Category Archives: Beano

Beano, Comic Reviews

BEANO #452: AN iCON iS BORN

4 Comments

Three months and six years after our last entry comes our third edition of Beano (or, THE Beano as it was called) from DC Thomson’s 80th Anniversary Box Set. It’s another lovely reproduction, the paper feels authentic and the printing once again could easily fool us into thinking we’re reading an original. There was also a big improvement on the title banner by this stage in the comic’s life; there was no need to be disgusted by Big Eggo as the new mascot. He wasn’t inside though. So who was?

It’s another 12-page issue (the World War II paper shortages still in effect) and as a result the overall make up of the issue feels vey different, even compared to the classic issues we’ve seen so far. There are less than five pages of comic strip here, the rest are made up of picture-panel and prose stories. This meant the kids still had plenty to read inside such a small comic and it was back to a weekly schedule after alternating with The Dandy during the war.

Dudley D. Watkins’ Biffo the Bear kicks things off and I’ll admit I can take him or leave him. Reading friends’ Beano books or issues as a kid I was never that enamoured with him, so I don’t have any particular memories of his strips. They must’ve been a bit forgettable for young me despite being one of the comic’s mainstays. He was the cover star from his introduction in #327 in 1948 all the way until #1677 in 1974 when he was dethroned by a certain character who makes his debut in this very issue.

Yep, this was the week readers were introduced to Dennis the Menace, drawn by David Law and developed by him and the comic’s chief sub-editor Ian Chisholm, in this fun little strip I originally read in the 50th anniversary book. While I do prefer the modern Dennis and the more sophisticated humour (obviously such things change over time) I did laugh at the quick transition between the 4th and 5th panels above! Of course, we now know this Dennis is our modern day Dennis’ dad in the current Beano, which is a nice touch. A quaint start for a true comics megastar.

The Granny Green story (now drawn by Gordon Ramsbottom) yet again reintroduces the whole premise as if this was Jimmy’s first time dressing up as his fictional relative, while confusingly also acknowledging he’d done so loads. It’s probably meant to play out as a repetitive gag the children reading are in on, knowing full well what’s going to eventually happen. I can imagine the kids of the day cheering him on to dress up, but today it reads like the exact same story from #1 dragged out over a page-and-a-half.

Noel Fielding’s hilarious TV series The Completely Made Up Adventures of Dick Turpin may have spoiled me somewhat for comical tales about that particular historical figure, but in 1951 I’m sure Fred Sturrock’s The Hungry Little Goodwins provided plenty of smiles. Strangely, the picture-panel stories of this series that ran throughout 1951 were adaptations of earlier prose stories from just a couple of years previous.

Always hungry, the kids’ appetites were insatiable and it was always up to Turpin to get them out of whatever situation their rumbly tummies got them into. It does go rather dark in this issue with its workhouse and all that but it’s still fun and as unique a serial as you’re ever likely to find. On the back cover is a character I remember from reading friends’ copies back at school, and from about three months ago in #272.

This was Pansy Potter’s second series in The Beano, running from 1949 to 1955, with “in Wonderland” replacing “the Strong-Man’s Daughter” as the sub-title. She was now taking up the whole rear cover on her own, such was her popularity. Somehow stepping into a wishing well into Wonderland, Pansy found herself surround by characters from nursery rhymes. Bit random.

Pansy Potter was the first series to be printed in full colour on the back page

Drawn by James Clark by this stage, it might sound like a rather random set up but it hit all the right notes for the readers. All the proof you need of how well received it was is the fact this was the series the comic decided would be the first strip to be printed in full colour on the back page, as mentioned when we last met Pansy.

Elsewhere, Lord Snooty and His Pals are still in the same format (and still on the same page) and Tommy’s Clockwork Town is the unbelievable prose serial of a boy with a full clockwork town and its residents flat-packed in a lorry ready to be deployed in minutes. Jimmy and his Magic Patch picture-panel stories came to an end and the details of that exciting news on the cover amounts to no more than two separate sentences accompanying two stories inside.

Pansy may have finished the issue but I want to finish the review by nipping back to page two and Bill Holroyd’s Have-A-Go Joe. Judging by this one strip alone, Joe seems like someone who was up for anything and the more ridiculous and dangerous the better. There’s got to be an easier why to make a living. That guy he’s working for could also do with some heath and safety in the workplace training if this is how he tests bullet-proof vests. Joe would last for just over 100 issues before disappearing, then appear briefly in The Beano Cinema before returning much later in 1997!

Next time, we’ll jump forward to the ‘Year of Africa’, 1960 and the time of the first laser, the 50th star on the American flag, Cassius Clay winning gold at the Olympics, the iconic photo of Che Guevara, the Civil Rights Act, the opening of the Bluebell Railway and the premiere of The Flintstones. The inclusion of the next issue in the box set celebrates free gifts and, finally, there’s an increase in page count. So, more to read, review and (hopefully) laugh at in The Beano #954 on Monday 26th October 2026.

