Christmas Beano - £3.99!

[NP]

... I understand it was squeezed out due to a long story that's in the issue. No Christmas Super School this year

Oops. Sorry.

[Lew Stringer]

... I understand it was squeezed out due to a long story that's in the issue. No Christmas Super School this year

Oops. Sorry.

As it's you I'll let you off.

Lew

[Digifiend]

As well as the 10 part prank pack, there's another gift obtainable via the website - not yet of course, but the website has already revealed this by accident.
Photo of the comic folded inside the famous Churchill mug: http://www.beanotown.com/index.php?id=195

[intune]

I got my Christmas Beano in the post on Friday, good it is too.
Unfortunately, my copy has a really bad printing error, making four of the pages virtually unreadable. Almost looks like a 3D effect...

Anyone else experiencing the same problem?

[Digifiend]

It's not the first time that's happened. I'll let you know when I buy my copy on Wednesday.

[AndyB]

Mine's fine. Contact the Subscriptions department

[Digifiend]

Front cover preview: http://www.beanotown.com/index.php?id=199

EDIT: My copy had a bent staple which I had to remove because it was stopping the pages in the second half of the comic from turning without ripping. No printing errors though.

As for the contents, two surprises. Calamity James is a new two-pager, not a reprint (the only reprint at all is Ivy). And Fred's Bed is a three-pager drawn by David Sutherland. Looks like we still don't know who his new permanent artist is yet then. And Johnny Bean's back, after two month's absence.

[Jonny Whizz]

No, Calamity James is definitely a reprint. It's by Steve Bright, from the 2004 Christmas issue. I have the actual issue - 3258, 25th December 2004. It's relatively recent compared to most reprints, being only five years old, but I don't think that James tended to appear in most of the Christmas issues. He certainly didn't appear in the ones in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006, which I also have. Anyway, if a new James strip was going to appear, it would probably be Tom Paterson who drew it, and Steve hasn't drawn anything for DCT for a couple of years now.

I thought the Christmas Beano was good. I was pleased to see that Johnny Bean was back, and DS did well on Fred's Bed. I was also happy when I saw Billy Whizz in NP's long story, as he was drawn old style (pre-Nick Brennan) with the thunderbolt hair.

My copy was absolutely fine. There were no printing errors or bent staples.

[Digifiend]

It's the fact CJ was two pages which fooled me - it's an extremely rare occurance.

It was DS's second Fred's bed, the first one though he was ghosting David Parkins, in the old Beezer/Topper style, while this time he's used Hunt Emerson's style. Presumably the script was originally intended for Hunt, but when he decided to cut his workload by reverting back to doing the single page Ratz, it will have been passed to whoever was available. No pressure for DS since there's no Beano next week, and he can do most styles.

[Peter Gray]

I liked the Minnie secretly loving Plug moment in Nigel's epic story..and Calamity James appearing at the end..

Bring back Steve Bright his work is so good..nice to see..

the Ivy the Terrible wasn't really about Christmas..the balloons were changed aq lot to make out it was..

Maybe David sutherland is to be the new artist on Fred's Bed...he did a good job.

[Digifiend]

Considering DS is 75 years old, I'd be surprised if he did take over Fred. As good as he is, can he cope with two strips every week? That is why he stopped doing Dennis in 1998 is it not?

And yes, Ivy does actually look like it's meant to be summer - no snow in sight.

[LauraH]

And Johnny Bean's back, after two month's absence.

Has it been two months? I thought the last one appeared about four issues ago, although I could be wrong. He'll hopefully be appearing a bit more regularly from now on, anyway

[Classic Comics]

Dave Sutherland is drawing a run of Fred's Beds for us at the moment. I'm not sure what the long-term plan is for the story but Dave has kindly agreed to fill in at the moment - and he's doing a great job with them. The extra workload is no problem to him and from my point of view, it's always a joy to write scripts for him.

[Digifiend]

Surprising but good news then. Thanks for the info.

[Jonny Whizz]

Yes, I'm pleased to hear as well. It's great that DS is doing Fred, as I reckon that it's one of the best strips in the comic and he's been missing quite a few issues lately. He is still one of the best artists around - few can match his versatility.

I, too, hope Johnny Bean appears more often from now on! With Hunt moving back to Ratz, that means Laura's regular strips are him and Beano Manga. Three strips in the same comic is quite a lot for any artist, especially when you have other strips for other comics (for Laura, Robin Hoodie etc.). This is good as well, because Johnny Bean is great, and from the comments on the Beano website he seems to be popular too.

One thing that was perhaps a bit surprising in the Christmas issue was that Ivy the Terrible was a non-Christmas story, but Calamity James was. Ivy has definitely appeared in more Christmas issues in the past than James has (at least two have been reprinted in the past, but there will have been more).