Beano 1 replica

[Kashgar]

If you get in touch with Thomsons and ask for the Circulation Dept they might well be able to send you a copy of the Beano No1 'facsimile'.
Re this 24pg version, the 4 missing pages from the 28pg original are pg 8 'Black Flash the Beaver', pg 16 'The Wishing Tree', pg 21 'My Dog Sandy' and pg 27 'Little Peanut's Page of Fun'. As the first three pages above are rather innocuous, single page text stories it is fairly obvious that they have been excised for the sole purpose of being able to remove the 'Peanut' page which features a rather dated and therefore possibly offensive image of a little black boy. ( He does remain as part of the front page title logo however). The removal of one page, given the way that the original comic was put together as seven 4 page sheets, making it necessary to remove four pages to eliminate one.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I actually found the image of the little black boy with the melon slice quite appealling; the image came accross as 'cute' and evocative of childhood innocence, rather than demonic or 'potentially evil'.

[Raven]

I actually found the image of the little black boy with the melon slice quite appealling; the image came accross as 'cute' and evocative of childhood innocence, rather than demonic or 'potentially evil'.

A delighted little black child scoffing into a watermelon has been a caricature going back to the days of slavery though, when slaves would be given the cheapest food; it implied that they were simple-minded and therefore happy with such simple pleasures. The image and association has such a long history as a racial slur that we'd be ignoring the facts to reimagine it in the present day as representing childhood innocence.

Not that we should pretend it wasn't published back then.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

well, when I was a kid, RAVEN, I would have been delighted with a slice of watermelon, depending on my mood.........if this makes my childhood memories simple-minded and offensive to others, then I apologize unresevedly for my parents having a large family [5 kids] and the subsequent embarassment and inconvenience this has caused today's society.

[dandy mad]

so they have kept the cracker jack story in i presume thomsons have removed the offending word if not it was pointless taking the peanut page out and why have thomsons kept peanut on the front cover? If it is such a racist image as raven points out

[Raven]

well, when I was a kid, RAVEN, I would have been delighted with a slice of watermelon, depending on my mood.........if this makes my childhood memories simple-minded and offensive to others, then I apologize unresevedly for my parents having a large family [5 kids] and the subsequent embarassment and inconvenience this has caused today's society.

I'm more than partial to watermelon myself - it's my melon of choice, and I could do with a rugby ball-sized one right now in this heat - but I'm not sure what that's got to do with anything!

It's the vintage big-lipped black boy/watermelon image itself that's considered offensive, not your personal melon-based activities as a child. Obviously if people aren't familiar with the image's historical associations and use they might find that quite peculiar, but there's no denying them.

[Raven]

so they have kept the cracker jack story in i presume thomsons have removed the offending word if not it was pointless taking the peanut page out and why have thomsons kept peanut on the front cover? If it is such a racist image as raven points out

I expect it's probably quite a source of some regret and embarrasment to DCT that the image was on the Beano front cover - there's no way of reproducing the first issue cover without showing it, is there? And it'd be awkward to paint it out.

It was common enough in the '30s, but maybe it's surprising they were still dealing with this kind of imagery - much worse imagery, really - 30 years later for the early years of Sparky's front cover. I'm sure you won't see those strips being reprinted any time soon.

[dandy mad]

I agree with you there raven is it certain character that appeared in thomsons short lived magic comic you are on about

[Raven]

I agree with you there raven is it certain character that appeared in thomsons short lived magic comic you are on about

Do you mean when I said "It was common enough in the '30s?" I meant you got a lot of that type of caricature throughout comics, films and animated cartoons at the time.

I think I know the Magic character you mean, though. Sooty Snowball? He looks more or less the same as the Sparky's front cover star in its early years several decades later, doesn't he?

[DJDogfart]

I think the issue would have to be the tag line on Peanut's page, which if memory serves, begins: "Although he may be black as coke....." and not the image as such, but i could be wrong there, i suppose they could have just tippexed that bit out, or whatever they use these days.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

WARTIME RATIONING around the time just after 'BEANO' number one would have meant that most fruit from overseas [especially citrus variety]would have been an exotic luxury for ALL kids, whatever their ethnic origin .........and would have appeared as quite fanciful during that era.

Similarly, the 'DANDY'S frontpage logo depicted a BELLBOY that bore no real relation to reality: I reckon I have only ever seen a 'proper' doorman at a hotel foyer only a handful of times in my life.........it's just escapism, another departure from boring old reality [the essence of what comics are all about].

