This week's issue Take 2

[AndyB]

I bought the Beano every week until about 2.5 years ago when I subscribed. I initially took out the annual subscription, but switched to quarterly about a year and a half ago.

I've never had any shame in buying kids' comics, even when I was obviously too young to have kids of my own, which I still don't. If anyone asked, I always answered truthfully that they were for me. Love me, love my Beano...

Did you notice that it was a Barrie Appleby Gnasher's Bite this week?

[-MikeD-]

I've never had any shame in buying kids' comics, even when I was obviously too young to have kids of my own, which I still don't. If anyone asked, I always answered truthfully that they were for me. Love me, love my Beano...

Same. I've always bought comics, I enjoy them. Back when I was a student I used to sit in the pub of a lunchtime reading The Beano. I'd be more concerned about a grown man sat reading The Express...

[Lew Stringer]

One thing which bugged me though had nothing to do with the content of the Beano but instead the people who were nearby while I was buying it. One guy began to chortle and then another man said to me, "Aren't you a little old to be reading those comics?", I then replied "No, I don't think I am." then he really wound me up by saying, "How old are you exactly because comics are for babies, you must be one sad boy!" (I was shocked by this point, what made him start on me for? He was a complete stranger!), I then said something that sounds a bit rude now I think back at what I said), I replied to him asking "You think I'm too old for this? Show me where the age rating for 8 and under is on this thing then?!", he looked lost for words then I brought my comic and walked out of the shop leaving him surprised. Probably one of the most interesting experiences when buying comics in my life!

I'm afraid you'll experience that more and more often as you get older Harry, ranging from mild bemusement to accusatory suspicion. Welcome to the British attitude to comics.

[swirlythingy]

Oh, how hollow my words of exactly four months ago sound now...

All right, then, let's turn the argument on its head: why haven't they claimed a publicity coup by extending the page count to, say, 40, with no price increase, but not increasing the number of comic pages, with the extra being made up of the current filler?

Probably because a 40 page comic would cost more to print? (I think you've noticed that the 44 page issues are £2.50 and that BeanoMAX costs more than the weekly?) And, seriously, if you're not happy with the current 17/32 ratio just how many posts would you use to complain about a 17/40 ratio?

I'm just playing devil's advocate. Since you said a 20 page comic wouldn't cost any less to print (or not sufficiently less to impact on the cover price), why should a 40 page comic cost more?

The 44 page issues aren't really a fair comparison, since they all come with not-really-very-free-now-are-they gifts, and you yourself have said in the past that the markup is not so much to pay for the thing as to incentivise retailers to stock extra copies.

I don't want them to do it, of course.

I didn't think they actually would do it!

As from today, the Beano is officially less than 50% comics, every week. 17 pages out of 32 was just the right side of the halfway mark, but 17 pages out of 36 (about the only detail I got wrong) is not.

Last week, 32 pages got us:

• 17 pages of comics (Dennis x4, Minnie x2, Bash St x2, Fred's Bed x2, Numskulls x2, Meebo & Zuky, Billy Whizz, Ball Boy, Ratz, Gnasher's Bit(e))
• 5 pages of reprints (Roger x2, Pup Parade, Retro Beano x2)
• 3 pages of filler (Year of the Menace, BSK Noticeboard, Fred's Foul Facts)
• 3 DC Thomson adverts
• 3 third party adverts
• 1 contents page

This week, an extra 4 pages got us:

• Reprints: +3 (Number 13, Germs, Freddie Fear)
• Cancelled reprints: -2 (Retro Beano)
• Third party adverts: +2

This week, an extra 4 pages didn't get us:

• New Roger the Dodger strips
• New comic strips of any kind
• A Retro Beano logo next to the transparently rebranded Number 13 strip, just like it had only nine weeks ago, in issue #3598 (2011-08-13)
• A Retro Beano logo next to the Germs strip, in the gaping vacuum where the brain cells of the moron who thought "Totally Gross!" was necessary to update the strip to be hip, fashionable and down wiv da kidz should have been
• A Mr Meecher strip on the Dandy reprint page, because really, it would have been more apt, wouldn't it? Preferably the one which showed his pants falling down in front of a large audience of children.

Once again, I find myself desperately seeking the answer to the question: Are kids really that stupid?

But I won't deny Lew his little victory too... consider this the official launch of a long string of posts complaining about the 17/36 comic ratio.

[Jonny Whizz]

I remember a couple of weeks ago, I went into my local shop to buy the Beano along with a copy of the Telegraph. When I went to pay for them, the shop assistant commented that this was an unusual pairing. Probably not the worst thing that's ever been said, but fairly typical of the attitude towards comics in the country. I totally agree with Lew's comments on this matter.