BACK TO iSSUE 272

BEANO BOX SET MENU

RETROSPECTiVES MENU

Beano, Book Reviews, Christmas

THE DANDY AND THE BEANO: 38 YEARS OF FiFTY GOLDEN YEARS

4 Comments

Back in 1987 two things happened in the build up to Christmas. Firstly, my older brother grew out of comics and his weekly Beano. However, The Dandy and The Beano Fifty Golden Years had already been obtained by Santa. As luck would have it, the second thing that happened was me discovering OiNK and immediately falling in love with comics. So this special book was redirected into my stocking in the very early hours of Christmas Day and still sits on my shelves decades later.

While my brother’s comic didn’t really appeal at the time, and the strips in here were even more old fashioned, I found the book’s story about the creation and evolution of the comics fascinating. As an adult I feel I’ve also developed a better appreciation for the classic strips inside. This is mainly thanks to reading a couple of the earliest editions inside the Beano’s 80th Anniversary Box Set and my yearly dips into the world of the Big Comic Books. So it felt like a good time for me to revisit this very special celebration for the first time in nearly forty years.

As seems the case with all comics celebrations the release dates mentioned throughout are actually the cover dates. The cover dates usually referred to the Saturday after publication, the comics released one working day before whatever day was mentioned on the cover. For example, #1 of The Dandy had a date of 4th December 1937, which was the Saturday of that week and it states “Every Friday” on the cover, so it would’ve been released on Thursday 2nd. It’s a small thing but it does annoy me when this constantly happens, especially in a book created by the publisher of said comics.

Things kick off with this bright recreation of the first ever Dandy comic, complete with the original version of Korky the Cat. It’s followed by #1 of The Beano and Big Eggo which launched in July of 1938. It then launches headlong into a large selection of examples of strips from the early days of both comics, from those familiar with 80s readers such as Lord Snooty to plenty I’d never heard of, with names like Freddy the Fearless Fly and Deep-Down Daddy Neptune.

It’s not long before the book is showing off its celebrity fans too, beginning with radio DJ Mike Read who guest-starred in an issue of The Beano alongside Dennis. Other notables include Cilla Black, Geoff Capes, The Krankies (suitably enough in the Dennis the Menace section), Ken Dodd, John Craven, Little and Large, Geoffrey Palmer and Joan Armatrading, among many more. It’s a who’s-who of British 80s celebs. Mark Hamill also pops up of course, and he’d pop up again in the bookazine that came with that Beano 80th set. Clearly, he never grew out of it.

Of course, there are also a few celebrities you wouldn’t want to see included today, but unfortunately we have to remember this is very much a product of its time. So if you can ignore a couple of certain children’s TV presenters and a certain politician you’ll find a lot to love here. As you can see Mike shares a spread with a new strip created for the book with Grandpa introducing Poison Ivy to the classic strips and then it’s on to the meat of the book

Desperate Dan makes up the first themed section, of which there are several for the more popular characters. His first appearance and some of his earlier misadventures are included, as well as one from 1983 to show how he’d evolved. This Welcome to Cactusville spread is great too, perfectly summing up the classic version of the character.

Others who get this treatment include Lord Snooty, Black Bob, Korky the Cat and Dennis the Menace among others. Sadly, none of the girl characters do. Instead, they’re all lumped together into a few pages called ‘Have a Giggle With the Girls’. Not even Minnie the Minx is well catered for! An indictment on the times, yes, and it also shows how far we’ve come. One glance at the review for this year’s Beano Christmas Special will prove how the comic has set this straight in the years since.

This was the part of the book that fascinated me the most as a child. I’d never considered anything other than both comics temporarily ceasing during wartime and paper shortages weren’t part of my reasoning! As it turns out, they didn’t. They kept calm and carried on, you might say. Both reduced their page counts and went fortnightly, alternating each week so kids still had the option of weekly laughs.

I remember as a child thinking this was incredible. In fact, I was only annoyed there wasn’t more information about how they were produced during this time, what’s mentioned here having whetted my appetite. (The aforementioned bookazine did a better job of this 30 years later.) We get some examples of the humour that helped the children through those tough years with the likes of Lord Snooty (again), Pansy Potter and these two surprise entries. Try to ignore the accents, they’re another sign of the times, written at a time of war and it was important to keep the children unafraid, and having a laugh at the enemy of the time surely helped.

Over the past few years I’ve really been enjoying writing the Annuals section of the blog. It may contain the slowest possible real time read throughs but every year the new inclusions are worth the wait. Even though they’ve always gone on sale months beforehand, they’ve always been a huge part of Christmas (that’s why that section gets updated during the festive season) and the writers of this book knew it too.

