Which Annuals Did You Buy?

[J T]

Yes, you're quite right, Lew- apologies for my flippancy. I saw a few bargains at the right time and snapped 'em up... and perhaps a couple of christmas tipples encouraged me to boast about my gains.
Even before Christmas most annuals will be discounted with a couple of quid off, or in a BOGOF... such as it is with the 'loss-leader' retail culture these days.

[J T]

On another note concerning annuals, does anybody know how far in advance they are prepared...? At what point during the year are the story/artwork deadlines for the 2010 annuals due for instance? Or are they already done and dusted by this early stage?

[NP]

Re deadlines:
Each annual has a different deadline, covers are normally prepared first (for advertising, catalogue preparation, etc) and then each measure of an annual (the four or five stitched-in sections you see at the top or bottom at the spine) has it's own deadline. The DC Thomson 2010 books are in this process now, the Dandy is all but finished, this time, unusually, the Dennis Book will be the last to go to press. There is a good reason though.

[dandy mad]

The annuals i got were the beano,dandy,oor wullie,comics in the classroom viz and the very big and very good the history of the beano the story so far

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

you can usually tell by the evolving style of a particular comic artist when the artwork was prepared: I don't follow contemporary artwork, but in my day, artwork that appeared in a 1971 annual was usually drawn up in 1969.............presumably, the same system of storing artwork for a full year applies today.

[Lew Stringer]

Yes, you're quite right, Lew- apologies for my flippancy. I saw a few bargains at the right time and snapped 'em up... and perhaps a couple of christmas tipples encouraged me to boast about my gains.
Even before Christmas most annuals will be discounted with a couple of quid off, or in a BOGOF... such as it is with the 'loss-leader' retail culture these days.

No problem. Sorry if I seemed curt. Got that winter bug so trying to be brief.

Thinking about it, I may be wrong about publishers losing out as annuals might be on firm sale. (They used to be anyway.) That means shops pay x amount for the books up front, so it's the shops that stand the loss, not the publishers. That may have changed of course, but it would explain why shops stock far less annuals than they used to.

As for the Bash Street Kids Space Cadets book, I've only seen it shelved with the children's story books, not with the annuals. I don't know if that was the publisher's intention but that seems to be the result.

Lew

[Conor B]

The closest place to me which had the BSK Space Cadets book was Borders, about 8-10 miles away. It was on the very top shelf, and may I add that the one storey shop was probably taller than a two storey one!

[Peter Gray]

the Dennis Book will be the last to go to press. There is a good reason though.

can you tell us Nigel..
you always come out with these things like this that makes me want to be nosey

Was there something wrong with the Dennis book that had to be changed...
any typo mistakes..
drawing had to be changed has it could be read another way..

[AndyB]

I would have guessed "Nigel is still drawing a new story"

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

quite amusing, Andy.....when the comic artists go quiet on here for a while, I usually assume [probably wrongly] that they're busy at the old BRISTOL BOARD........

[Steve Henderson]

Happy new year guys, I got the History of the Beano book which everyone between ther ages of 6 and 600 should own. Its wonderful its a pleasure to look at and a pleasure to read.

Mike Pearse has outdone himself with the Bash street kids book, I love the European style of the comic and the length of the stories, it really opened the characters up and made for some really nice reading.

The Dennis Annual was also a fantastic read well done to everyone who worked on that too, Its nice to see the character doing so much (having so many pets too oddly enough, seemed to be a theme for the year!!)

The beano book was up to its usual standard, nice to see all the usual suspects, Happy Bunny Green could have done with more than one outing, looking forward to perhaps seeing superschool in next year.

Happy new year!