Comics UK

New look for the latest THE Beano Max it appears: http://www.beano.com/beano-max/issue-62

I noticed that, bought it with the weekly Beano and Dandy on Wednesday. A definite improvement, the O in the title was obscured by the M on the old layout.

Any changes to content?

thanks..

I havent read the BeanoMax since Issue 3. I think mainly because i could be no longer bothered to go to Rushden every month to get a copy. It has doubtlessly changed rather a lot in the intervening 59 issues.The logo doesn't appear that much different to me but then i only have a vague recollection of the logo and I dont think it has changed much since the first issue. Now what abiut the content of this monthly comic. I hear there are a few strips in the comic which dont appear in the weekly. What are these like are these large in number, any gems?

(Also argh i pressed back by accident and had to rewrite my whole post how frustrating )

Typical content recently has been:
6-8-page Dennis and Beano gang strip (Nigel Parkinson)
3-page Kickass Koalas
3-page Wallace and Gromit (Jimmy Hansen until recently, then one month by Diego and this month's is by Steve Bright)
2-page text comedy horrorish serial - Evil Edgar (illustrated by Dave Sutherland)
16-page reprint of Beano Superstars at half size, replaced this month by Bananaman annual content at full size

The remaining 12-14 pages are the cover, contents, games, puzzles, ads and sometimes odds and ends such as spare Super School strips, occasional reprints, and edited Where's Dennis scenes. Retro Beano has appeared at least once, and a few months ago a Freddie Fear annual strip was reprinted.

Max was a real character drawn by Jimmy Dewar who appeared for a year or two while Euan was editing it, but was quietly dropped some time after he retired. The concept of Max, a kid who did "everything to the max" was undoubtedly sound, especially as it was something to make Beano Max different, but Jimmy's computer art took a long time to settle down and suffered badly from being very static indeed - on top of that, the concept of having an astronaut father didn't do so well - perhaps if there had been a few space cadet jokes... Had it been conventional art, it may have succeeded better.

Around the same time, the Beano logo became smaller and smaller, with MAX taking up a good part of the left hand top corner of the cover. They changed that back quite some time ago, I think to promote the Beano brand.

Lets hope Steve Bright will get even more comic work..for either The Beano or The Dandy I love his work..and the Christmas Beano cover shows what we've been missing..

I totally agree with you about Steve Bright, Peter - he's one of the best current artists. He was able to draw Calamity James really well when the character and strip are pure Tom Paterson; the strip never felt right when it was ghosted, but it still felt like James when Steve drew it. His Bananaman covers for the Dandy were smashing as well.

The character Max never really appealed to me. Although I could see the sense behind giving the BeanoMax a more different visual identity to the Beano itself, ultimately readers still seem to like Dennis best and therefore I feel he should be on the cover. One thing which rather put me off Max was the amount of 'market research' which went into the character - classics such as Dennis, Minnie, Roger etc. were simply allowed to grow organically and the concepts worked with the readers, whereas with Max it seemed as though he was being designed around what research said kids liked, to the point of determining the colour of his hair, for instance. The static art was a major problem, but equally I could understand why the decision was taken to go with a different, more modern artwork style for the character.

If I'm honest, at the moment the BeanoMAX is really at it's absolute lowest - what the BeanoMAX needs is more comic strips alongside its filler.

The current line-up is quite good - I really like how 3 of the stories are BeanoMAX exclusive plus the idea of 'Evil Edgar' is great as it's a 21st century text story and an entertaining read.

'Kick-Ass Koalas' is definitely the strongest and Peter Player's artwork and writing is pure genius. 'Wallace and Gromit' I find strange as it's got nothing to do with the Beano, however I look at this the same way as I look at 'The Bogies' - it's a story sold to the comic and it's funny so I have no problem with it.

I also love Nigel's incredible 7 page Beano All-Stars stories! But what I'd love to see is some different characters - not just Dennis, Minnie and the Bash Street Kids... Maybe characters like Billy Whizz, Ball Boy and The Numskulls? Or Bananaman?