Wow! £100? Even in 1987 I remember thinking, “Is that all?” Oh, and in case you’re wondering (much like ten-year-old me did) what that ‘Magic-Beano’ title is all about, Magic was a short-lived comic that ceased during the wartime paper rationing and never returned, so it was merged into The Beano and the books bore its name for a few years. I like looking back on old covers like this, particularly annuals as they seem to encapsulate the time they were published and provide a year-by-year look at how a comic evolved. Also included are similar pages for the summer specials, those tiny Dandy and Beano Comics Library collections and the 1000th and 2000th editions of both comics.

Originally The Dandy and The Beano contained adventure stories and prose funnies and I’ve already shown some of these off on the blog. The thrills and spills of classic adventures take pride of place here too. While the book explains these were mainly before TV became mainstream and so could be printed with few illustrations, they’ve included this wonderful spread from a Dandy annual in the 1950s, newly colourised for the 80s.

I may have been growing up in a world of TV and computer games but I still recall delving deep into these particular pages of the book, probably because they were such an unexpected surprise. I also spent a long time with any part of the book that gave an insight into how it was made. Any disappointment I felt with the lack of such information in the World War II chapter was soon put to rest with a great four-page feature starring The Bash Street Kids.

Taking a strip from 1983 that had answered readers’ queries of how The Beano was produced, the double-page strip is split across four pages with a factual article of the process across the middle of each. I find these middle sections the most interesting now as an adult but for kids it was a brilliant idea to have the characters being taught the same things in a lighter, funnier way, with further details right there too if they wanted.

There’s just too much in this book to cover in one blog post. If there’s a character you can think of from The Dandy or The Beano’s first 50 years, they’ll be in here. If there’s a moment, a piece of merchandise, a memory you have… anything you can think of that might have been part of their first 50 years, it’ll be in here. What I’ve been able to squeeze into one blog post is just the tip of the iceberg.

Wrapped up in a gorgeous hardback you can see what’s beneath that dust cover at the very top of this post. It looks lovely on a shelf like that. Inside are 144 pages of high quality paper, all full-colour and there’s an absolute tonne to read! I can remember being engrossed by this for days throughout the holidays that year. I’ll wrap things up today with another celebrity cameo and a quick example of the variety of topics the book covers: fashion!

Great, now I’ve got Drop the Pilot stuck in my head! I must say I sympathise with Joan here, her quote rings an all-too-familiar bell. (You thought all these comics on the blog were my copies from childhood?) This fantastic book originally sold for £4.95, a princely sum for something sitting among the annuals that year, but you’ll get it for cheaper than that nowadays on eBay.

This has brought back a lot of happy memories of reading it the first time around. I feel like a kid at Christmas all over again. (Well, I still am!) For any fans that missed out on this at the time, or perhaps for younger blog readers that hadn’t started reading Beano (or been born) yet, this is a must purchase for a few quid. Also, for anyone interested in the history and evolution of comics this is still truly fascinating and has the cherry on top of including so many laughs along the way!

BEANO 80th BOX SET MENU

RETROSPECTiVES MENU

CHRiSTMAS 2025

Beano, Christmas, Comic Reviews

BEANO CHRiSTMAS SPECiAL 2025: TiME FOR FUN

4 Comments

Dare I say it but could this year’s Beano Christmas Special actually top last year’s? One glance at the supposed author name along the bottom of the cover almost had me convinced before I even opened it! Inside, the lack of more funny gift tags is disappointing but that’s really the only negative I have in all honesty.

Dennis is lumbered with reading a bedtime story to his little sister, Bea as Christmas Eve draws to a close and his mum hands him A Christmas Carol. But of course Dennis is never going to have the attention span to read a whole book so he leaves bits out, retells existing bits and adds completely new parts to liven it all up.

Just like last year, the special is one long story told over various strips starring a collection of the comic’s fan favourites. Dennis, for example, is not only Dennis Scratchit in his retelling but also the first of the ghosts. He’s the narrator and in charge, and it’s Dennis, so of course he’d do this and it’s hilariously brushed aside in the story. Although for me the real star of the piece isn’t Dennis or even Mayor Brown as Scrooge, it has to be Rubi.

Rubi’s Screwtop Science pops up several times across the issue thanks to her dad’s time machine invention. Oh, and her dad is H.G. Wells so you can guess what the machine looks like (and it comes complete with a certain Doctor Who sound effect). You see, the ghosts are all a bit useless and need Rubi’s help in order to carry out their plan to make Scrooge learn the error of his ways and the true meaning of Christmas. But this is the modern day Beano and it all goes completely nuts and utterly chaotic very quickly!

If you thought last year’s tale didn’t let up you haven’t seen anything yet. The team have really outdone themselves. What a team, too! The complete list of writers and artists for this special reads like this: Danny Pearson (who featured in a previous festive OiNK post), Andy Fanton, Nigel Auchterlounie, Laura Howell, Emily McGorman-Bruce, Nigel Parkinson, Barrie Appleby, Steve Beckett, Shannon Gallant, George Cant, Ned Hartley, Mel Prats, Hugh Raine, Alan Ryan, Leslie Stannage, The Sharp Bros. and Wayne Thompson. Phew! Talk about a who’s who of comics talent.

