The Beano comic is
a British
children's
comic, published by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd and is possibly their most
successful.
The comic first appeared on 26 July 1938 and was published weekly.
During the Second World War,
The Beano and
The Dandy were published on alternating weeks
due to paper and ink
rationing. D.C.
Thomson's other publications also suffered with the
Oor Wullie and
The
Broons annuals falling victim to paper and ink shortages. Paper
and ink supplies were fully restored shortly after the end of
hostilities and weekly publication of
The Beano and
The Dandy resumed in 1949. In September 2009, the Beano's
3500th issue was published. The Beano is currently edited by
Alan Digby, who replaced Euan Kerr in
summer 2006. Euan Kerr subsequently edited the
BeanoMAX, a version of the Beano for older readers.
He has since left however, leaving Alan in charge of both
comics.
Its iconic characters such as
Dennis the Menace,
Minnie the Minx, and
The Bash Street Kids have become known
to generations of British children. Earlier generations will
remember other notable characters which have been phased out, such
as
Biffo the Bear and
Big Eggo. Some old characters have made a return
like
Lord Snooty.
The comics were distributed in some of the British colonies or
former colonies as well. Because they were sent by sea mail, they
would go on sale some weeks after the date shown on the cover. The
comic holds the record for being the world's longest running weekly
comic.
Strips
A number of strips in the comic have run for a very long time. The
top five longest running Beano comic strips are, in ascending
order, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, Bash Street Kids, Roger
the Dodger and, the last holder of the title before Dennis, Lord
Snooty.Dennis the Menace's famous 'red and black' jersey had formed
the colours of a few of the
Beano characters' clothes
(Minnie the Minx had the exact same top, Ball Boy's strip was a
vertical red and black, Roger the Dodger has a chessboard design
top and Danny (from the Bash Street Kids) has a similar cap) but
the colours have changed for Minnie and Ball Boy (Minnie at one
point had a red and yellow top and Ball Boy's strip now being black
and blue).
There are frequent
fictional
crossovers between
The Beano and Dennis and Gnasher,
with most of the characters living in the
fictional Beanotown. Many
of the comic strips in
The Dandy
are drawn by the same artists, and crossovers between the two
comics and
The Beano also occur occasionally. Quite often,
one comic will make a tongue-in-cheek jibe at the other (e.g. a
character meeting an elderly lady, and stating that she's 'older
than the jokes in
The Dandy'). In the strips, it is
expressed that the two towns are rivals with each other and before
The Dandy did a drastic format change they had an embassy
in Beanotown which many of the town's citizens attempted to
overrun, but failed (the embassy had no existence in
The
Beano).
The
Bash Street Kids Adventures
written and drawn by
Kev F
Sutherland since 2004 have featured parodies of famous comic
strip images, including
Amazing
Fantasy's first
Spider-Man cover,
Action Comics' first
Superman cover, and most recently the cover of
X Men #100. Sutherland created the rival
schools to Bash Street, St Posho's and St Asbo's. He also revived
old characters from the archives including
Biffo the Bear,
Keyhole Kate,
Pansy Potter The Strongman's Daughter, and
Desert Island Dick.
History
An old cover of The Beano
The Beano comic takes its name from the
English word
beano which can be
loosely interpreted as
a good time.
The first edition of
The Beano was dated 30 July 1938, and
the 3000th issue was published in January 2000. It continues , and
so far ( January 2009 ) there have been 3467 issues published.
There are only 12 known copies of the first issue in existence, and
only 5 known copies of the second issue (not including facsimiles).
The first issue's cover could be found on the back of issue
2000.
A copy of this first issue sold for £12,100 on 16 March 2004, which
was at the time thought to be the highest price ever paid for a
British comic at an
auction. The current
highest price is £20,350 which was paid for the first issue of
The Dandy on 7 September 2004. The Beano
is also the longest running weekly comic, the first previously
being
The Dandy, which is also published by the same
publisher but turned into a fortnightly comic in 2007.
The Beano
is so popular that it had its own theme park, Beanoland, at
Chessington
World of Adventures
. This opened in 2000 and remained open for a
decade.
Editors
The original editor was George Moonie, from 1938-1959, followed by
Harold Cramond, 1959-84. Euan Kerr was editor from 1984 until he
handed over to Alan Digby in early 2006. Alan had been Beano Chief
Sub Editor when Euan first became editor, and later edited
The Beezer. Euan has returned to
edit
BeanoMAX as of issue 2 (see below). Following the
retirement of Euan Kerr, Alan Digby is now Editor-in-Chief of both
titles.
Other comics
Comic Libraries
Since
1982 the comic, along with
The
Dandy, has also run "Comic Library" titles. Released monthly,
these titles are a feature length (usually about 64 page)
adventure, featuring a character from the comic itself. They are
available in A5 size only. In 1998, these were replaced by the
Fun Size Beano, which still runs
today, although they became reprints in 2006.
Beano Specials
The comic also ran A4-sized
Beano
Specials in the early 1990s, which later were renamed
Beano Superstars. These were similar to the
Comic Library series. The last few issues were printed versions of
episodes from the 1996-1998
Dennis and
Gnasher animated TV series.A
Beano Poster Comic series
was also printed in the early 1990s.
The Beano Specials returned in 2003, and were now published
seasonally. The issues were numbered, and the first one was a
Dennis and Friends special, the last a Christmas reprint special.
