I found a copy , for $5 , of the 1982 " Beano Book " , the annual of The Beano , one of the two ( I believe by now . ) " traditional " UK market anthologies of kid's material . ( " THe Dandy " is the other one . )
I presume that this came out in the final quarter of 1981 or so .
It is about US " dime-store " book size & binding , not the somewhat bigger page height and width I've tended to expect from most " home market "-oriented UK comics .
I have always been curious about this UK staple of the comics trade that has always stayed on the UK " side of the puddle " , so I was " well chuffed " to get to see at least an example of , um , " back in the day " , relativley speaking , UK material of this sort .
There are no credits or signatures for any creative personnel anywhere here . Th continuing characters /strips in this include the Bash Street Kids and the UK strip named Dennis the Menace ( Not Ketcham's Yank lad :-) ! ) tho two others I've heeard of , Billy Bunter and Desperate Dan , appear to be absent ( Presumably they appear/ed in The Dandy ? ) .
The comic is printed in alternating sections of one colo(u)r , pretty much alternating between red-orange and yellow being that one colo(u)r ! THe stories don't seem to be titled , beyone the characters' names , and are basically extended gags , maybe tending towards four-six pages - Like , a short Archuie/US Dennis story . - maybe a few longer ones .
I haven't fullly read it yet .
An " all-colour " Bash Street Kids annual is advertised in the frontipiece and , um , " backipiece " of the book with a drawing showing the Beano characters and what are clearly caricatures of celebrities of the day running to the fun of the BSK annual...I can't recognize...
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That's an awesome object from my childhood you have in your hands there! We used to read the Beano and Dandy annuals to death in my house.
Which book exactly do you have from this list?
The Bash St Kids is probably the best strip in it. Leo Baxendale is a totally legendary artist for that strip, but I'm not sure if it was still his work in your annual.
Billy Bunter isn't a Beano/Dandy character, I'm fairly certain, but you are right about Desperate Dan being in the Dandy.
...1982 , as I said .
I got cut off by my last attempt to continue , to continue from there , even though I'm slogging myself down in the celebrity caricatures in the house ads... There are two women among the celebrities , one a shortish-haired blond that I thought might be Princess Diana (!!) but , especially if it was not kosher to caricature Royalty in such a manner then?? , mebbe Olivia Newton-John ( Kind of coming off of the peak of her US popularity then , but in the UK?? ) ?
Another woman I thought might be Joan Collins?? However , she appears a bit young and has a bit of a " hippy-ish/backwoods " long dress/caftan on , maybe she's Kate Bush ? Was she still considered then in the UK a pop star that young audiences would be interested by??
One man in paarticular sort of looks like Stan Lee in a " lounge disco/door-to-door patent medicine salesman " , in American terms , sort of outfit but I'm sure it's not ol' Smilin' , maybe it's the mustache - After all , it was barely past the Seventies !!!!!!! - there's another mustached one , too...
...Okay , I am getting myself slogged down in the celeb caricatures* and I guess I'll digress from that to respond to you somewhat more directly , Figs , since I've gotten some response here , as I look closer I can see more difference between the strips' art styles .
I have definitely heard of Leo Baxendale !!!
UK Dennis is certainly rather a brat-brat-brat , as I've always heard , it seems , far nastier than Hank's Yank was ever characterized as , I believe?? - In one strip he is playing mean pranks on next door ( considerably taller ) " softies " , I almost wondered if they were supposed to be mildly " retarded "/" backward " !!!!!!!!! However I suppose that means " sissies "/" Mom - um , Mummy's boys " , more or less .
They're in sorta outdoor/summer suits . Class antagonism ? However , Dennis's dad , when he's summoned to spank Dennis , looks fairly " posh " himself , in a banker-y suit...Perhaps I'm falling prey to the " try to analyse ' British class warfare ' from afar " temptation here !!!!!!!!! But continuing...
Yepper , this somehow made its way 6,500 miles or so to the little bookshop in the front of the San Francisco Main Library , near Market and Eighth .
Isn't globalization wonderful .
*-I got caught up in the computer shutting itself off twice !!!!
You'll have to come to grips with scanning as well as a few other basics, EKDJ. :-)
1982 was just after the Beano and Dandy peaked in popularity in our house, so I mightn't have read this exact one. The celebrity references were part of a modernisation of the brand that my 10 year old self didn't particularly approve of.
The Beano was old-fashioned and that was part of it's world. eg Dennis the Menace always wore shorts. That was his thing, but no 10 year olds that I knew would have been seen dead in them in 1981. Dennis' look just hadn't been updated since 1949!
There were other comics besides Beano and Dandy
I was into Cheeky for a while and there was also the Beezer, Whizzer and Chips, the latter two of which merged to become 'Whizzer and Chips'. :-)
Cheeky was really modern, with the young hero walking through a modern UK town and meeting Afro-Caribbeans and Indian kids.
BTW Ken Reid is the other major talent who worked on kids comics in the 70's.
...I've never seen any full examples of this stuff , only panel and cover repros , often in likes of the late Denis Gifford's UK-slanted histories of the comics ( Which tended to make their way to US bargain book tables and the like . :-) . ) , I have seen UK " alternative-y/fanzine-type " comics tending to fall into being drawn in sort of this manner , this " UK bigfoot " ( Rather drawing the line to the Jimmy Hatlo ( Little Iodine ) /Bill Holman ( Smokey Stover ) American " bigfoot " sort of thing here that was kind of winding its way down/dying out in US newspapers in my pre-adolescent years . ) , as well as that UK " pub/lad's humo(u)r " thing , VIZ , with the Fat Slags and the Posh Hippie Parents ( Whatever they're called, ) and such , when I've seen that...
Hah , considering the tendency to show " now " kids and younger people in America - California especially , I suppose . - wearing shorts , perhaps Dennis has circled around to " hip " again !!!!!!!!!!! Hee hee hee .
A scanner ? Were one in the works , I could upload , in my own write...!
Oops missed your second post there. Good catch on Dennis' Dad's pin-striped suit. I hadn't thought about it before, but the suit would put im somewhere between lower-middle-class and lower-upper-middle class! (To use George Orwell's terminology.) His Dad could be anything from a lowly civil servant/bank clerk to a bank manager or somone like that.
Looking back, Dennis was a monster who terrorised the local kids who dared read a book or be interested in cookery. No they weren't meant to be mentally challenged, just 'softies', (mummy's boys as you surmise!) An unforgiveable crime it seems.
I've referred to Dennis' strict enforcement of social codes here.
Many of the strips are certainly beautifully crafted, and a sampling of Baxendale's and Reid's strips belong on the shelf of any comic fans worth the name.
Apparently Canadians were exposed to some of these comics, so there may be a market there, which might be a doorway.
There are good hardback collections of examples down through the years - '75 years of the Beano' and the like - that would hopefully be available on the internet.
...Another other-continetal comic I've been exposed to ( Physically published , in its original language , in the U.S. some...) of a rather " old-fashioned " type that I've mused about Norteamericano reprints of is this Chile-originated comic that starts from a Carl Barksian sort of concept and this is the Ingles site...
http://www.condorito.cl/ingles/index.htm
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