Don’t be expecting this to follow the classic tale that closely. There are moments when it pays its respects but then you’ll turn the page and find the Ghost of Christmas Present has brought Scrooge to the present day of the reader instead of Scrooge’s own timeline, or another has taken him to witness the Bash Street school of the far sci-fi future for no apparent reason, or Bananaman trying to infiltrate a prison before it’s built! Why? That would ruin the surprise. 

Every instance of time jumping sees us back in Rubi’s lab and every time this happens she gets more and more frustrated at the ineptitude of the ghosts. Her thunder is almost stolen by the wonderful Dangerous Dan strip and its completely random ending, there are also some lovely nods back to classic Beano years for the older readers, and a delightfully timey-wimey head-spinning Angel Face Investigates. But Rubi easily manages to hold the crown as her pages made me roar every time she appeared.

It should be clear how much I’ve enjoyed this and I’m not even the target audience. Alongside the whopping 48 pages given over to the story there are also a multitude of quality puzzles, games and activities for the kids, all festively wrapped up in a 76-page special (even bigger than last year’s) printed on exceedingly good quality paper with a card cover. There’s no need to balk at the £7.99 price tag either, by the time you’ve absorbed the amount of gags in here and your kids have laughed and drawn and pranked their way through it all you’ll see it for the bargain it is.

It should be readily available in your local shops and supermarkets. I ordered mine from DC Thomson directly through the Beano’s website shop. It’s available there as a single issue or as part of various bundles with the Beano Annual, Dandy Annual and the traditional special Dandy/Beano book. Also, if your child would like to join the Beano fan club they’ll receive this, the summer special and the annual as part of the club! I’ll say it again: bargain.

Grab a couple of slices of boozy fruit cake and a big glass of your favourite festive tipple but be ready to spurt them out several times while you read this. In other words, you should buy it. The only way it could be improved upon is if they’d included more of those tags! Yes, I’ll die on this hill. Hey Beano, maybe next year? Or put them up on your shop. I wouldn’t be alone in buying them, I’m sure. In the meantime folks, grab yourself a copy of the Beano Christmas Special 2025 and you’ll feel like a big kid even more than usual this holiday season. Guaranteed.

BACK TO THE 2024 SPECiAL

BEANO BOX SET MENU

RETROSPECTiVES MENU

CHRiSTMAS 2025

Beano, Christmas, Comic Reviews

BEANO CHRiSTMAS SPECiAL 2024: A DASHiNG GOOD READ

2 Comments

This review was originally written for and published on Down the Tubes. As I’m now going to cover these yearly specials on the OiNK Blog I decided to copy this post over too.

As I write this the Christmas issue of Beano (No.4266) is out, however every year publisher DC Thomson also releases a separate festive special in advance of the season. Printed on high quality paper and coming in at an impressive 68 pages, it’s almost like another Beano Annual. No one can accuse the team of not going large for the holidays!

All the usual characters are in place from a plethora of top talent, my personal favourites being Andy Fanton, Nigel Parkinson, Nigel Auchterlounie, Laura Howell and friend of the OiNK Blog, Danny Pearson. Initially looking like a bigger regular issue, as you read you soon realise all the strips are part of one story from different perspectives, without ever sacrificing the quality of the individual strips.

Upon opening you’re met with a page of gift labels. Aimed at kids rather than the present-buyers, that doesn’t mean older readers can’t enjoy them, as you can tell from my photos. The one featuring Harsha from Bash Street Kids was particularly well suited to that gift!

So, Santa has been kidnapped and for once the Beanotown kids aren’t to blame. (This is the first Christmas Special I’ve read but it’s clear there’s a history here). When Mrs. Claus asks why he still delivers there when they kidnap him every year, Santa explains, “It’s only most years, and twice it was more of a misunderstanding.”

However, the kids are blamed throughout in some very funny moments, including by Santa’s reindeer, who immediately pin it on Minnie! I just have to mention Dasher at this point. The personality given to him is just perfect for his name and I laughed aloud when I read this scene in the stables. It’s such an obvious gag now that I’m surprised I haven’t read something similar before.

The big bad behind it all is revealed early on as Mayor Brown, who bears a striking resemblance to Richard Osman and whose voice I read his lines in for the rest of the comic. This is a world away from the Beano I read as a kid and that’s a good thing; it has to move on and evolve for today’s kids after all. As a result, the humour moves at a much faster pace, with more quips and banter between characters and some enjoyable breaking of the fourth wall. It’s a lot more chaotic and anarchic. As an OiNK fan, I love it!

I don’t want to ruin what happens because the joy is in not knowing what’s next; something this definitely isn’t is predictable! Bond villain Brown takes Bash Street school as his lair with his robotic snowmen to ruin Christmas, a scenario perfectly set up by spy strip, Dangerous Dan. From here, everyone gets a crack at teaming up with other characters from different creators and it’s fun to see the various artists’ takes on each other’s creations.

