I couldn't have chosen a worse week to go on holiday, could I? I was far away from my computer and an Internet connection, and I had the Beano reserved at my newsagents at home, so buying a copy elsewhere wasn't an option. I was hoping to just quietly skip a couple of days, forget about comics, and catch up where I left off when I came back on Friday. I assumed I wouldn't be missing anything which couldn't wait a few days, and that there was no chance of my being exposed to any spoilers before I got back, given the media's general indifference to the existence of comics nowadays. How wrong was I?
Squarely in the middle of page fifteen of Wednesday's Guardian, I was confronted with
this. Actually, I was confronted with somewhat more than that web-friendly version, with a (cropped) scan of the entire cover occupying a large section of the page. It looked like a DC Thomson publicity shot, because there was no barcode and large areas of blank space which were filled in in the real comic.
The first article to even mention comics all year, and it appeared on that week of all weeks, heralding major and important developments which, for the first and only time, I was going to miss by a mile. Sometimes I feel like Calamity James...
WizzKid97 wrote:Ah, but were Freddie Fear and Pup Parade MEANT to return? After all, the contents clearly says Ratz was on Page 6 (whereas in reality, Freddie Fear was on Page 6) and At Home with the BSK was on Page 20 (whereas once again in reality, Pup Parade was on Page 20).
Good spot! I really must read those contents more often, because that always seems to be where the juiciest howlers (ahem, Roger the Doger, ahem) turn up. Freddie Fear is a bit prone to this, isn't he? Last time he appeared (alongside Super School), the contents advertised his page as Gnasher's Bit(e). The combination of symptoms, and the fact that this week's strip was predominantly orange a few weeks after Dave Eastbury gave up this unfortunate habit on Ball Boy, points to a stockpile.
Production quality hasn't picked up. At least the tsunami of colouring errors has more or less stopped now, but it's been replaced by a torrent of even more obvious misprints and design clangers. Text overflowing speech bubbles (this used to happen quite often, and sometimes the entire bubble would be missing, but it's the first time I've seen it in a while), pictures zoomed in too far (Bertie and Dudley), and the misprint in Dodge Diary (again - identification left as exercise for reader). And did anyone actually take their survey? It contained a reference to "The Numbskulls".
WizzKid97 wrote:Also the advert for National Trust was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. A really nice looking advert there. I'd like to see more like this, drawn out.
Yep, you're right there - quite the nicest-looking advert I've seen in some time, and all-new artwork too. Shame about the other one being reprinted from the cover of an ancient and irrelevant comic, though! I suppose it goes with the new-style shop advert...
I notice Minnie, Numskulls and BSK all have their original artists again, after a few weeks of sporadic reprints and ghosts. Preparation for this week, or just summer holiday season?
Digifiend wrote:Cut the gift off with scissors. It will leave some tape still attached to the comic, but you won't have to worry about sticky residue causing the comic to get stuck to anything else.
Seconded. I started doing this ages ago. I've never once succeeded in removing Sellotape without damaging the cover, and I regret it every time I try. The new glossy paper did nothing to alleviate this problem.
If it's a choice between Sellotape and bags, then bags are the lesser of the two evils, but they're no substitute for no gifts at all. I'm sorry to see the Dandy seems to have been dragged into the frenzy, because its restraint in such matters and focus on extra comic content instead was one of its chief strengths. (I point once again to the Dandy/Beano Christmas special comparison fiasco.)
-MikeD- wrote:Am I right in thinking the 'Where's Dennis' are edited reprints, I think I saw them in a book years ago? (sorry if I missed this being explained earlier.) I love the detail in the pictures.
I'm sure they're edited reprints, and they seem to have been cropped and magnified as well, but I haven't a clue where the original artwork came from - I can't think of any suitable application, although Dennis (and sometimes Gnasher) do appear in the originals, so it may just have been a series of similar puzzle pages.
Peter Gray wrote:the Dennis has been drawn into the find Dennis in the new style..
Both of them were copied and pasted from the picture on the contents page. But there's one piece of good news - said picture
wasn't copied and pasted from the front cover, for once!