do it and a strip for Beanomax. However, swimming outdoors in February? Seriously, that's not very realistic. Unlike no snow at Christmas, unfortunately. We got snow last year, but that's the exception, not the norm.

You're probably right about Ken Harrison. On all the previous times they've reprinted a Jim Petrie strip, the reason that was given was the postal strike. As you say, not having snow at Christmas is realistic!

Love it Lew......hope you get to do more poster page.how about an epic battle good v's baddies poster next..

Love clone clone clone clone boy..

I thought Lew's poster page was brilliant too, and the clone boy joke was excellent. I remember he did another good poster page in the strip where Banana girl was introduced last year, with the canteen.

Also, in Johnny Bean, the mascots remind me of the infamous story of the The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, where Wolverhampton Wanderers' mascot, Wolfie, beheaded one of the three pigs who were the Bristol City mascots!

Thanks Peter & Johhny.

Credit must also go to the scriptwriter, Iain McLaughlin, who suggested most of the gags on that page, including the Clone Boy idea.

Really enjoyed drawing that page, which I also coloured for a change. (Previously I'd only coloured the first two episodes.)

Lew