To be honest, the very first time I ever encountered the coloured boy logo, it was actually in THOMSON'S offices in the mid-80s, and I said to an editor: 'you wouldn't get away with THAT today!'------and he seemed to agree.

Yes, the 'SPARKY' [origins: rhymes with 'darkie?'-----dunno....] is a bit of a stinker......but to depict coloured races WITHOUT natural 'fuller lips' , different coloured skin etc, is a bit of a tall order......the alternative is to leave out COLOUREDS altogether, not exactly practical either.........

I recently viewed loads of 70s 'GOODIES' episodes on youtube, and they're chockablock with stereotypes of ALL races: but I don't want these videos edited: they can keep in all SCOTTISH buffoon/primitive references, [there are plenty!] as far as I'm concerned so I' M no hypocrite!

True, I'm not the most PC-friendly writer on here, but I reckon I dislike more SCOTTISH idiots I have encountered than any other races............

[Lew Stringer]

Yes, the 'SPARKY' [origins: rhymes with 'darkie?'-----dunno....] is a bit of a stinker......but to depict coloured races WITHOUT natural 'fuller lips' , different coloured skin etc, is a bit of a tall order......the alternative is to leave out COLOUREDS altogether, not exactly practical either.........

Not all black people have "fuller lips" compared to white people so the caricature was always a stereotype anyway. In Sparky's case it's quite easy to see why people consider it racist: big lips, bone in hair, grass skirt, shiny jet black skin, barefoot... and set in contemporary 1960s Britain where all the white people were drawn semi-realistically!

There's absolutely no problem depicting black people in humour comics without resorting to such dated caricatures. For example, Wayne Brayne (School Genius) was a black kid in my Tom Thug strip throughout the 1990s. Brown skin, curly hair. That's all the cartoon shorthand that was required to let the readers know he was black, and he wore a school uniform just like the rest (except for rebellious Tom).

Not that his colour was ever an issue in the stories of course. My main aim was having the clever kid in class to be shown as one of the gang, rather than a "soppy Walter" clone. Turning the Dennis the Menace format on its head, the intention was for the reader to relate to Wayne (or one of the other cast), and laugh AT Tom Thug getting his just desserts, not see Tom as an anti-hero like Dennis. It seemed to work.

Lew

[AndyB]

Syndication is former Dandy editor Morris Heggie and colleagues.

[dandy mad]

yeah thats the one raven sooty snowball drawn i think by the torelli bros at first then by robert mcgillivray till it ended in 1941 and he was known as sparky in the comic of the same name this time drawn by ron spencer

[Raven]

WARTIME RATIONING around the time just after 'BEANO' number one would have meant that most fruit from overseas [especially citrus variety]would have been an exotic luxury for ALL kids, whatever their ethnic origin .........and would have appeared as quite fanciful during that era.

Similarly, the 'DANDY'S frontpage logo depicted a BELLBOY that bore no real relation to reality: I reckon I have only ever seen a 'proper' doorman at a hotel foyer only a handful of times in my life.........it's just escapism, another departure from boring old reality [the essence of what comics are all about].

The black boy wasn't simple escapism though, ISPYSHHHGUY. In the 30s the demeaning stereotype of black people was of lazy, ignorant, fried chicken and water melon eating simpletons, and that's what that caricature is derived from. As I mentioned, the watermelon has slave associations - they were planted and eaten in the cottonfields, and I think the slave trade transported them from Africa to America, so wartime rationing in the UK isn't really relevant to the image's origin or implications.

Yes, the 'SPARKY' [origins: rhymes with 'darkie?'-----dunno....] is a bit of a stinker......but to depict coloured races WITHOUT natural 'fuller lips' , different coloured skin etc, is a bit of a tall order......

It's often not a case of 'fuller lips' but grotesquely exaggerated 'inner tube' lips, though, isn't it? Again the racist tendency in popular culture of the time, at its worst, was to depict black people as being practically subhuman and those grotesque caricatures were part of that tradition.

I recently viewed loads of 70s 'GOODIES' episodes on youtube, and they're chockablock with stereotypes of ALL races: but I don't want these videos edited: they can keep in all SCOTTISH buffoon/primitive references, [there are plenty!] as far as I'm concerned so I' M no hypocrite!

They don't have the same implications though - there's never been a Scottish slave trade or history of segregation, etc. so those stereotypes aren't so loaded.

I've seen lots of doormen outside London hotels, incidentally! You still get what you might call bellboys or bellhops in the posher hotels, but they're not literally boys. Were they ever, I wonder - and if so, when?

True, I'm not the most PC-friendly writer on here,

Indeed. It's not bellboy, it's bellPERSON!