This weeks Dandy

[Digifiend]

I didn't mean any banner at all, but a particularly large one. The Dandy's post-relaunch title banners have often been the same height as a panel from the actual strip, taking up the top quarter of the page. A banner like Billy Whizz's would be half the size, like the Sea Dogs one is.

As for Joe, I think it was a dojo, not his sister's nursery. It was building signage in the artwork.

[swirlythingy]

Joe Jitsu definitely did once feature a nursery signposted "Dandytown Nursery", but I can't remember when it was - and this is significant, since Joe Jitsu was a Comic Idol contestant and therefore any strips after the first four could not possibly have been drawn without knowledge of the destination comic.

There's also a considerable amount of ambiguity in the script in question, since the nursery only features in the context of his sister beating up its inhabitants - so it may have been a rival nursery to her own presumably Beano-based one (at least, that's the way I read it at the time).

As for the Dandy's large title banners, hurrah for their apparently impending demise, I say. They were a hideously pointless waste of space, as well as deeply unimaginative. Some strips (Harry Hill, The Bogies, Yore) have never had them, and even some strips which originally had them seem to be losing them (Mr Meecher). An unscientific guesstimate suggests less than 50% of the comic content of this week's Dandy has a large title banner - the main hangers-on seem to be the strips by Andy Fanton and Wayne Thompson.

Imposing a house style of title panel on every strip is nothing new - the 2004 Dandy tried exactly the same thing with that dreadful TV clipart. This lasted approximately as long as the 2010 large banners did before everything went back to how it was before, although, as with today, the last strips to go were those present in the first revamped issue. Will lessons now be learnt which should have been learnt five years earlier?

[Lew Stringer]

Uniform title banners were used in comics long before The Dandy. (Film Fun for example.)

Unimaginative? At least the ones in The Dandy either offer a self-contained gag or a different visual impact every week.

[Jonny Whizz]

I think the Joe Jitsu strip in question was in issue 3216, dated 7th March 2004 - the second issue after it had been announced that he'd been voted in as comic idol winner. As it happens it was the same issue where Colin the Vet made his first proper appearance, as it was declared in the previous issue (where Joe had two stories) that as Colin had only lost out by 1%, both strips would become regulars.

In terms of title banners, I personally like one-off designs - the ones David Sutherland did for the Bash Street Kids over the years stand out - but I don't mind the same banner or header being used if it's fairly creative or eye-catching. I always rather liked the Numskulls title with Edd's tongue sticking out of his mouth and Cruncher sliding down it, for example.

[Digifiend]

Yore does have a large banner, it just doesn't use the generic typeface.

[Lew Stringer]

The Dandy's post-relaunch title banners have often been the same height as a panel from the actual strip, taking up the top quarter of the page.

The top fifth of the page, to be pedantic.

We draw new banners every week, so you're still getting a full page of new artwork. The strips themselves still have 9 to 11 panels, so it's not like you're getting a shorter story.

[steve3po]

Sea Dogs was always destined for the Dandy. I title the strips myself so I can make the best use of the page. The stories occasionally begin in the title panel area, this weeks is a good example of that. Hope you're enjoying my work guys.

[swirlythingy]

I've now gone through this week's issue and counted the large banners properly. Out of 16 full-page comic strips (including Hysterical History), 6 have generic title banners (not including Yore), so my "less than 50%" figure was fairly accurate. These are all three of the old crowd (Desperate Dan, Korky the Cat and Bananaman) plus Wayne Thompson's work (currently just Fu Schnicken in addition to Bananaman) and Andy Fanton's work (both Harry and his Hippo and George vs Dragon).

We draw new banners every week, so you're still getting a full page of new artwork. The strips themselves still have 9 to 11 panels, so it's not like you're getting a shorter story.

Not quite; while the empty space to the right of the banners is customized each week to some extent (which is an improvement on the previous state of affairs, or the current state of affairs at the Beano), it's still just the equivalent of one panel on an entire row of the page, whereas strips which have title panels instead (like Harry Hill) typically have two or three in the equivalent space. (Not that anything seems to have more than four rows to a page anyway, although I think Yore cheated a bit with that splash panel, but it keeps options open.)

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with title banners, but they should know their place. Sea Dogs and Clown Wars, or the new style now applied to Tiny's Temper and Mr Meecher, are better examples of what constitutes an appropriate size.

[Lew Stringer]

We draw new banners every week, so you're still getting a full page of new artwork. The strips themselves still have 9 to 11 panels, so it's not like you're getting a shorter story.

Not quite; while the empty space to the right of the banners is customized each week to some extent (which is an improvement on the previous state of affairs, or the current state of affairs at the Beano), it's still just the equivalent of one panel on an entire row of the page, whereas strips which have title panels instead (like Harry Hill) typically have two or three in the equivalent space.

No, check again. You're still getting a 9 to 11 panel story. You're not getting less story. It's not as if the banner is replacing any panels. Harry Hill is four tiers high. Most of the others are five tiers high including the title panel.

It's simply that the panels aren't drawn as high as they would be for a four tier layout. However to compensate for that I for one draw my pages almost twice up, so I'm not putting any less in the strip than I would if I was drawing it for a four-tier layout. In fact we're putting more effort into the page because we have to come up with a gag or new visual for the title banner every week.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with title banners, but they should know their place. Sea Dogs and Clown Wars, or the new style now applied to Tiny's Temper and Mr Meecher, are better examples of what constitutes an appropriate size.

