The Dandy
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| The Dandy | |
|---|---|
 Click on to enlarge | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd |
| Schedule | Weekly |
| Format | Children's |
| Publication date | 4 December 1937–present |
| No. of issues | 3,539 |
| Creative team | |
| Artist(s) | Nigel Parkinson Lew Stringer Wayne Thompson Stu Munro Paul Palmer Wilbur Dawbarn Nigel Auchterlounie Jamie Smart Karl Dixon Nik Holmes Phil Corbett Alexander Matthews Duncan Scott Stephen Waller Andy Fanton |
| Editor(s) | Craig Graham |
The Dandy is a long running children's comic published in the United Kingdom by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. The first issue was printed in 1937 and it is the world's third longest running comic, after Detective Comics (cover dated March 1937) and Il Giornalino (cover dated 1 October 1924). From August 2007 until October 2010, it was rebranded as Dandy Xtreme.
History
The first issue, under the name The Dandy Comic, was published on 4 December 1937. The most notable difference, between this and other comics of the day, was its use of speech balloons instead of captions under the frame. It was published weekly until 6 September 1941, when wartime paper shortages forced it to switch to fortnightly, alternating with The Beano. It returned to its weekly schedule on 30 July 1949. From 17 July 1950, the magazine changed its name to just The Dandy.
In 1938, less than a year after the comic's debut, the first Dandy Annual was released. Originally called The Dandy Monster comic, this was an annual bumper edition of the comic and has been released yearly since then. In 1954 the first Desperate Dan Book was released, mostly consisting of reprints. Another was released in 1978, and it was released yearly between 1990 and 1992. Desperate Dan was not the only Dandy character to have his own book, Bananaman and Black Bob also had their own annuals.
'Though later issues became all comic strips, early issues had many text strips, with some illustrations. In 1940, this meant 12 pages of comic strips and 8 pages of text stories. Text stories at two pages each were Jimmy's Pocket Grandpa, British Boys and Girls Go West, There's a Curse on the King and Swallowed by a Whale!.
A follow-up to Waverly Book's "The History of The Beano: The Story So Far", called "The Art and History of The Dandy" will be released in August 2012, the Dandy's 75th Birthday Year. A Waverly book about The Dandy was originally to be released in 2007 for the comic's 70th birthday, but was cancelled with no explanation. Presumably, the comic's then-recent Xtreme rebranding meant it would not be practical to release the book then. However, in October 2010, the comic was revamped, losing the Xtreme branding and paving the way for a special 75th Birthday book.
In 1963 the first Dandy summer special was published. The first was a joint Dandy-Beano summer special, with the first Dandy Summer Special on its own being released the following year.
In 1982 the Dandy comic libraries were released which later became known as the Fun Size Dandy. These were small-format comics usually featuring one or two long stories starring characters from The Dandy and occasionally other DC Thomson comics.
In September 1985, the ailing Nutty was merged with The Dandy, taking with it the Bananaman strip which is currently the third longest running strip still in the comic. Just over a year later, Hoot was also merged with the senior title, most notably incorporating the character Cuddles into the pre-existing comic strip Dimples to form Cuddles and Dimples, another of The Dandy's longest running comic strips.
After issue 3282 (dated 16 October 2004) The Dandy underwent a radical format overhaul.[1] The comic changed format and content, reflecting a more television-oriented style, now printed on glossy magazine paper instead of newsprint. The price was raised from 70p to £1.20 (99p for the first two weeks), a new comic strip called "Office Hours" appeared, and two supposedly new ones also started, though were actually revivals from a few years earlier ("Jak" and "Dreadlock Holmes").
In August 2007 (issue 3426), The Dandy had another update, becoming the fortnightly comic-magazine hybrid Dandy Xtreme, priced at £2.50. Unlike previous incarnations, Dandy characters didn't necessarily grace the cover every issue; instead, celebrities and other cartoon characters were featured. The first Dandy Xtreme had Bart Simpson on the cover.