I may have had several laugh-out-loud moments but I’m not the target audience, despite how young I felt reading this. However, my friend’s son is. Father and son subscribe to Beano and read it together, and they’ve a set of criteria upon which they judge each and every issue. I know you’re thinking this’ll be a list of favourite characters but it’s a bit more… comprehensive than that. Kids can have very particular tastes.

They want lots of Angel Face and Minnie the Minx for a start. They weren’t disappointed here, especially with the amount of Minnie content. (On a side note, as a fan of Andy Fanton’s work it’s great to see his Minnie is so treasured.) Next, Yeti and Cousin Agnes should feature beyond their own strip and for a special Christmas treat it’s actually Minnie they mingle with here. Dennis also breaks the fourth wall as wanted and, while Rubi’s latest invention isn’t as ‘Heath Robinson’ as they’d like (no, really) it plays a pivotal role and her mistakes bring plenty of smiles.

Always important to get the target audience’s view, right?

There are also several activity pages such as mazes, board games, pranks etc. They may sound clichéd but each is finished to such a high quality you could never call them fillers. I focussed solely on the comic strip (and the free stickers) but there’s plenty for younger readers to do to get more value out of your money.

Whether you’ve kids of your own or just want to read a new funny comic this holiday season, the Beano Christmas Special 2024 is exactly what you need. It even has snow on the logo, so you know it must be good.

GO TO CHRiSTMAS SPECiAL 2025

BEANO BOX SET MENU

RETROSPECTiVES MENU

CHRiSTMAS 2024

Beano, Christmas, Comic Reviews

BEANO #272: A BiRTHDAY BALL

2 Comments

Welcome back to our irregular real time read through of the eight celebratory editions of Beano from DC Thomson’s 80th anniversary box set. Next up is the first issue to have sold one million copies! That’s an incredible achievement on its own, never mind the fact it was back in 1945, not long after World War II and at a time when paper shortages were still in effect. As such, Reg Carter’s Big Eggo fronted a comic of only 12 pages, the smallest it would ever be.

The Beano was also fortnightly at the time, released on alternative weeks to The Dandy so kids still had the opportunity to read some desperately needed funnies every week. I’ve always found this period in the comic’s history fascinating ever since I found out about it in the 50th anniversary Dandy/Beano Fifty Golden Years book I received for Christmas 1987, which you’ll see an overview of this year on Boxing Day on the blog. For now though, let’s open up #272 of The Beano, which celebrates its own 80th anniversary today.

What a selection of names and taglines! Talk about being “of their time”. Researching Cocky Dick meant very careful internet searches but I did eventually find out it was originally drawn by Allan Morley and ran in the comic from 1939 to 1947. There’s an air of Dennis about the strip thanks to the cheeky nature of the main character and the colour scheme of his feathers. Nice of the local council to label their water wells too, otherwise how’d we know what it was.

After an absence of three years Good King Coke (surely a 90s movie drug lord name) had returned for another year-long run, drawn by Eric Roberts, and The Magic Lollipops (“Suck ‘em and see”?!) was also drawn by Allen and ran for ten years between 1941 and 1951, with a one year gap in the middle. I don’t think any other page in either #1 or this edition has been such a clear window into a completely different time.

A Christmas strip! Perfect. With The Beano being fortnightly we were only one issue away from the big festive celebrations and Lord Snooty was getting in on the action already. As the season has already kicked off on the OiNK Blog this year I couldn’t have been happier when I saw this, drawn by Dudley D. Watkins. Snooty’s strip ran from 1938 all the way through to 1991, with a few breaks in the middle.

Upon his return after his first break a lot of his original friends above would be replaced with characters from other, discontinued Beano strips and over the course of his lengthy run he was drawn by a handful of other artists, most notably Leo Baxendale and Robert Nixon. Lord Snooty was the only character from #1 I knew as a child in the 80s (through sneaking a peek at my friends’ issues), by that time he was the last surviving character of that first issue.

Along the top of a Jimmy and his Magic Patch story readers are told to turn to a certain page to find out all the details of the special Christmas issue, but it turns out it’s only this small promo in the middle of a Tick Tock Timothy prose story. The main selling point of the festive issue would be a game called ‘Jinko’, a basic dice board game printed on the back cover. Over the page from this promo we find Tom Thumb is still in the comic, albeit as a picture-panel story instead of the prose of #1.

Another character who was still here but whose format hadn’t changed is one of my favourites from the premiere issue, Charles Gordon’s Granny Green. This was actually a reprint from the original run in the first year-and-a-bit of the comic but obviously I’ve never read it. Again, I really enjoyed it. It includes a quick recap of the premise for any new readers and I originally thought Jimmy’s plan in this particular story sounded awfully cruel… until we find out the water is only a couple of feet deep. Hilariously, the names of the friends mentioned still sound like the kind of creations Bob Mortimer comes up with on Would I Lie To You!

