Comics UK

Traditionally, the first Saturday of September is when the bookshops are saturated with Thomson annual product. I have no intentions of shopping tomorrow, as any city is a nightmare to visit on this day, but I will report if the shelves are Thomson-free [here's hoping they ain't] early neckst weak.

My local big W.H.Smith has all the Thomson annuals except the 'Seventy Years' one about five shelves high, way out of sight and reach of children. Strangely the adult 'My Weekly' type of annuals are lower.

They had the annuals at the WHS in stamford, but not the one in bedford for some reason. I haven't looked in Waterstones since august, when the only annuals they had were the crap ones that nobody buys.

I saw a Zak Effron album today in Sainsburys if this sells more than the Beano I will give up on humanity altogether. It appears to be aimed at the same girls who will be buying the Barbie or Disney princess stuff, which creeps me out a little bit.

Bit of good news though. My work takes me across the country visiting sainsburys stores and it appears that they seem to be putting a bit of effort into displaying the Beano, Dandy and Toxic (and the like) on a special recommended reading stand. Something that Im sure a few people on here will be happy about! certainly better than the floor were Asda seems to keep them

Hmph! My local Sainsbury's Local (which I always refer to by its former name of Jacksons) has such a display - but most of the comics were for some reason missing yesterday, just lots of gaps. Either by some miracle they sold out, or some idiot left a whole bunch of them in the warehouse and forgot to put them out on the shop floor.

Thats a shame Digifiend, at least they got at least one customer buying the comics then anyway

I know this is an old thread, but I just saw on Beanotown.com that Pup Parade are confirmed for the 2011 Beano Annual. It was revealed in response to Da Tomster's campaign to bring it back. http://www.beanotown.com/index.php?id=181

Maybe Pup Parade could end up being like The Three Bears, who were in and out of the Beano for about 20 years (1985-2007) after they were originally dropped. The Pups were last in the comic in 2003-2004, but after they disappeared from the Beano around 1988, they moved to the Topper, which was a bit strange because they were after all the Bash Street Kids' dogs!

I wonder who's drawn the Pups in the 2011 annual though, because I doubt Gordon Bell - who was their only ever regular artist in the Beano - will have drawn it. He's probably retired now, but I could be wrong.

David Sutherland would probably draw it.

Jonny Whizz wrote:Maybe Pup Parade could end up being like The Three Bears, who were in and out of the Beano for about 20 years (1985-2007) after they were originally dropped. The Pups were last in the comic in 2003-2004, but after they disappeared from the Beano around 1988, they moved to the Topper, which was a bit strange because they were after all the Bash Street Kids' dogs!

I wonder who's drawn the Pups in the 2011 annual though, because I doubt Gordon Bell - who was their only ever regular artist in the Beano - will have drawn it. He's probably retired now, but I could be wrong.

Gnatasha, one of Gnipper's sisters, had her own strip in The Beezer (drawn by Bill Ritchie) as well - equally odd, due to it being a Dennis spin-off (although in the Beano, it would've duplicated Gnasher and Gnipper). Plug also appeared in The Beezer, but he has the excuse that his self-titled comic merged with it.

Hmm, just looked up Gordon Bell, and his Wiki article has an obsolete reference to Peter Gray's old Geocities website - I'd better check his blog and change the link. Unfortunately, Wiki doesn't say what he's done since the last Pup Parade series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bell_(artist)

To the best of my knowledge, from pics somewhere of some celebration, Gordon's retired but still with us. Probably from the 70th birthday celebrations.

Gordon Bell is most definitely still with us and is semi-retired. He's still drawing single pic cartoons for a few local newspapers. Last time I saw him would have been a few months back in a coffee shop and he looked in fine form.

Currently reading the 2010 annual and noticed a couple of 'strange' things in there...

There is a 2-page Beano 'Winter Olympics' drawing which looks like it was designed as a front and back page of a Winter Special or maybe an idea for an annual ..but the cup they won is the 2008 Winter Olympics cup ... bit strange in a 2010 annual published in 2009?

Also, a 2-page Bash Street Kids drawing... again looks like was originally planned for a summer special or something.... it's like the annuals where they have a drawing on the front cover and a similar drawing with a 'reveal' on the back cover.

Seems like they were just lying around un-used and stuck in the annual to fill up page count. The Summer one, in particular, feels really out of place...

Does anyone know if I am on the right track there with the sources of these pieces?

Just curious !

The Winter Olympics one was probably intended to be the cover for the 2008 annual, but they decided on something else instead. I think someone should've altered the trophy to say 2010 instead of 2008. The Bash Street one is presumably the front and back cover for a Bash Street Kids Summer Special, unused because they were discontinued.

I noticed a mistake on the bookends - since when does Danny wear a blue top and red shorts?

My guess with the bookends is either that the artist (Barrie Appleby) didn't ink in his top and the colours got a bit mixed up as a result, or that it was done simply to make him stand out, remembering that he was standing against blackboard and a black top wouldn't have stood out very well against it...

It's worthing noting that the Winter Olympics one was drawn by David Parkins, who has seemingly disappeared since 2006 (when that will have been drawn), I believe that he emigrated to Canada at that time. I think this was confirmed by Euan Kerr on this forum, and since then his work has only appeared as reprints (The 3 Bears, Fred's Bed and Billy Whizz, plus the 2007-2009 Dennis annuals).

He did all the annual covers for 2000 and 2004-2007, and the actual drawings on the 2001-2003 covers aside from the digital graphics, with Barrie Appleby doing 2008 and 2009, and Jimmy Hansen doing this year's cover. The 2010 annual cover wasn't one of my favourites, I thought that David Parkins was much better at it and I preferred Barrie Appleby's covers as well.

The Bash Street Kids drawings definitely looked like they were meant for a summer special, but there hasn't been one for a few years I think. It was drawn by Tom Paterson who did draw them a lot in the summer specials. Is it possible that it was reprinted from an old BSK summer special or even annual? I noticed it wasn't signed, which the rest of his work in the annual was.