These were replaced by BeanoMAX in early 2007.
BeanoMAX
On 15 February 2007, the first issue of a monthly comic entitled
BeanoMAX was published. The sister comic features many of the same
characters, however the stories in BeanoMAX are written in a longer
format meant for 10-13 year olds. The first issue was a
Comic Relief special featuring
assorted
celebrity guests.
Dennis and Gnasher
The brand new Dennis and Gnasher was launched separately from The
Beano in September 2009.
Dennis and Gnasher got their own TV series on
CBBC from 7 September 2009 to accompany the comic's new
look. This was their second, having also had one in 1996, which ran
for two series on CBBC,
The
Children's Channel, and
Fox Kids.
Dennis and Gnasher were presenting their own radio show on
Fun Kids from 5 September 2009.
Revamps
The Beano's first major revamp was in the 50th birthday issue of
1988, when the page number was increased, the comic had a wider
paper style, and more colour was used throughout.
Another occurred in 1993, when the whole comic was now printed in
full colour, along with some new strips such as the Numskulls,
which had been moved from
The
Beezer.
No major revamps happened from then until 1998, when Dennis' baby
sister Bea was born. The logo was rounded and embossed (but later
flattened in February 1999), and there were 8 extra pages.
Computers were starting to be used for articles and speech bubbles,
rather than the usual hand drawn ones.
Since April 2007, the Beano has had five revamps to help it keep up
to date.
The first occurred on April 7, 2007. The logo was made to appear to
be jumping out, and was embossed using
Photoshop . The website address was looped inside
the "O". This logo had been used in the Beano Club for one issue in
2006.
Also in this issue, there was a record number of uncredited
reprints, with the likes of
Ivy the Terrible,
Calamity James,
Les
Pretend,
Riot Squad and
Fred's Bed now being reprinted.
In certain areas of
the UK, such as Lancashire
, the price was increased to 99p, while elsewhere it
remained as 85p.
The second happened on
October 27. The
logo was still Photoshop embossed, but was now back to the rounded
style which it had from 1999-2006. It was quite similar to the
original rounded logo from
1998, which was
flattened the following year.
The number of reprint pages was cut from 4 to 2, but more started
to appear after about a month. Two new strips were also added,
Johnny Bean from
Happy Bunny Green and
London B412.
The price increased to 99p across the whole UK.
The third was the least major revamp. The background was changed
from one colour behind the logo and another behind the Dennis strip
to one single colour or a pattern, such as red and black stripes.
New fonts were being used on the front cover, and the "Pocket money
price" logo had been changed to a large "WOW! 99p" which was
usually placed in the top corners. No new strips were added this
time, but the amount of reprints went up to 5, sometimes lowering
back to 4 per week, and an extra
Dennis strip was added on the inside
back two pages.
The fourth revamp, which happened with the issue dated 18 October
2008 had been the most major revamp to date. There was a return of
Billy the Cat inside, as
well as a new
Super School strip by
Lew Stringer. The price rose to £1.25
per issue. Different characters appear on the 'O' each week in a
cleaner tidier embossed logo. New headline fonts were introduced
(CCZoinks), the balloon font was also changed to Cloudsplitter by
Blambot. But the main change was the paper
style, which had finally changed from
newsprint to a
gloss, much in
the style of the inside pages of companion papers
Dandy Xtreme and
BeanoMAX. The only difference between these paper
styles is the front cover, which is thicker on the Dandy Xtreme and
BeanoMAX, but the same as the pages throughout in the weekly
Beano.
However, the fifth revamp which happened issue dated 29 August 2009
saw a new-look Dennis and Gnasher to coincide with the new series
to start on CBBC 7 September. Not only Dennis and Gnasher has
changed but also the Cover and regular features such as Contents,
Beano Club and any one-off features directly relating to Dennis.
New typefaces have been designed to accompany the TV series. Also
Ball Boy was edited to be made 'cuter' and
smaller. And 2 new strips were introduced,
Beano Manga and
60
Second Dennis (Which was a spin-off from
Dennis and Gnasher) Also the price was
bumped up from £1.25 to £1.35.
Gnashional Menace Day and the 70th Birthday
The 70th anniversary issue of The Beano will have a cover date of
August 2, 2008. As a celebration, in partnership with the
CLIC Sargent charity, August 2 was Gnashional
Menace Day, where children are sponsored to behave like Dennis. The
anniversary was also celebrated with a 40 page issue (instead of 32
pages; the 60th birthday issue also had extra pages, 48 instead of
24) guest edited by
Wallace and
Gromit creator
Nick Park, price £1.50
[408] (not 99p, this has also happened to The
Dandy on one occasion, see
here) and
an issue of
Classics from the
Comics devoted to the Beano. There is also a special 64 page
book available,
The Beano Special Collectors Edition: 70 Years
of Fun, telling a brief history of the comic.
In the Beano's home
city of Dundee, a special exhibition is being held at the University of
Dundee
featuring original artwork and other memorabilia
loaned from D C Thomson - it runs until 20 September 2008.
In London the Cartoon Museum will be showing the exhibition
Beano and Dandy Birthday Bash! from 30 July to 2 November
2008. It will show original artwork from all eight decades of both
'The Beano' and 'The Dandy' including work by Dudley D Watkins,
David Law, Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid as well as David Sutherland
and many contemporary artists. There was events for children
throughout August.
See also
Notes
References
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