Why do old characters get new names/speech when reprinted?

[Peter Gray]

Adrian the Barbarian..(great choice to reprint..was one of my requests with another chosen one Hoot squad...Spoofer (sparky) is the other character I'd like to see back in The Beano..quite funny that my ones are being selected maybe the Beano editor reads this forum.)
The Hoot squad
mind you Fred's bed stayed the same..
Also new speech bubbles are used...
There were still more Fred Beds to go...has it stopped for a rest or they have ran out of original work to scan to use..?

[felneymike]

I suppose sometimes references are bought up to date, as the readership are going to be young, so references to celebrities/culture/trends of the 70's or 80's will mean nothing to them. "Cheesy" old catch-phrases would need changing too, as well as references to obsolete technology (not always with good results, like Minnie The Minx's "CD player" with tapes all around it). Also the colouring of previously black and white artwork probably also creates the need to re-do the lettering as well.

[Conor B]

I remember an Ivy the Terrible strip last year had her pulling a cart full of "CDs" (which coincidentally were rectangles with two circles on them...STRANGE!!)

[Steve Bright]

I suppose sometimes references are bought up to date, as the readership are going to be young, so references to celebrities/culture/trends of the 70's or 80's will mean nothing to them. "Cheesy" old catch-phrases would need changing too, as well as references to obsolete technology (not always with good results, like Minnie The Minx's "CD player" with tapes all around it). Also the colouring of previously black and white artwork probably also creates the need to re-do the lettering as well.

Search, eliminate, find, resize, recolour, reword, redraw outdated bits - sounds like a costly and laborious process to me. Here's a wacky off-the-wall notion - call me a radical, but why not commission brand new work instead?

Okay - as you were...

[LauraH]

Hi-five, Steve

Can anyone tell me a bit about this new strip? It's obviously a reprint, but I've never seen it in its original form and I don't quite "get" it...

[Lew Stringer]

Hi-five, Steve

Can anyone tell me a bit about this new strip? It's obviously a reprint, but I've never seen it in its original form and I don't quite "get" it...

I'm sure Kashgar will know more about it than me. Original title was Adrian the Barbarian and I *think* it's from Beezer. Art was by Sid Burgon.

The practice of renaming reprints isn't new of course. It dates back decades, well into the 1940s and possibly earlier. First time I experienced it was in 1970 when IPC's Smash! reprinted "The Wacks" from 1964 issues of Wham! renamed as "The Beat Boys". (God only knows why they thought "beat music" was still a modern phrase in 1970.)

Lew

[Steve Bright]

Hi-five, Steve

Can anyone tell me a bit about this new strip? It's obviously a reprint, but I've never seen it in its original form and I don't quite "get" it...

You're not alone, Laura - I never quite got it either...and I used to draw it for a while.

[NP]

I obviously never got it either, I was first choice to draw it back in 1988 but I turned in such a horrible job that it was never used and Sid got the gig! Ironically, I did draw the LAST new one (to date) in the Beezer annual (2004-ish?)!

[Peter Gray]

Robert Nixon

Centre pages of Beezer...Sid B

Jim Petrie ...Dave M drew in the Beezer
Adrian's Fables

So quite a popular character...
the story in The Beano doesn't look like the first story to me..
the wording in the first panel...did you sleep well after the move yesterday
doesn't sit right to me..there must be an origin story...
Kashgar will know...
http://uk.geocities.com/pjgsidb/Adriant ... rianf.html

[Conor B]

The one theyve used looks like one after the merge with the Topper... I don't have any late 80s Beezers but I think that the logo changed, and it's definitely the same logo character as the one in the Beezer and Topper (yesterday I even noticed the bump from the "A" in Adrian - which had originally been written in stone - was still on the edge of the sword!!).

[AndyB]

personally, I'm just glad to see Sid's work again.

[Kashgar]

Adrian the Barbarian aka Olaff the Badlander first appeared in the Beezer in No 1727 dated 18th Feb 1989 and ran on through to the comics final issue No 1809 (15/9/90) and then went on to appear in the combined Beezer & Topper for most of its 153 issues.
The strip reprinted in the Beano (3441) is, as Conor rightly surmised, from the Beezer & Topper, No41 in fact.
As to the strip having an 'origin' the answer is not really as, even in the first episode, although we learn that Adrian and his Mum have bought their cottage cheap because of its location on the edge of what appears to be Mordor no explanation is given as to why Adrian is already dressed in his barbarian outfit given that he and his very suburban looking Mum have just arrived there from Milton Keynes.

[philcom55]

no explanation is given as to why Adrian is already dressed in his barbarian outfit given that he and his very suburban looking Mum have just arrived there from Milton Keynes.

...I take it you've never been to Milton Keynes on a Saturday night Kashgar?

- Phil R.