This week's issue Take 2

[Peter Gray]

Its great Jim is getting more credit these days...I love his work more and more...as you look at it again with fresh eyes...as my recently blog posts have shown...what a visual energetic fun artist Jim was..

[stevezodiac]

From today's Metro newspaper:

[Digifiend]

The Sun mentioned this as well, but screwed up by saying it was the Summer Special, rather than a regular issue.

[Jonny Whizz]

Freddie Fear and Pup Parade both returned this week. I'd seen the Pup Parade story before in Classics from the Comics - from memory it was marked as 'classic Beano', which seems to confirm that the reprints being used are from the Beano rather than the Topper.

[WizzKid97]

Freddie Fear and Pup Parade both returned this week. I'd seen the Pup Parade story before in Classics from the Comics - from memory it was marked as 'classic Beano', which seems to confirm that the reprints being used are from the Beano rather than the Topper.

Ah, but were Freddie Fear and Pup Parade MEANT to return? After all, the contents clearly says Ratz was on Page 6 (whereas in reality, Freddie Fear was on Page 6) and At Home with the BSK was on Page 20 (whereas once again in reality, Pup Parade was on Page 20). Bit of a fail there for the Beano. Ah well, at least we got Freddie Fear and Pup Parade though (but really I'd of liked Ratz and AT Home with the BSK in there as well. With AHWTBSK being on Page 20 then Pup Parade being elsewhere.

REVIEW:

I thought the Beano was on top form this week (despite the contents cock-up), I was very surprised to see the 'Gnashional Trust Special' was ACTUALLY a special! In the past we've had things like the Magic Specials (where only Fred's Bed, Ball Boy and Dennis were magic-related) and as for the Halloween Special last year (well, very impressive they were all pretty much about a power-cut but STILL, not very halloweeny was it?

This week had Dennis and Gnasher, Minnie the Minx, The Bash Street Kids and surprisingly the Numskulls and Billy Whizz all having National Trust related stories. Also the advert for National Trust was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. A really nice looking advert there. I'd like to see more like this, drawn out.

Didn't like the Gimme, Gimme XL though, it was stupid. Also Year of the Menace has turned into the third page of Gimme, Gimme. The 'Where's Dennis' puzzles are also rubbish. They're so obvious, on the first of the two, Gnasher is there as well, but he's not edited, yet Dennis is. Why may I ask? Do the Beano think people won't recognise the old (and much loved) Dennis?

Next Week sounds interesting, my only problem is thanks to the stupid Where's Dennis double page it means the Next Week page has been squashed into Year of the Menace. I want the Next Week page back!

I liked Dennis and Gnasher this week, very good storyline with amazing artwork. The castle drawings are amazing! I liked how Dennis has used a catapult again (Hooray!) plus using tomatoes rather than those stupid, wet sponges. The menace is returning!

Looking forward to next week, that's all for now.

[Jay]

What's with the terrible cellotape that leaves a horrible sticky residue on the front and back? I mistakenly put my Beano on top of the Dandy and now they seem forever fused together in some unholy matrimony.

[big bad bri]

What's with the terrible cellotape that leaves a horrible sticky residue on the front and back? I mistakenly put my Beano on top of the Dandy and now they seem forever fused together in some unholy matrimony.

i agree the tape is horrible if it doesnt rip the comic it leaves a horrible sticky residue which means i have to cover it in more tape,if they have to put tat with the comics Bag IT UP! its getting annoying as if the big covers of the dandy and big centre spread wasnt bad enough and we got another 4 weeks of this overpiced oversized mess to go

[Digifiend]

Cut the gift off with scissors. It will leave some tape still attached to the comic, but you won't have to worry about sticky residue causing the comic to get stuck to anything else.

[-MikeD-]

The 'Where's Dennis' puzzles are also rubbish. They're so obvious, on the first of the two, Gnasher is there as well, but he's not edited, yet Dennis is. Why may I ask? Do the Beano think people won't recognise the old (and much loved) Dennis?

Am I right in thinking the 'Where's Dennis' are edited reprints, I think I saw them in a book years ago? (sorry if I missed this being explained earlier.) I love the detail in the pictures.

[Peter Gray]

the Dennis has been drawn into the find Dennis in the new style..
I don't think it wa s afind Dennis before? it is a reprint..

I'm throwing away the centre pages and free gifts..