The point of the illustrated banners is to provide a new additional gag or strong character image each week. A smaller area wouldn't offer the same potential and, if it simply reverted to the old style of a title and a head shot you'd be getting less for your money in effect.

[-MikeD-]

The point of the illustrated banners is to provide a new additional gag or strong character image each week. A smaller area wouldn't offer the same potential and, if it simply reverted to the old style of a title and a head shot you'd be getting less for your money in effect.

Yup...The banners are a great place to put a character gag. And, of course, as Lew said - you still get four (on average) tiers of panels (albeit, slightly squashed horizontally) so there is no loss of strip.

Initially, I wasn't a fan of the HUGE borders right around the artwork, but even that's grown on me. It ties all the disparate styles together without being too much of a house imposition.

[swirlythingy]

The point of the illustrated banners is to provide a new additional gag or strong character image each week. A smaller area wouldn't offer the same potential and, if it simply reverted to the old style of a title and a head shot you'd be getting less for your money in effect.

Yup...The banners are a great place to put a character gag. And, of course, as Lew said - you still get four (on average) tiers of panels (albeit, slightly squashed horizontally) so there is no loss of strip.

Bone-O is one of the latecomers which had title panels from the start, with, as you say, a character gag. That's the place for them. Besides, Sea Dogs proved this week that a small banner doesn't necessarily have to be dead space.

In the end, the design and layout are all down to the personal preferences of the artist, and that's exactly the way it should be. That's part of the reason I feel imposing a house style on something as intimate as the actual layout of a strip is always a mistake - it eats into a little bit of the strip's carefully crafted identity, as well as being hard to keep up over time as new strips are added to the roster.

Having a stylebook is all well and good, but in a comic employing lots of different artists, you can only take it so far. The original style of title banner might have worked if Jamie Smart drew every strip in the comic (although it should be noted that Pre-Skool Prime Minister, debuting in the very first issue, never used them), but it gets more impractical with each increase in the Dandy's already impressive artistic diversity. Imagine if Yore had had one? And a house style is nothing if it doesn't apply to the whole house, and since it never applied to some strips in the first place, it should have been a non-starter.

Initially, I wasn't a fan of the HUGE borders right around the artwork, but even that's grown on me. It ties all the disparate styles together without being too much of a house imposition.

Yes, I like the borders - that's the good side of having a house style. It doesn't require any alterations or stretching of the artwork, and it isn't too intrusive, but it helps the whole comic hang together and, along with the contents page (and some other things like the company ads and the Mailbag) gives the comic effortless consistency it might otherwise not have had. The "blue blobs" (I'm pretty sure that's the official term) help as well, although I have to admit it'd be interesting to see them pop up in the margins from time to time, like a 21st century Bellboy.

[WizzKid97]

LOVED this week's issue of the Dandy! Pre-Skool Prime Minister and George VS Dragon made me laugh so much! Pre-Skool PM was just amazing, love the bits with the space 'hat' and the beanbags instead of chairs, so funny.

The Madvertisement this week was also very funny, Old MacDonald's Facebook Farm, Freddy the Fearless Fly, Doctor, Doctor, Mr Meecher, Harry and his Hippo, Korky, The Bogies, Desperate Dan, Saint Evils and Jibber and Steve were all brilliant as well.

Sea Dogs and Yore were both beautifully drawn this week but both lacked something, not sure what. Bananaman in my opinion hit an all time low this issue with some boring story about a pig. Clown Wars was okay-ish and I absolutely hated Fu Schnicken which I disliked right from the start, sorry Wayne. Tiny's Temper needs to turn to humour rather than a continued story, also very stretched again. And as for Harry Hill, I'm not even going to mention it. Sorry, but I hate celeb based stories.

Anyway, brilliant once again, but it had some problems.

EDIT: Also can't wait for next week, it's a 44 pager I do believe, hooray, and not only that but it's also got the return of My Own Genie as well! (But sadly it's in reprints meaning the first ever reprinted run since the revamp!)

[Digifiend]

Tiny's Temper is in The Beano as well and had a larger title banner, which fixed the stretching issue it had in last week's Dandy.

[big bad bri]

. Bananaman in my opinion hit an all time low this issue with some boring story about a pig. Clown Wars was okay-ish and I absolutely hated Fu Schnicken which I disliked right from the start, sorry Wayne. Tiny's Temper needs to turn to humour rather than a continued story, also very stretched again. And as for Harry Hill, I'm not even going to mention it. Sorry, but I hate celeb based stories.

bananaman has been bad since the revamp but for me its the art sorry bananman artist if you are reading but it did have an appearance from the smasher,i do love seeing classic characters snuck into the background.i love harry hill its one of the best stories for me in the comic

[StuMunro]

Tiny's Temper needs to turn to humour rather than a continued story, also very stretched again.

This week's Tiny's Temper isn't stretched at all. If the 'o' in my signature is an (almost) perfect circle, it's in it's original aspect ratio. I have drawn it that way to make it different from Justin Beaver and the rest of the strips in the Dandy.

Sad to hear you didn't find it funny, you can't please everyone!