So, I actually really like the BeanoMAX except there's one thing which really ruins it...

Those silly 16 page reprints...

I hate them. I find how you have to rotate them and squint to read them a complete nightmare! Plus these 16 pages could easily be filled up with more comic strips - I'd honestly love to see some mixtures of reprints and new stories here...

What I think would work well in the BeanoMAX and impress older audience is adding a few really old stories into the mix... Characters like 'Jonah' and 'Little Plum'. 'Jonah' could be Ken Reid reprints coloured in and 'Little Plum' could be new stories by Hunt Emerson. I think 'The Riot Squad' would also work really well perhaps on the back.

Then you can also add in a few more characters like Super School and a two page Meebo and Zuky? Also, I'd love to see more of the Auntie Clockwise Dandy reprints - I know they're reprinted but I really enjoyed them.

Ken Harrison can draw a 2 page Minnie as well and they could use Roger reprints by Bob Nixon. If there's enough room, maybe use some Bash Street Kids reprints by Mike Pearse from Singled Out.

Maybe add a new exclusive story in somewhere by a Dandy artist and possibly introduce a two page adventure serial of Billy the Cat which could also be Dave Sutherland reprints and then I think you'd get a far better line-up.

The 16 page reprint can also be used as the gift as a A5 mini-mag and become 32 pages instead. Afetr the Superstars comics are finished they can begin reprinting the Kev Sutherland and Mike Pearse stories as well! This can then replace the plastic tat and keep the comic at the £3.00 margin maybe along with some sweets like Haribos seeing as the Beano have a contract with them.

UPDATE: Here's my idea for the BeanoMAX:
PG 1: Front Cover
PG 2: Contents
PG 3: Beano All-Stars - Nigel Parkinson
PG 10: Filler
PG 12: Minnie the Minx - Ken Harrison
PG 14: Kick-Ass Koalas - Peter Player
PG 17: Advert
PG 18: Filler
PG 20: Meebo and Zuky - Laura Howell
PG 22: Billy the Cat - David Sutherland (REPRINT)
PG 24: The Riot Squad - Ken Harrison (REPRINT)
PG 25: Super School - Lew Stringer
PG 26: Wallace and Gromit - Jimmy Hansen
PG 28: Advert
PG 29: Filler
PG 30: Auntie Clockwise - Wayne Thompson (REPRINT)
PG 32: The Bash Street Kids - David Sutherland
PG 34: Exclusive Story
PG 35: Retro Beano (REPRINT)
PG 36: Little Plum - Hunt Emerson
PG 37: Advert
PG 38: Roger the Dodger - Robert Nixon (REPRINT)
PG 40: Evil Edgar - David Sutherland
PG 42: The Bash Street Kids: Singled Out - Mike Pearse (REPRINT)
PG 43: Next Month!/Exclusive Half Page Story
PG 44: Back Page: Jonah - Ken Reid (REPRINT)

And that's my idea!
Maybe I should suggest it!

I find it difficult to take this posting seriously as it clearly contradicts its self:

WizzKid97 wrote:If I'm honest, at the moment the BeanoMAX is really at it's absolute lowest

.

But follows it up immediately with:

The current line-up is quite good - I really like how 3 of the stories are BeanoMAX exclusive plus the idea of 'Evil Edgar' is great as it's a 21st century text story and an entertaining read.

'Kick-Ass Koalas' is definitely the strongest and Peter Player's artwork and writing is pure genius. 'Wallace and Gromit' I find strange as it's got nothing to do with the Beano, however I look at this the same way as I look at 'The Bogies' - it's a story sold to the comic and it's funny so I have no problem with it.

I also love Nigel's incredible 7 page Beano All-Stars stories! But what I'd love to see is some different characters - not just Dennis, Minnie and the Bash Street Kids... Maybe characters like Billy Whizz, Ball Boy and The Numskulls? Or Bananaman?