From 27 October 2010 (issue 3508) The Dandy returned as a weekly comic and dropped 'Xtreme' from its title. The contents received a major overhaul, with all the comic strips from the Xtreme era except for Desperate Dan, Bananaman and The Bogies being dropped. Bananaman was also taken over by a new artist, Wayne Thompson, although Korky the Cat, who appeared in the comic's first issue in 1937, made a return drawn by Phil Corbett. Many new celebrity spoofs such as Cheryl's Mole became a feature, but other new strips included Pre-Skool Prime Minister and George vs Dragon, drawn by Jamie Smart and Andy Fanton. The Christmas special was 76 pages long, featuring a pantomime, more celebrix, a 12-page Harry Hill strip, more free gifts, and the return of some characters. More recent new strips are Punslinger, Dad's Turn To Cook, My Freaky Family, Animals Eat The Funniest Things, Star T.Rex and Brian Damage.
On March 19th The Royal Mail launched a special stamp collection to celebrate Britain's rich comic book history.[2] The collection featured The Beano, The Dandy, Eagle, The Topper, Roy of the Rovers, Bunty, Buster, Valiant, Twinkle and 2000 AD.
Editors
The original editor was Albert Barnes. According to The Legend of Desperate Dan (published 1997), Dan's famous chin was modelled on Barnes. He stayed in the role until 1982, when he was succeeded by Dave Torrie. His replacement was Morris Heggie, who left the editorship in 2006 to become the DC Thomson archivist – Beano editor Euan Kerr was promoted at the same time. The current editor is Craig Graham.[3]
Dandy comic strips
Over its near seventy five year run hundreds of different comic strips have appeared in The Dandy. A number of strips in the comic have run for a very long time. The longest running strips being Desperate Dan and Korky the Cat who both started in the comic's first issue. Following mergers with both Nutty and Hoot, the Dandy inherited a number of their strips most notably Bananaman from Nutty and Cuddles from Hoot who teamed up with a Dandy character to form a new strip entitled Cuddles and Dimples both of the aforementioned strips have been quite long running having been in the Dandy since the 1980s and both having appeared on the front cover of The Dandy and the comics from which they originated. After the closure of The Beezer and The Topper, the Dandy inherited some of their strips as well such as Beryl the Peril, Puss n Boots (who had been in Sparky before being moved to The Topper) and Owen Goal (who appeared in the other comics under a different title).
In its near seventy five year run the comic has had a number of different cover stars (comic strips which appeared on the front cover) firstly Korky the Cat, who was on the cover from 1937-1984. Desperate Dan, long since the comic's most popular character, then took over the cover, a position he retained until 1999 when he was replaced as cover star by Cuddles and Dimples. However, they were not on the cover for very long as Desperate Dan had been restored to the cover by the end of 2000. The comic revealed that Cuddles and Dimples were thrown off the cover for 'being too naughty', though in reality the comic's readers wanted Dan to return as the cover strip. In 2004, following a major revamp, Desperate Dan was replaced on the front cover by Jak a character created for the cover, slightly based on an older strip with the same name, although other characters, including Dan, also made occasional cover appearances. During the Dandy Xtreme era the comic had no cover star, with covers often given over to celebrities or current trends, but after the comic returned to its weekly, all-comic format in October 2010, the popular British comedian Harry Hill took over the cover spot.
There are frequent fictional crossovers between Dandy characters, with most of the characters living in the fictional Dandytown. Many of the comic strips in The Beano are drawn by the same artists, and crossovers between the two comics 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 Beano"). 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). This rivalry inspired the spin-off computer game Beanotown Racing, in which various characters from both comics could be raced around points in Beanotown, including the Embassy. The game was given a large amount of advance publicity in the comics, with story lines often revolving how the characters each acquired his/her vehicle.
See also
- The Dandy Annual
- The Beano
- The Magic Comic
- List of DC Thomson publications
- List of magazines published in Scotland
- British comics
References
- ^ "What exactly is going on at the Dandy?". BBC News. 10 January 2005.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "Beano's Dennis the Menace on Royal Mail comic stamps". BBC News. 19 March 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
- ^ http://www.a2mediagroup.com/?c=137&a=20056
External links