I never minded Dave Eastbury's original style, but I found the Freddie Fear reprint jarring alongside the Ball Boy strip in his current style, which I agree is better and has more life.

Overall I thought this week's issue was good. There was quite a bit of reprint content, but in truth I'd rather have reprints than filler material, and I'd never seen that Germs strip before, though I had seen the Number 13 story. I liked the strip but I did find the colouring on it a little odd. I find Number 13's new title fine, but Totally Gross Germs doesn't work for me. I felt most of the regulars were on good form this week - I'd probably say the Bash Street Kids, Ball Boy, Fred's Bed and Minnie were the ones I liked most.

The one truly significant negatives in this week's issue were the comic strip adverts, Wenlock and Mandeville and Real Construction. NP's artwork was very good in both cases, but they suffered from wooden, unfunny writing. Real Construction was better than Wenlock and Mandeville though as it at least included some attempts at jokes - I don't want to offend whoever's writing it, but the stories are just dull in my opinion.

[AndyB]

The difficulty with the ads drawn by Nigel is that if they are written in the Beano office, as is quite probable, they still have to be approved by the owners of the characters, who are paying to have them written the way they like - and that can quickly ruin a good script. The good thing is that they make money for Nigel, and the advertisers pay even more to take the comic strip advertisement than they would if they just sent their own copy in.

To be honest, this week's Beano held no surprises. I doubt that the extra four pages are going to lead to any new content - I suspect the editorial team has been told they can have four extra pages if they want it, but they may have to have adverts on two of the pages and there is no extra money to pay for new artwork on the other two.

[Digifiend]

And that's why, Swirly, I don't consider Retro Beano to be a "cancelled" reprint at all. It was just missing this week due to the Real Construction advert. Wenlock and Mandeville is only there every fortnight, so Retro Beano will probably be back next week. It's usually the first thing to go when paid adverts appear.

[Gilly]

Just remember though that Super School is yet to reappear and Dangerous Dan could also come back if popular enough.

Are we going back to the days when everything can't appear in one issue.

[felneymike]

I'd respond to shop sniggerers with Gestapo/NKVD/Kempeitai speak.
"It's every patriot's duty to support our vanishing culture, though of course some people are not as patriotic as others..."
For DCT titles this ought to work especially well in Scotland and even more especially well in Dundee!

[AndyB]

Are we going back to the days when everything can't appear in one issue.

We never left those days, unfortunately! Filler aside, I think they are trying to publish strips in runs, rather than changing the lineup every week, though, for more consistency.

[Gilly]

I guess so but you have to admit storywise in the past 6 months or so after the likes of Ivy the Terrible and Lord Snooty the Third were dropped the cast list has been smaller meaning there has been Beanos where everything has appeared

I get your point though because Super School is coming back but if that is the case I wonder if something will make way for a bit for it.

[AndyB]

I think so. I wouldn't like to speculate as to what will make way, though - on the other hand, perhaps I'll be wrong and they'll be able to include it on top of the other non-reprint material.

[swirlythingy]

Apart from occasional blips (mainly advert-induced), and Dangerous Dan's six week run, since at least 30th April (which was when I started paying attention) the Beano's entire character roster has fitted into 17 pages, with some characters getting more than one page. I listed them in my post above. The most notable absence is, of course, Roger the Dodger.

It's still possible this may be bolstered by short runs of strips such as Super School; Dangerous Dan didn't replace anything, but it was very much the exception, the Beano otherwise having given up running strips in short bursts and rotating them regularly altogether. The comic strip content of this week's Beano is identical to issue #3585 (2011-05-14), the first to establish the pattern.

I'm afraid the days when strips had to be occasionally dropped due to lack of space are long gone...

[Gilly]

I personally hope Super School doesn't replace anything on its return the more comic pages the better

[Jonny Whizz]

In my experience, there tend to be periods when the Beano has a larger number of strips than can be realistically included in a single issue of the comic, which usually leads to peripheral strips being dropped. while at other times the roster has been smaller and a large proportion of issues feature the full complement of stories.

For example, I recall a time in late 2009 when the Beano seemed to have more strips than could possibly fit into one issue. In this case, I think Johnny Bean was the loser - he seemed to be pushed to the margins, as his appearances becoming increasingly rare before he ended the following year, though I suspect this was due to Laura starting Beano Manga.

On the other hand, there was a spell in summer 2007 where it felt like the full roster was appearing in the comic most weeks, as a number of strips had been dropped earlier in the year, notably Calamity James, The Three Bears and Crazy for Daisy, while Billy Whizz and Ivy the Terrible became reprints.