The answer, of course, is that it's a total fallacy to say that reprints - particularly a high volume of them (7.5 pages is still a lot) - don't negatively affect a comic. Leaving aside the complete idiocy of the "Totally Gross The Germs" retitling, comic art does have a lifespan, beyond which it can only be described as 'retro'. Imagine if one of Alan Morley's strips got reprinted! John Geering isn't that stale yet, but the 1980s is touching the lower boundary of what you can get away with.
There are also much more tangible problems to cope with, such as details in the artwork which need to be explained away (remember Fred's "ancient ol' mobile" and Roger's banana-phone?), pop culture references which need to be redacted (the recent Number 13 movie strip), and even then-contemporary crossover characters which need to be introduced (Pa Slobb). Sometimes changes are made simply for change's sake, like adding "Beano Street" to "Number 13", or changing "Adrian the Barbarian" to "Olaf the Madlander", which does nothing but cause more trouble. I point once again to the tribulations of the "Totally Gross" title banner, or the text in the first panel of Olaf's debut strip, which I instantly spotted had been shoehorned in and alerted me to the fact it was a reprint, even though I'd never heard of the source material.
Convincingly dressing up a reprint to look like new material is very difficult to do, and completely impossible if it's older than a certain age. I don't mind the Retro Beano section, because it's interesting, educational and - most importantly - upfront about the fact it contains reprints. I only wish the rest of the comic could man up and admit it.
I might even feel a little better if they did actually try. Number 13 appeared in Retro Beano a matter of weeks before it was served up again, this time rather desperately presented as new. The Germs have just featured as 'Retro', which would have blown their cover if that ill-advised title banner hadn't done it already. It feels like we're all being asked just to play along and pretend that we don't know, for the sake of the game. The readers know, and the Beano knows that they know, so why must both partners dance forever onward to the tune of this pointless charade?
Surprisingly, it's a bit more noble than that - it's so they can sell the Dandy. There's an advert at the bottom of each strip, which has completely superseded the old single-page Dandy adverts - not one has appeared since Bananaman started. The Beano's reprints are also why the Dandy's suddenly started advertising "the all-new adventures of Bananaman!", and the merchandise was moved from the Dandy to the Beano shop for the very sensible reason that it had absolutely nothing to do with the Dandy, and was contemporary with the reprints in the Beano.Digifiend wrote:Bananaman is there so they can sell the merchandise on the Beano Shop.