Comics UK

Wikipedia must be wrong then.

From 1991 until the 30 December 1995 issue, it was published as a merged comic with Judy. The two then merged with Bunty before ceasing publication completely in 2001.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_(comics)

Which begs the question of where that 30/12/95 date came from...

Digifiend wrote:Wikipedia must be wrong then.

Indeed it is.

Digifiend wrote:Which begs the question of where that 30/12/95 date came from...

Indeed it does, Digi. Anyway I seem to recall your telling me several years ago that all Wikipedia entries are made by a mix of enthusiasts and experts, and that they can be amended later by others who disagree with some comment or other or are certain that their intervention will improve the accuracy of the entry. On balance I would expect the experts to be accurate but I would not feel anything like as confident about the trustworthiness of the enthusiasts. The trouble is I would not immediately know which was which. Personally I do consult the Wikipedia from time to time but obviously I try to cross-check any information there that I am likely to find useful because I can't be certain whether that information has been posted by experts or enthusiasts. I'm sure that the Wikipedia can ultimately be an excellent source of information, but placing such a lot of trust in entries which may be inaccurate or misleading, whether they have been posted by experts, or by amateur contributors, as seems to be the case in this instance, will inevitably lead a decrease in such trust especially when such entries are eventually revealed as being inaccurate, or even simply limited.

Double checking is always a good idea, whether you're consulting Wikipedia, Alan Clark's Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers, and Editors or any of Denis Gifford's books - the trouble is that sometimes the same mistake gets to be reproduced in so many different places that it spreads like an infection. For that reason it's best to use primary sources wherever possible.

philcom55 wrote:it's best to use primary sources wherever possible.

Agreed, but it isn't necessarily obvious which are the primary sources or where they are to be found. I imagine that in general people wanting information specifically on artists or writers could well gravitate towards Alan Clark's book because it looks thoroughly professional and indeed was published by the British Library. I don't know by the way whether it has any mistakes in it or not, but a more authoritative publisher would be difficult to find.

Well, that scan definitely counts as a primary source, so I cited it when I corrected the article. Looking at the history, that mistake had gone unnoticed since 2008, when the article was created.

Thanks for correcting the error in the article, Digi.

philcom55 wrote:Double checking is always a good idea, whether you're consulting Wikipedia, Alan Clark's Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers, and Editors or any of Denis Gifford's books - the trouble is that sometimes the same mistake gets to be reproduced in so many different places that it spreads like an infection. For that reason it's best to use primary sources wherever possible.

I completely agree. One such error that I have found is that Jim Watson's work is often credited as belonging to a Colin Watson. Now I have yet to track down anything that tells me if Colin Watson is another name that Jim used or if it is a completely different artist.

And I find that error being duplicated in many places.