Issue numbers - Beano is only five behind Dandy

[Sidnny]

Being geeky here but there is only about 11 weeks before the Beano will take over from the Dandy as the longest running weekly (issues wise at least).

Will this go unnotice I wonder?

[rossmac]

I've always thought it a little strange to judge a comics longevity by it's issue number. As far as I'm concerned, as long as the Dandy is still being produced it will always beat the Beano in being the longest running comic. I mean, that says it all really- longest running. That implies it has being running for longer, not that it has a higher issue number.

That being said- if it is based on years and not issue number, does the Dandy still qualify as historys longest running comic? I'm sure it does as a currently being published comic, but have any comics in history lasted longer?

Ross

[stevezodiac]

When the Dandy went past the last issue number of Comic Cuts a few years ago they boasted about it being the longest running comic but then a couple of people from overseas complained that there were titles in France, Spain or Italy (can't remember which) that have been running longer. Obviously the Sunday Post fun section is older than the Dandy and Commando has reached a higher number. Also I have a couple of US Sunday Funnies sections from around 1906 but don't know if they are still going. I'd be interested to know what the longest running US funnies section is the oldest. Will google that one in a mo.

[Kashgar]

Although we still have Oor Wullie and the Broons the Sunday Post Fun Section as a seperate entity and title was discontinued long ago. From memory it will be something like 20 years.

[felneymike]

Issue numbers wise, Commando probably has the highest number in the world. Certianly the English-speaking part of it anyway

[AndyB]

The Fun Section was reduced from (a pullout?) four pages to two consecutive pages (back to back - Oor Wullie and a three-panel strip together with Oor Wee Comics and reader input on one side and Merry Mac and the Broons on the other if I remember correctly!) before I was born. I think the reduction to a single page of Wullie and the Broons which Kashgar refers to was very early 1990s.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

As far as I'm aware, the US strip 'KATZENJAMMER KIDS' ----[sometimes known as 'CAPTAIN and the KIDS' ]
is the longest-running comic strip in history, having started around 1894 and still published [with all-new material today] making it the only strip to have literally spanned 3 seperate centuries without stopping [with relatively few changes of artist].




Quite remarkably, the overall look of the strip is still recognizable from early editions, and has never been given a drastic overhaul on the level of 'DENNIS, KORKY, DAN', etc.........

[Earl]

As far as I know Pepin (Mexico) holds the record for the stand alone comic with the most issues published with over 7,500 published.
Commando (UK) holds the record for the most issues of a stand alone comic published in the English Language.
Detective Comics (US) has been running for longer than the Dandy.

Thanks for the tip about beano passing Dandy in terms of issues published. I love these type of facts for some reason.

Earl.

[AndyB]

In fairness, apart from being shrunk in the late 90s back to his original proportions (David Sutherland kept him broadly to Davy Law's final design for nearly thirty years!), Dennis hasn't changed very much in concept and realisation in all that time - arguably, since, based on the Dennis the Menace Book 1970, Davy probably finalised his design for Dennis in the late 50s (Kashgar?), Dennis is probably unchanged apart from proportions in about 40 years. Tom Paterson's version in particular is very traditional, but of course fully complementary to Nigel's and Jimmy's versions.

Dan hasn't changed much either (I think Jamie's version owes more to the version we had for sixty years than the square-jawed version); apart from the computer-designed version a few years back, Korky hasn't changed a great deal - Bob Nixon's version, to which the other recent versions are closely related, is only developed a certain amount from Charlie Grigg's version, again a development of Jimmy Crichton's Korky.

The only substantially changed long-standing characters are Biffo, where Dudley Watkins took him through several minor changes of hair colour, before David Sutherland refined him further and Sid Burgon took him back to the start; Mr Percival Plugsley, who wasn't truly mirror-shatteringly ugly until David S and Gordon Bell got their hands on him, as far as I can tell; and Beryl the Peril, who was very much refined at the hands of Bob Nixon before Karl Dixon really went to town, and again before Mr Bright brought her full circle. Ah, the good old days...

In context, though, consider how Charles Schulz developed his characters in the first ten years of Peanuts. The original version of Charlie Brown is very different, and took time to settle - and I think that's a reasonably fair comparison. Jim Davis also highlights how Garfield has changed since the early days (from being big, fat and ugly to looking cutish but fat, and fairly quickly to sardonic!) in his collections. Character and design development is nothing new.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I hear what you are saying, Andy, and there's nothing wrong with development in characters over time: just think of 'Tom and Jerry', or 'Judge Dredd'.

I feel that the US newspaper strips overall have remained more constant to their original concepts than their UK COMIC counterparts: I personally find the Ken Harrison 'DAN' [post-'DANDY' revamp] radically different from the WATKINS stories I remember as a kid......it was in colour for a start, and the er...'flatulence' gags were more akin to updated TEX AVERY gags which would have seen many furious faces, if submitted to the 'DANDY' office of the 1950s!

Kids today are entitled to their own period versions, however: I accept that my comic memories are now approaaching 'museum-relic' status: but I don't want it any other way!

[Sidnny]

Whoops. Sorry, guys. I did mean to say that the Dandy is known to be currently the longest British running weekly.

Anyway, that wasn't the debate I was trying to invoke.

As stevezodiac had said, the Dandy became the longest running British weekly purely by the number of issues that had been published and not the years it had been in print (though that could be true too - I haven't checked).

Using that logic, in around 11 weeks, the Beano will take over that title when it beats the Dandy's tally.

I just wonder if there will be any public reaction?

Or is it only me?

I will, of course, buy both comics when it happens and keep them for prosperity.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

no, it's a valid point, SID, and one that deserves to be adressed....

[THE MOOSE]

I think a lot of newspaper strip characters changed more in apperance as the artists style matured rather than in concept etc (ie Garfield, BC etc) However, Mort Walker's Beetle Bailey strip actually changed concept from its original idea to the version we all know now- Originally the character was called Spider and he was a university student - The name was changed from Spider to Beetle and it found a market in 1950 - It wasn't until a year later, during the Korean War, that Mort Walker had Beetle Bailey enlist in the Army with all the supporting characters in the original (spider) cartoons being dropped, except Beetle Baily and the "new" characters we know now came into play. Similarly US comic book characters regularly are made over from the DC silver age to MARVELs new Ultimate line (there's also Dan Dares , etc various version some (imho) awful)

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

yes, 'BEETLE BAILY' was almost dropped by KING FEATURES after a lacklustre first year of syndication; it took the intervention of the KOREAN WAR [as you rightly point out, MOOSE] to finally make the strip 'click' with the public.....

----the first year of a new newspaper strip is often 'touch-and-go', and it's no surprize that many creators often spend a few years honing their artwork up to a highly polished level and their own brand of humour firmly entrenched within before deeming it ready for the big, bad world.

[thomasc1982]

I think it will get mentioned in the comic in some way, but not as big a deal as it was when the Dandy got to 3007 I think it was?

Will be interesting to see...