Comics UK

I'm definitely a fan of the big, eye-catching single image myself. I hated all the clutter which lasted from late 2007 to late 2010, and I thought the Beano produced some brilliant covers in the eight months or so afterwards. The "This week in Beanotown", while an improvement on "Meet the Gang!", was still clutter, and I'm not sorry to see it go - this week's cover is a breath of fresh air (as opposed to water, if you see what I mean).

I also love all the imaginative variations applied to the Beano logo almost every week. It started in spectacular style with the famous 'bat-logo' cover, and while that hasn't quite been topped yet, we've certainly seen some very impressive things since - like the logo being snapped in twain this week. There was also a very effective cover a few months ago with Dennis doing a karate chop on the paper itself, which splintered to reveal a glimpse of the story inside - much better than the earlier "Gnasher loves the Beano so much he just had to have a taste", which just felt like a gimmick for gimmicks' sake.

The traditional time of year for logo variations is the fast-approaching Christmas issue. Last year, among many other differences between the two specials which emphasised just how far the Dandy had left the Beano behind, the Dandy logo was highlighted with shiny gold paper and with snow properly drawn on, whereas the Beano had a five-minute going-over on the regular logo which looks as if it had been accomplished with the aid of the MS Paint spray can. Better luck this year...?

I agree but The Beano has a new editor this year and is now as you said more experimental with its logos and covers so this years Christmas Issue hopefully will have a cover to remember.

Well well, look who I spotted doing a cameo on page 6. Dave, from Roger the Dodger. Thought we'd seen the last of him.

If dave has made a cameo does that mean Roger the Dodger has come out of reprints then?

Oh wait you said page 6 Im assuming that wasnt a Roger strip because he always occupied nearer the end of the comic.

Great to see Reto Beano back where it belongs..loved seeing Kat and Kanary..

also a nice creative Beano title..

Tin Can Tommy wrote:If dave has made a cameo does that mean Roger the Dodger has come out of reprints then?

Oh wait you said page 6 Im assuming that wasnt a Roger strip because he always occupied nearer the end of the comic.

It was the single panel third page of the Dennis and Gnasher strip.

Digifiend wrote:

Tin Can Tommy wrote:If dave has made a cameo does that mean Roger the Dodger has come out of reprints then?

It was the single panel third page of the Dennis and Gnasher strip.

I'm fairly sure that wasn't Dave (looked too young), just a random background character.

If, on the other hand, any young, male, black character seen in the Beano in even an incidental capacity is now automatically assumed to be Dave, and by extension Dave is assumed to be the only black boy in Beanotown, I think it safe to presume the original motivations behind Dave's introduction to be fatally undermined. Personally, I found he always trailed the unmistakable whiff of tokenism which tends to accompany any minority carelessly shoehorned into a long-running cast on the assumption that this alone is sufficient to tick the inclusivity boxes. (Loads more of this sort of thing here if you can stomach it.)

He only looked different because he was wearing swimming shorts instead of his usual outfit. Considering who the artist is, a sneaky cameo from Dave isn't all that surprising (and if it wasn't meant to be him, surely he could've had a different hairstyle), but yeah, him being black is due to tokenism, how many other recent characters are black? Dangerous Dan, Invisible Isobel, and Benji and Chandra from Ball Boy. A few years ago, it was just Benji. Anyway, weren't we complaining that Ball Boy and Freddie Fear looked too young not so long ago?

I wonder how much Nintendo paid DC Thomson for the fold out cover this week about Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7?

I'm not sure what to think about this I've seen other publications do it but it seems a bit strange on The Beano.

Yeah, that's new for the Beano. Usually such ads just get a mention on the cover and take up pages 2 and 3, and the back cover, but this one had the fold out as well.

Sorry I didn't realise there was an ongoing thread for "this week's issue" so I'll just repost my musing here.

And yes, I do mean THIS week's issue #3614, 3rd Dec 2011 as since it arrived this morning (for me) it is no longer NEXT week's issue

Or is there some kind of rule that means I can't speak of it in such terms until Wednesday?


"Oh dear, an epic fail in this weeks issue, 3rd Dec 2011....

To enjoy BSK at their finest one must first remove the centre 4 pages as this looks like adverts that are obscuring the usual double page spread - ie , page 17 - Lego Harry Potter game ad , pages 18/19 - Happy Feet Two movie "poster" (though thankfully not advertised as a free poster this time).

But wait, what's this on page 20?? Thats right, it's a Retro Beano Biffo strip.

Surely they could have had even one of their many in-house ads on this page thus preventing our Beano being ruined!

The stupidity of this was not lost on my 5 year old."

meherenow wrote:Or is there some kind of rule that means I can't speak of it in such terms until Wednesday?

Yes, there is an understanding that the contents of any week's issue of The Dandy or The Beano will not be posted until those members who buy their copies in a shop have had a chance to look through them without a spoiler ruining things for them several days in advance. It is a question of courtesy.

Phoenix wrote:

meherenow wrote:Or is there some kind of rule that means I can't speak of it in such terms until Wednesday?

Yes, there is an understanding that the contents of any week's issue of The Dandy or The Beano will not be posted until those members who buy their copies in a shop have had a chance to look through them without a spoiler ruining things for them several days in advance. It is a question of courtesy.

To be fair, he didn't actually spoil the stories themselves, he didn't reveal any jokes or post any scans... the only news is that a Biffo reprint is in there, and the centre spread is paid advertising.

Skyromie, I think I know why your post got deleted, it's just spam, so shut up and scram.

Yeh, sorry again, as I said on my mistakenly created other thread, I thought maybe we'd be the same here as over on 2000ad forums where they discuss the latest prog on the Saturday when subs start arriving.

And now I know why I don't have a clue what skyromie is on about - I just ignored all that rubbish when it was going on.

You haven't done anything wrong meherenow, so I wouldn't worry about it. It's simply an unspoken rule rather than a formal one. Teasers are fine in my opinion (AndyB has done them a few times), although in this case it would be difficult to do anything other than post directly about the subject.

I thought your post was actually a useful warning - because of your post, I'll make sure I don't pull out the comic's centre section next week, as I want to keep the Biffo strip intact. I do agree that it is a bit odd to put a comic strip in the pull out section, which I think goes against the point of having a pull out in the first place. I'd have been very annoyed if I'd accidentally thrown out a classic Biffo story!

Skyromie, on the other hand - grow up, please. If your comment gets deleted first time, then don't expect it the reaction to be any better second time around, and the moderators only delete comments for a good reason (usually, if it's spam, off-topic or plain nasty). Your post feels like it did when Scoobie was trolling on here.