So, I actually really like the BeanoMAX

But I'll respond with this much. Kickass Koalas isn't written by Peter Player and Wallace & Gromit isn't a paid for strip and not written by Aardman either. I also don't understand why having a Dandy artist write and draw something for The Beano Max will make it any better, if anything it'll make it worse, as the style of The Dandy is completely different - and younger.

Sounds a bit negative that, but I'd rather things were clear and true than positively false and pie in the sky.

I think WizzKid97's got it the wrong way round - the Bogies aren't 'sold to' the Dandy either. If you want an example of a strip which only appears in a comic because its owners pay for it to be there, look no further than the bi-weekly saccharine non-adventures of Gridlock and Massivebill.

What I mean is that even though the stories are good - they are the only thing that is good. The rest is ugly filler and Wenlock and Mandeville eyesores.

This month's BeanoMAX was quite good - not too much filler and glad that the Bananaman story wasn't 2 pages to a page - John Geering's Bananaman looks far better how it was in this issue.

My point is that there's only 16 pages (roughly) of new stories plus the 16 pages extra of reprint meaning despite 32 pages of comic strips - it's still not satisfactory.

Also 'The Bogies' must be sold to the Dandy - they have their own brand and everything. The only other sold strips I can remember are 'Spooky Skaters' and 'Wenlock and Mandeville' - The Beano didn't make 'Wallace and Gromit' and the Dandy didn't make 'The Bogies' so surely it must be sold to them?

WizzKid97 wrote:Also 'The Bogies' must be sold to the Dandy - they have their own brand and everything. The only other sold strips I can remember are 'Spooky Skaters' and 'Wenlock and Mandeville' - The Beano didn't make 'Wallace and Gromit' and the Dandy didn't make 'The Bogies' so surely it must be sold to them?

Or, they could be buying it because they think the characters are a desirable property to have in their comic which is likely to translate to a corresponding increase in sales. That's how licensing works - somebody else makes something, but you think you can profit off it.

It can be a two-way relationship - Oddco (the Bogies owners) promote the Dandy pretty heavily as a "world-famous comic", and the Beano is all over The Trial of Dennis the Menace at the moment.

Saying that any character appearing in a comic which is not owned by the comic's publishers must have been paid for is as absurd as saying that Dennis the Menace got a total of (so far) four TV series screened on the BBC because DC Thomson handed Lord Patten a large wad of cash.

The puppet series was only on defunct satellite channel TCC and the second season of Dennis & Gnasher 2009 hasn't even been made yet, so the BBC have only aired three series of Dennis the Menace (which premiered in 1996, 1998 and 2009).

Wallace and Gromit used to have their own comic, which was published by Titan. I think that closed at around the same time W&G joined BeanoMAX, and since 2010, Titan has provided The Sun with a daily W&G strip (which is credited to Aardman and Titan, and more often than not doesn't identify the artist). Because of this duality, there's no way DCT have the rights, so it's definitely bought in. And as you say, so is The Bogies (wouldn't mention the website if it wasn't). There have been other examples in the past - the Beezer and Topper (and after it's demise, the Dandy) had Potsworth and Co in 1992-94, and the Dandy had Tootuff in 2004. Both are cartoon TV tie-ins and Tootuff was a translated version of the French strip Titeuf.

I believe the artist of The Sun's Wallace and Gromit stories is Mychailo Kazybrid - I quite like it but it relies on puns a bit too much!

Also some more examples are Spooky Skaters which featured in the Dandy Xtreme and I guess you could also count the Real Construction and LEGO City comic strips from the Beano. Was there one in the Beano called Hotfoot as well?

I've never bought a Beanomax at all, but the idea of a Superstars rotated and crammed down to half-size is giving me a headache just thinking about it! Maybe they could instead turn them into two-parters if the story suits it. Apart from the fact the reprints will last longer that way, it will persuade kids to nag their parents for the next issue!