[swirlythingy]

I couldn't have chosen a worse week to go on holiday, could I? I was far away from my computer and an Internet connection, and I had the Beano reserved at my newsagents at home, so buying a copy elsewhere wasn't an option. I was hoping to just quietly skip a couple of days, forget about comics, and catch up where I left off when I came back on Friday. I assumed I wouldn't be missing anything which couldn't wait a few days, and that there was no chance of my being exposed to any spoilers before I got back, given the media's general indifference to the existence of comics nowadays. How wrong was I?

Squarely in the middle of page fifteen of Wednesday's Guardian, I was confronted with this. Actually, I was confronted with somewhat more than that web-friendly version, with a (cropped) scan of the entire cover occupying a large section of the page. It looked like a DC Thomson publicity shot, because there was no barcode and large areas of blank space which were filled in in the real comic.

The first article to even mention comics all year, and it appeared on that week of all weeks, heralding major and important developments which, for the first and only time, I was going to miss by a mile. Sometimes I feel like Calamity James...

Ah, but were Freddie Fear and Pup Parade MEANT to return? After all, the contents clearly says Ratz was on Page 6 (whereas in reality, Freddie Fear was on Page 6) and At Home with the BSK was on Page 20 (whereas once again in reality, Pup Parade was on Page 20).

Good spot! I really must read those contents more often, because that always seems to be where the juiciest howlers (ahem, Roger the Doger, ahem) turn up. Freddie Fear is a bit prone to this, isn't he? Last time he appeared (alongside Super School), the contents advertised his page as Gnasher's Bit(e). The combination of symptoms, and the fact that this week's strip was predominantly orange a few weeks after Dave Eastbury gave up this unfortunate habit on Ball Boy, points to a stockpile.

Production quality hasn't picked up. At least the tsunami of colouring errors has more or less stopped now, but it's been replaced by a torrent of even more obvious misprints and design clangers. Text overflowing speech bubbles (this used to happen quite often, and sometimes the entire bubble would be missing, but it's the first time I've seen it in a while), pictures zoomed in too far (Bertie and Dudley), and the misprint in Dodge Diary (again - identification left as exercise for reader). And did anyone actually take their survey? It contained a reference to "The Numbskulls".

Also the advert for National Trust was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. A really nice looking advert there. I'd like to see more like this, drawn out.

Yep, you're right there - quite the nicest-looking advert I've seen in some time, and all-new artwork too. Shame about the other one being reprinted from the cover of an ancient and irrelevant comic, though! I suppose it goes with the new-style shop advert...

I notice Minnie, Numskulls and BSK all have their original artists again, after a few weeks of sporadic reprints and ghosts. Preparation for this week, or just summer holiday season?

Cut the gift off with scissors. It will leave some tape still attached to the comic, but you won't have to worry about sticky residue causing the comic to get stuck to anything else.

Seconded. I started doing this ages ago. I've never once succeeded in removing Sellotape without damaging the cover, and I regret it every time I try. The new glossy paper did nothing to alleviate this problem.

If it's a choice between Sellotape and bags, then bags are the lesser of the two evils, but they're no substitute for no gifts at all. I'm sorry to see the Dandy seems to have been dragged into the frenzy, because its restraint in such matters and focus on extra comic content instead was one of its chief strengths. (I point once again to the Dandy/Beano Christmas special comparison fiasco.)

Am I right in thinking the 'Where's Dennis' are edited reprints, I think I saw them in a book years ago? (sorry if I missed this being explained earlier.) I love the detail in the pictures.

I'm sure they're edited reprints, and they seem to have been cropped and magnified as well, but I haven't a clue where the original artwork came from - I can't think of any suitable application, although Dennis (and sometimes Gnasher) do appear in the originals, so it may just have been a series of similar puzzle pages.

the Dennis has been drawn into the find Dennis in the new style..

Both of them were copied and pasted from the picture on the contents page. But there's one piece of good news - said picture wasn't copied and pasted from the front cover, for once!

[AndyB]

The Where's Dennis feature is Evi De Bono's work, apart from the pasted Dennis. I haven't anything new from Evi in years, so I don't know how old they are.

The covers and anything else on card go to press before the rest, which is why the contents can have last minute changes. There was a time when they had an ad on page 2 so that the contents could be changed before going to press - the danger of having the contents on page 2 is that artwork might be late for reasons outside their control.

[Digifiend]

Actually, advert on page 2 usually meant no contents page at all.

And the Guardian article says there's 8 strips, there's actually 14.

[swirlythingy]

Actually, advert on page 2 usually meant no contents page at all.

Don't think so - in extremis, they've been known to put contents on page 5, although that may have only happened in the Dandy.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, I think Beano has used page 4 once or twice. Only Dandy would ever use page 5 (with the jokes page on page 4).