Comics UK

Now that a couple of non-celebrity issues of The Dandy has now come out, is the celebrity content missed or not?

I am not talking specifically about Harry Hill by the way!

Personally, I miss it. I liked seeing the likes of Simon Cowell, Jeremy Clarkson, etc... in the comic.

Too many times, the celebs would be people who the kids might not actually know. Unfortunately, it wasn't just Harry Hill that did this. But they probably figured that without Harry Hill, they should refocus on their original characters. Rightly so, IMHO.

No.

It was fun for a time..

i'm hoping Nigel will be drawing for The Dandy soon..do miss his work..

The only celebrity based strip I am missing is Harry Hill which as you said is not what you're talking about.

Personally I thought I was going to miss it but now I am also glad The Dandy is concentrating on it's own characters as it should be about the likes of Desperate Dan rather than Ant and Dec.

I wouldn't mind the odd one or two in every issue, but not loads.

In my opinion, Harry Hill has been a loss. However, I don't think the other celebrities are missed much, and I definitely agree that the Dandy needs to be built around its own characters. That should hopefully allow the Dandy to establish its own identity instead of just attempting to follow trends.

I also agree that some of the choices of slebs were a bit odd - as much as I dislike Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole, they are the sort of celebrities that you'd expect most kids to be familiar with, but, for instance, I'm not sure how many children would actually want to read a comic strip about Noel Edmonds.

As a side note, I think the next step the Dandy should take is to update the annuals to reflect the weekly comic, though it is nice to have the old characters back the Dandy is so good now that it would be a waste to leave George vs Dragon, Pre-Skool PM, Mr Meecher etc. out of the annual simply because they're new.

In a word, no.

Coming towards the end of his time in the Dandy - I began to start enjoying Harry Hill and it began becoming one of the strongest strips. However even though I eventually began warming to it - I'm still not wanting it back.

The Dandy is now how it should always be - an original comic with original characters.

(I personally think the Dandy's next step is to begin mixing up the comic-annual comic strips, put some of the classics from the 2012 annual inside the weekly and vice versa for the newer ones - mixing up stories means not only will it mean more variety but also it would mean familiar faces to an audience - there's nothing better than seeing your favourite character has been brought back!)

(Maybe begin having Mr Meecher, Pre-Skool Prime Minister, Postman Prat, Nuke Noodle etc. beginning to feature in the annual - and then annual classics like Bully Beef and Chips, Winker Watson, Corporal Clott, Beryl the Peril, Brain Duane (as well as newer ones like Owen Goal, Agent Dog 2 Zero and Ollie Fliptrick) beginning to have runs inside the weekly.)

I think I may be alone here but I want the annual to stay as it is I think a lot of the older generation still buy just the dandy & beano annuals every year to carry on the collection, maybe out of habit, I do not want to see all these new stories with the art style they have now as it may alienate the older collectors & the art style on classic characters like the way desperate dan & bananaman is now.seeing classic bananaman now in beano every week makes me dislike the current version even more & if these style stories were to be carried over to the annuals would I fear lose a lot of sales from the old readers.

Good news. The 2013 annual will be similar to the 2012 one, from what I've heard (2012 is the Dandy's 75th birthday year after all). Bananaman will be in the Beano Annual 2013 (confirmed by Classic Comics, who wrote the story), but I assume he would be in the Dandy Annual as well (probably drawn by Wayne Thompson for the Dandy, and maybe by Barrie Appleby or Nigel Parkinson for Beano, using Geering's style).

To be honest‚ I think it's a shame to do an old-strips annual again... I was really hoping this year they'd have some more, deserving, new characters (such as 'Pre-Skool Prime Minister' and 'Mr Meecher, the Uncool Teacher'... Ah well, I'm thoroughly looking forward to reading Will Dawbarn's take on 'Winker Watson'!

Interesting, it will be weird seeing 'Bananaman' in both comic annuals - has that ever even been done before?
I'm hoping to see Wayne Thompson draw the modern, blue, buffoon in The Dandy - and then preferably new 'Bananaman' strips drawn by Nigel Parkinson in The Beano.

The main problem with the weekly comic was that it tried to rely too much on celebrities, and not on its own characters. This now appears to have been fixed.

The main problem with the annual is that it tried to rely too much on old characters, and goes out of its way to deny the very existence of the new ones. That's just dreadful. How long do they think the Dandy brand can survive by only looking back, and never looking forward? Why create all those new and original characters, if you're going to point-blank refuse to promote them?

It's a curse which afflicts everything branded with 'Dandy' that is not the comic itself. The 'Dandy Gifts' section of the DC Thomson shop, for example, consists of pages upon pages of retro Desperate Dan, with some Black Bob and retro Korky thrown in for good measure. The shop's catalogue was halved - yes, halved - in size when the retro Bananaman gifts transferred to the Beano to tie in with the reprints.

It's as if they don't even care any more.

The theory seems to be that the age profile of annual-buyers (even if they're buying for children) is unfriendly towards nasty, modern characters, and wants only to relive the 1970s (the era of the logo they now use everywhere except on the comic). As big bad bri's comment demonstrates, this strategy has already backfired, and here's another customer left bemused by the dodgy and mistargeted marketing.

But god forbid that DC Thomson should become known as the home of new, original and popular characters, eh?

I think that recent Beano Annuals have found a better balance than the recent Dandy annuals - they consist mainly of current strips drawn by the current artist, or, if the strip is in reprints, they usually pick an artist who drew the strip previously (such as Laura Howell on Les Pretend) or one who has a very good handle on the style of the reprints (Nigel Parkinson on Billy Whizz and Ken Harrison on Fred's Bed, for instance). However, there have also been a few older strips returning, with The Three Bears and The Nibblers featuring in this year's annual, Biffo the Bear in 2010 and General Jumbo and Billy the Cat in most recent editions.

The Bash Street Dogs might count too, if it was drawn before the reprints started. Otherwise, why doesn't it have the Pup Parade title?

I think both 2013 annuals will have updated rosters - Beano should add Number 13 and the Germs as well as Bananaman. Dandy will probably have characters such as Postman Prat alongside the retro cast, which won't be as dominant. Bananaman and Korky will probably be updated to their new styles too, since the strips in the 2012 edition were by their Xtreme era artists.

Good point about the Bash Street Dogs. Also, by the time Pup Parade reappeared in the Beano in June, I suspect everything would have already been drawn for the 2012 annual by then, as it was released a few weeks later.

However, I think Billy the Cat was supposed to appear in the 2012 Beano Annual drawn by Nigel Dobbyn (IIRC it was going to be a 10 page story) but he would not let it appear in the annual after his artwork was stretched in the 2011 Annual, which he felt ruined its appearance - I agree with him, as in my opinion his work was affected to a much greater extent than most of the humour strips - but this left a gap in the 2012 Annual, which needed to be filled.

One page of that must have been the single-page Billy Whizz strip, which definitely looked like it had been drawn for the comic rather than the annual. The second Calamity James story, which looks to my eye like a reprint due to the colouring (though I hadn't seen it before), would represent another four. I'm inclined to think that The Nibblers and The Three Bears were the other Billy the Cat replacements, with the Pups scheduled to appear regardless of whether Billy the Cat was in it or not.