On to the back page and two well known names, beginning with Tin-Can Tommy, the clockwork ‘son’ of Professor Lee and Mrs Lee. He first appeared on the back page of the first issue when he was created after the death of their son because they were struggling with the loss. Originally drawn by the Italian Dinelli brothers who disappeared in France during the war, he was subsequently drawn by Sam Fair, Charles Gordon and George Drysdale but my usual expert resources aren’t aware of who drew this episode.

Tommy would reappear in #3185 in 2003 for the comic’s 60th anniversary. Another character who may also be known by later readers of Beano is Pansy Potter. Pansy was a Beano star between 1938 and 1958 (with breaks), then she moved to Sparky in the 60s and 70s before returning to her original home between 1989 and 1993. That’s the time period in which I remember her from, which she followed up with small runs now-and-again (her last appearance was in #3954) and a couple of annual cameos in 2012 and 2018.

Created by Hugh McNeill and drawn by this stage by Tommy’s Sam, Pansy was the character chosen to be the first strip printed in full colour on the back page a few years later. This strip above reminds me of skating at a temporary rink at Belfast City Hall this time of year many moons ago and the amount of people tripping over chunks of broken ice and toppling into each other. The council not wishing to splash out on a Zamboni never stopped us going back though.

Next time, we’ll jump from 1945 to 1951. Our third issue saw the introduction of a certain boy with a black and red jumper so its inclusion in the box set is no surprise. When this series returns, join me as we travel in time again to the year of The King and I, the Stone of Scone returning to Scotland all on its own, a blue sun, the world’s first nuclear power plant and, in keeping with the theme of Dennis the Menace, the year when a young sailor was fined for the menacing behaviour of kissing his girlfriend in public in Sweden. The Beano #452 will be right here on the OiNK Blog on Saturday 14th March 2026.

iSSUE ONE < > iSSUE 452

BEANO BOX SET MENU

RETROSPECTiVES MENU

CHRiSTMAS 2025

Beano, Comic Reviews

BEANO #1: THE FiRST ONE

5 Comments

Off we go then with our gradual real time read through of the eight issues of Beano inside the special 80th anniversary box set, put together by DC Thomson in 2018 for their young readers. It’s important to emphasise the target audience here. The bookazine was a light-hearted look back at the comic’s history and its characters and that’s the whole point here too, for the modern audience of children to celebrate their comic’s birthday with an interesting and gigglesome look back at where it came from.

Hence why a certain mascot is missing from the title banner of this, the quality reproduction of the very first edition that was originally edited by Robert D. Low. This set wasn’t the place for a serious discussion about racist stereotypes and why they were deemed acceptable in 1938. Thankfully, DCT has since realised it should never have been on the cover of a children’s publication in the first place. I think it looks miles better without it and I welcome this change. Reg Carter’s Big Eggo can now shine in his well known first appearance.

The biggest surprise I had upon reading this was just how much of it is text heavy. Only 50% of the 24 pages is made up of comic strips, the rest are prose stories or picture-panel tales such as Morgyn the Mighty. Created by Dudley D. Watkins, it’s just one example of the comic describing regular animals as monsters for the sake of some excitement. Of course children can be better informed today about our world thanks to easier access to a myriad of sources across different media.

It’s all very quaint and we must remember it was released in 1938, 87 years before this review. While I always review comics from my own modern perspective, some latitude can be given to such a classic, one that really is from a different era. Morgyn would disappear from The Beano before the end of its first year, before going on to star in various other DCT comics.

There’s only one character I recognised in the whole issue. Lord Snooty made his debut right back at the very beginning and looks pretty much the same as I remember him from friends’ Beano annuals in the 80s. Overall, as you’d expect the humour strips feel dated but that’s not a criticism. I found it fascinating to see what the children of the day would’ve found funny and how much children’s humour comics have evolved, especially since this particular one is still going strong and I occasionally buy it.

Smiler the Sweeper by Steve Perkins would also disappear within the first year but it’s a good example of the few mini-strip pages. Back when I was a kid it was OiNK that introduced me to comics and the strips would all be of various lengths, but all the other humour comics on the shelves (including The Beano when I was growing up) were pretty much full-page or double-page strips throughout, each character appearing on the exact same page from week to week.

Brave Captain Kipper kills the harmless whale and is portrayed as the hero by a bunch of random strangers. What a git

Of course, today’s Beano is much more varied and it’s interesting to see it started out that way too. Originally #1 contained 28 pages of variety entertainment for kids, four more than this reproduction. There’s a small warning on the bottom of a page stating, “Some pages may contain references which are of their time, but would not be considered suitable today”, although one inclusion was too much, namely the mascot edited off the front cover. Called Peanut, he featured on a page inside and, given how any stapled publication is put together in sets of four pages, once one page is taken out DCT would’ve had to trim further for it to physically work. (Thanks to Lew Stinger for the information on what was on one of those pages.)

