*ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Discuss or comment on anything relating to D.C.Thomson's second longest running comic. The home of Dennis the Menace. Has been running since 1938.

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Tin Can Tommy
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Tin Can Tommy »

They have actually update the Beano website and their is now a bananaman section in the characters section. But it doesnt appear that any of the character's that have been dropped have been dropped from that section.

Classic Comics
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Classic Comics »

Tin Can Tommy wrote:They have actually update the Beano website and their is now a bananaman section in the characters section. But it doesnt appear that any of the character's that have been dropped have been dropped from that section.
The Three Bears have been removed from that section of the website to make way for Bananaman. They are unavailable for comment at the moment as they are in the middle of raiding Hank's store. :)

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Tin Can Tommy
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Tin Can Tommy »

It's good to see something was removed i had thought they had just stretched it. Is the three bears section still accessible?

A quick google and no it isnt.

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Digifiend
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Digifiend »

The Three Bears never had much on there anyway... anything they did have was probably moved to the Dennis section, which is used for non-character-specific articles.

Also, that confirms that the Three Bears won't be back anytime soon, and Bananaman will stay in The Beano for the forseeable future (I know 2013's Beano and dandy annuals are probably already half done, but I wonder if he'll end up in both 2014 annuals?)
Last edited by Digifiend on 11 Jan 2012, 17:46, edited 1 time in total.

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Jonny Whizz
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Jonny Whizz »

That's not accurate at all. When Mike took over, we had a meeting to discuss things and as an office we all agreed that when we took all the factors into account - particularly audience reaction - Ivy wasn't an option that we should pursue at that time. It's not about us putting our stamp on things or about who created a story - it's about tailoring the Beano for our readers.
I never perceived it as being a case of Mike dropping Ivy out of spite for his predecessor, but I did wonder whether he dropped her simply because he wasn't a fan of the strip. I don't think that's unprecedented, Euan Kerr admitted he wasn't keen on Lord Snooty and ultimately he dropped him, though that was also due to the character being out of date.

Thanks for the information Classic Comics - I'm also interested in what you say about the audience reaction to Ivy. Did she fall in popularity due to being reprints, or did the core readership not take to Diego's version, and was this due to the stories themselves or the artwork?

Returning to the original topic - Bananaman - I thought he made a good Beano debut. The strip itself was very good, with the background details adding to the humour. I'm guessing that the story was from the Dandy era, as Eric is described as 'Little Eric' rather than 'Eric Wimp' and he has the banana-shaped hair rather than stubble. To my eye it looked rather as though John Geering coloured the strip himself, due to the uniform background colours (a technique he also used on Number 13).
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Digifiend
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Digifiend »

It has to be sometime between 1985 and 1999, as Geering died in 1999 and Bananaman didn't occupy two full pages until he moved to Dandy - he gained the familiar look in 1983 when the TV show started, but at that time only had a page and a half, as he was the cover star of Nutty.

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meherenow
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by meherenow »

Digifiend wrote:It has to be sometime between 1985 and 1999, as Geering died in 1999 and Bananaman didn't occupy two full pages until he moved to Dandy - he gained the familiar look in 1983 when the TV show started, but at that time only had a page and a half, as he was the cover star of Nutty.

My box of Nuttys is under about four other boxes so I can't check right now but I'm pretty sure Bananaman started occupying the centre page spread as well as the two thirds/halfish front page not long into the Nutty run - The Wild Rovers were shoved off to the red and black colour pages. Still not prime for reprinting of course given the big Nutty masthead.

I'll have a root around after dinner maybe if no-one has corrected me :)

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Digifiend
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Digifiend »

Ah, thought he was on front and back covers like Dennis the Menace and Desperate Dan were on Beano and Dandy in the '80s.

I see that another Bananaman strip and the first episode of the TV show are on beano.com.

By the way, I like how they did the Beano and Dandy covers. The Beano says "Bananaman joins the Beano" but the Dandy answers back by pointing out that the Beano is running reprints: "Read his all-new adventures inside" :)

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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Classic Comics »

At the moment I'm using stories from the Dandy, circa 1985-86. I was working on the Dandy at least part of that time so I may actually wind up using some of my own stories. Mr B will be in the 2013 Beano annual. I know because I wrote it about a month ago and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. :)

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Digifiend
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Digifiend »

Thanks for answering our questions. Wasn't actually expecting an answer about the annuals. :up:

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meherenow
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by meherenow »

OK, I delved deep!

Fittingly, Bananaman takes over the centre pages in Nutty #100, May 9th 1982 - The entire strip is devoted to our hero showing off about being in the middle! "Here we are, Readers - my new pages. Allow me to show you around." "This is the second picture. Nice and roomy, isn't it?" etc (would scan if I had somewhere to put the mountain of paperwork that's on top of my printer/scanner lol) Looking at #99 the story is set up as Bananaman visits the Nutty office and overhears that he is being taken off the back page to much gnashing of teeth.

There's a full front page Bananaman picture offering one hundred t-shirts in a compo inside - also Cuddles becomes resident on the back page in this issue.

Bananaman as we know him with the blue mask starts in #194, Oct 9th 1983 with another full front page trumpeting a free Bananaman poster that week.

In between these issues our hero swaps the red gloves for the yellow ones (must be 175,176 or 177, I'm missing those, June 1983) and of course Eric miraculously grows hair starting in #182, Aug 6th 1983.

Bah, I miss Nutty, gonna read some of these with my sons for bed time story now :D

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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by AndyB »

I still remember the Nutty strip where Eric got his new haircut. He was depicted telling a table lamp that he did not need a haircut, because he couldn't see it wasn't his mum. The back story for the stubble was explained as the demon barber who did that for everyone.

The last pic, after he had fluked the banana hair, was him trying to avoid the demon barber.

The cover of Beano Comic Library 24 (published March 1983) was Bananaman with a gallery of his enemies and a cameo of Dennis pointing to Appleman and saying "My hero."

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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by swirlythingy »

Classic Comics wrote:The Three Bears have been removed from that section of the website to make way for Bananaman. They are unavailable for comment at the moment as they are in the middle of raiding Hank's store. :)
Actually, there are two of those menus, and you forgot to update the second one:

http://www.beano.com/characters

Also, the one you did update (dropping down from the menu bar) still uses <li class="three-bears">, although that's only revealing to those who know where to look. :)

Thanks for giving that info about Ivy. I knew she wasn't coming back (although I always assumed she had been cancelled by Digby to mark his departure, not Stirling to mark his arrival), but I didn't realise she was suffering in the reader polls. I did hear a lot of dissent pre-cancellation on the Beano.com comments, most of which complained about how she wasn't a little menace any more, but I didn't know it had got that bad. I do wonder if, perhaps if she had been subjected to a reboot similar to the one Dennis underwent last year, she might have been saved - but then you get to the problem of overlapping too much with Bea, which is something we have heard about straight from the horse's mouth.
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Digifiend
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Digifiend »

Of course, clicking on the Three Bears link results in a 404 error. If you haven't seen it before, you might be interested to know that it says that "Gnasher's been here!" and that he has gnashed a hole in the page. I like that, most websites don't make an effort with those error pages.

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Gilly
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Re: *ADVERTS SPOILER ALERT* #3617 - 7th Jan 2012

Post by Gilly »

That's the forum where I've read about Ivy being too similar to Bea.

Thanks Swirly.

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