Some of the contents which could fall under that warning banner includes child character Wee Peem seen smoking a cigar, a genie in a bottle describing himself as a slave happy to serve, Tom Thumb being captured and treated as a slave for entertainment but we’re meant to think it’s okay because Tom plays pranks on his captors, and one strip is simply called Big Fat Joe! Then there’s Brave Captain Kipper, who’s stupid enough to think he’s on an island when it’s actually a giant, peaceful whale. When it harmlessly blows water over him he kills it and is portrayed as the hero by a bunch of random strangers. What a git.

The Wangles of Granny Green by Charles Gordon is the only humour prose story and startlingly tells the tale of a very young boy whose mother has died and whose father goes on long business trips, leaving him behind to fend for himself. Fed up of the local children thinking he’s weird and of adults trying to look after him, he pretends to be his own grandma (the rhyme along the top reminding me of a particularly funny Muppets song) so that people will just leave him alone.

It’s a fun story and reminds me of the kind of comic strips we’d get years later in the likes of Whizzer and Chips etc. I wish I had access to more of these. The story is imaginative and has the potential to have a lot of heart given the set up, and it has such a quaint bit of hype at the end for the next issue that it’s endearing. It’d run for just over a year, returning for a reprint run in the mid-40s before coming back briefly in 1951. Ironically, the same people who’d complain loudly about what’s not on the cover would most likely also complain if Granny Green appeared today in strip form.

Eric Roberts’ Rip Van Wink wears its influence on its sleeve. A little old man falls asleep in his cave only to wake up 700 years later, the humour coming from his reaction to the modern world and the things kids would’ve taken for granted. It’s a bit of a hybrid with regular comic strip-style speech balloons and captions written in a charming rhyming style, even if some of those rhymes are rather forced. Hey, it just adds to that classic comic feel.

I’m sure this must’ve plucked at the heartstrings of the children reading

Elsewhere, Whoopee Hank the Slap-Dash Sheriff doesn’t provide any clues as to the naming of the original free gift (see the cover), the Shipwrecked Kidds is another lost island tale similar to Morgyn with two spoilt brats and two of their staff, and in a far cry from the modern Beano the only character from any minority is a Tarzan-like child who, even though he has an actual name (Derek) is referred to solely as ‘The Wild Boy’.

My last highlight is My Dog Sandy by Jack Glass, another short-lived series that’s rather brutal at times in its description of what the poor pup goes through with his cruel owner. He may be starting a better life by the end of the page but I’m sure this must’ve plucked at the heartstrings of the children reading. It certain did with me. 

I thought this read through would be fascinating and it’s proved to be right from the off. I’d read about the first issue in the Dandy/Beano Fifty Golden Years Book back in 1987 but to read the full issue has been fun and really insightful. To experience it in its almost complete state is something I’d recommend to any humour comics fan as a really entertaining retrospective, an origin story in this case. So what’s next?

Join me next time as we skip forward seven years to the end of World War II, the reduction in food rations, the launch of BBC Light Programme radio which would eventually become Radio 1 and Radio 2, the publication of Animal Farm, the movie Brief Encounter, the Nobel Prize for the discovery of penicillin, the birth of Helen Mirren and the first time we’d meet three steam engines by the names of Edward, Henry and Gordon! Join me on Wednesday 26th November 2025 for The Beano #272, the first issue to sell over one million copies!

GO TO iSSUE 272

BEANO BOX SET MENU

RETROSPECTiVES MENU

Beano, Comic Introductions

BEANO 80th ANNiVERSARY BOX SET: THE READ THROUGH

8 Comments

This isn’t going to be the usual introductory post for a comic (it hardly needs it), nor is this read through going to be usual. But then again, any modern day readers of Beano (and whose children also read it) will know this should suit the anarchic comic that’s on sale today, nearly 90 years after it first appeared. It’s been a long journey from breaking new ground, to being seen as a traditional comic, to being the crazy weekly it’s become today. This read through will take us all on that transformative journey together.

In 2018 Beano’s publishers DC Thomson released a lovely box set to mark its 80th anniversary. Aimed very much at the comic’s young readers it was a way of letting them have a peek at the long history of their favourite comic and its style of humour over the years. The main highlight of this set had to be the eight editions of Beano included, one from each decade of its life and gorgeously reproduced as a collective set.

Also in the box was a fascinating 100-page bookazine designed specifically for the current target audience. As an adult it’s a quicker read than I anticipated but that doesn’t make it any less fun. In fact, that’s the point. Instead of a dry history lesson it’s a fun ride through 80 years of the comic and includes a fascinating look into its creation, for example showing letters between its first editor Robert D. Low and the cartoonist responsible for Big Eggo, Reg Carter.

A selection of contributors are profiled so children can see those who have been making readers laugh for decades and those who have shaped the comic into what they’re familiar with today. There’s also a look at the free gifts, celebrity readers, the comic’s current location and even how it survived World War II. The extras that come with it are brilliant too, beginning with a huge poster of past and present characters which flips over to reveal a key to every single one of them.

There are postcards of some annual covers (strangely missing their years) and a reproduction of a famous, rather noisy free gift. Best of all is the fan club wallet containing the welcome letter and that furry googly-eyed Gnasher badge, which at the time of this box set’s release wasn’t available to readers. A lot of my friends were members of the club in the 80s and now I can finally say I am too, albeit 30 years too late.

But the main reason we’re here are those comics. Each issue marks not only the decade it was published but also a special occasion in the life of Beano, such as the first issue, the first that sold a million, the introduction of Dennis and when it officially received the Guinness World Record for longest-running weekly comic. The plan for the blog is to cover each of these on the dates of their original release.

No, it’ll not be in real time (I don’t have another 80 years in me) but I will be reviewing each issue on the anniversary of its original publication day. Yes, this will be a rather slow read through somewhat, kind of like how I review series of annuals once a year every Christmas. For example, this year #1 will be reviewed on Friday 25th July and the second issue, #272 on Wednesday 26th November.

These won’t be quick recaps, these will be full comic reviews just like every other comic series receives on the OiNK Blog and I can’t wait to get stuck in. If the bookazine is anything to go by this should be a fascinating trip through time. Knowing just how great the comic is today and how popular it is with children when digital distractions are so prevalent, this set looks like it could be the perfect gift for your young Beano reader if you can get a hold of it.

If you can’t, then that’s what I’m here for. So prepare to travel back 87 years to the time of George VI, the first televised test cricket, the first paid holiday leave, the birth of Diana Rigg, Agatha Christie’s Appointment with Death, the Mallard’s record breaking speed run and something happening in Austria that would have no repercussions whatsoever. Join me on Friday 25th July 2025 for The Beano #1!

BEANO BOX SET MENU

RETROSPECTiVES MENU

Beano, Christmas, Personal Post

PHiL THE MENACE: PERSONALiSED BEANO

Leave a comment

No, after all the completely unnecessary hoo-ha by middle-aged men when a children’s comic changed the title of its main strip a few years back, DC Thomson aren’t about to face their wrath again by changing him to ‘Phil’. This is a very special one-off comic featuring characters called Phil, Emma and (not so strangely) Roger, created for a birthday boy a few years back. Namely, me. Well, I say a few years back but it appears they have somewhat flown by.

The fact ‘the Menace’ has been dropped from Dennis for quite a while will be the first clue. I’m publishing this post on my 45th birthday and this was a gift from my friend Emma (and her dog Izzy) for my 38th, so it’s actually seven years old! (How did that happen?!) That’s right, for my 38th. Then again, you’re reading this blog so you already know I’m a big kid at heart. Emma was able to substitute the names of three characters with mine, hers and our mutual friend, Roger.

Beano megastar Dennis was unfortunate enough to be given my name for the issue and, as luck would have it, Roger’s was given to Rodger the Dodger! I never knew the name of the character who became Emma but upon checking with Lew Stringer it appears she’s from Nick Brennan’s Crazy for Daisy. Coincidentally, she bares an uncanny resemblance to the real person, so that just made it all the funnier for me.

The basic plot is that Santa and Rudolph, distracted by the warbling of carols by Walter and his friends puts himself directly in the flight path of Dennis… erm, me and his… erm, my pet dog Gnasher, after a sleigh stunt using a homemade ramp shoots us into the air a tad too high. It’s actually Gnasher who comes up with the idea of asking for help from some of the other Beano stars to help deliver the presents to everyone in Beanotown. However, as he’s unable to communicate this I take the credit. (Which Roger then tells me is an uncharacteristically smart idea. Thanks!)

This part involving Emma’s character I found particularly funny, for completely personal reasons. This little bit of the strip suited her character perfectly and makes me laugh aloud every time I see it. It resulted in some mickey-taking on my part and is still referred to now and again when the occasion calls for it. I loved this gift. It was a thoughtful present and certain parts of it really seemed to suit the three of us to a tee, making it seem all the more personalised than probably originally intended by the publishers.

With 32 high-quality pages and a thick, glossy card cover complete with a small spine, it was a high quality comic and a great idea for any young Beano or Dennis fan, or for those who used to be when they were much younger. Unfortunately Signature Gifts no longer have any Beano items for sale but DC Thomson have picked up the mantle for their own characters and offer something even better today.

DCT’s personalised Beano lets parents not only name but also create the look of a new character based on their child. It’s chock full of strip, puzzles and activities all starring any young fan of Dennis et all. Not only that, but the website includes a wealth of customisable Beano items, like various comics and books, clothes, lunch boxes, mugs and a whole lot more. Perfect for your child (or yourself).

PERSONAL POSTS

CHRiSTMAS 2022