How could the Dandy save itself?

[AndyB]

I know where they learned that tactic: they already suffered from a poaching when Steve Bright's Captain Handsome strip defected from The Dandy to Lucky Bag Comic.

Steve Horrocks, wasn't it (another forum member)? My memory's going...

[Digifiend]

Captain Handsome was the strip which temporarily replaced Bananaman - so I'm sure it's Bright.

[Digifiend]

Am I alone in thinking that now could well be a very opportune time for DC Thomson to bring out a couple of weekly text story papers for children between the ages of 9 and 14? I suspect that this idea would be supported by Ofsted.

I think Thomsons should grasp the nettle. There has to be profit in it. I would suggest for starters one 32-page paper for boys and an equivalent one for girls. The presentation must be contemporary, have lots of colour, with some humour and features. What do you all think?

Good idea, if they'll read Harry Potter, why not a modern version of the old style text papers. The boys one should be called Wizard (not The Wizard, just Wizard) because parents would probably recognise that brand - grandparents definitely would - and the girls one, well, they never made any girls text papers did they, Bunty was first, but was always a comic. So they should use a girl's name that hasn't been used before, something modern, like Jenny, for example.

The stories could be a mixture of new work specially commissioned, reprints from the boys papers and Beano/Dandy from the 1950s, and serialised popular stories, either by modern authors or classics (like Roald Dahl or Enid Blyton). For the reprints, all artwork would be redone though, like the Tin Lizzie story in the Dandy Book a few years ago, which was a 50s reprint, but had new art by Graham P Manley, The Comet's artist.

[AndyB]

Captain Handsome was the strip which temporarily replaced Bananaman - so I'm sure it's Bright.

Nuh-uh. Definitely SH - see http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/viewtop ... f=1&t=2432

[Jonny Whizz]

I think the Dandy needs to turn things around before it reaches the point of no return. However, it is positive that there's no reprint material, although one or two well chosen reprints are not a problem as long as they don't take over the comic. That proved to be the beginning of the end for so many comics over the years. A more established line up (like the Beano) could help, as could an increase in comic strip pages, even if it means throwing in the odd reprint.

It's sad though in the modern world, with all this parental control and everything else, kids can't really discover comics for themselves . But as if they could actually find the comics on those overcrowded, bad sorted shelves. Sometimes when I buy my Beano from the newsagents I have to look quite hard to find it in amongst all the mess, as highlighted on Lew's blog once.

[Lew Stringer]

It's sad though in the modern world, with all this parental control and everything else, kids can't really discover comics for themselves . But as if they could actually find the comics on those overcrowded, bad sorted shelves. Sometimes when I buy my Beano from the newsagents I have to look quite hard to find it in amongst all the mess, as highlighted on Lew's blog once.

The shelves are a real disgrace. The worst ones being in Asda, - or at least that's how it is in my local branch. Comics crammed in every way up except the right way, and no one bothering to tidy them up.

As for the idea of putting comics at parents' eye level, - d'oh! A surefire way to make sure that kids don't discover comics for themselves. WH Smith in Coventry has all of the comics about four feet from the floor. One of the Birmingham branches has them over six feet from the floor! (How tall do they think parents are?) Only a small percentage of parents will notice those comics, and only a percentage of those will decide to buy them for their kids, so sales can only diminish, not grow, I would have thought. If this policy continues we'll have a generation of kids who won't even have seen a comic!

Then again, with the climate of fear discouraging kids shopping on their own now I suppose retailers/publishers think that it's pointless putting comics at the eye level of children.

Unfortunately I guess the people who make such decisions tend to move on to other companies and even fatter salaries before the flaws in their ideas have repercussions. Such is the way of the world.

Lew

[Digifiend]

The shelves are a real disgrace. The worst ones being in Asda, - or at least that's how it is in my local branch. Comics crammed in every way up except the right way, and no one bothering to tidy them up.

Sadly too true. I often have to dig in to find Classics at WHSmith, and Tesco and Asda are a real mess with their comics too - even worse now Asda is running a 2 for £3 promo, supposedly on all children's magazines (but Beano and the Fun-Sizes should be excempt as they cost less than £1.50, usually). At least Asda and Tesco both keep the comics where kids can reach, WH Smith has them at adult eye level, kids probably pull them off the shelves randomly because they can't see what they are, hence why they end up in such a mess.

[Old Freddy]

I definitely agree about it needing to be majority comic strip, and about the return of characters like Korky and Winker - bringing back Bully Beef and Chips was a good start. Bringing back Beryl would appeal to girls, I'm sure Minnie the Minx attracts girls to The Beano.

As a matter of fact, since we have Cuddles & dimples made from 2 old strips, and Bea & Ivy made from 2 old strips, think about Mo & Beryl being a strip? that wouldn't be that bad, I recall them meeting each other in a comic library in '92.

It almost seems that they wanted to get rid of the Dandy by turning it into a magazine, just for the sake of it, very similar to how they cancelled Teen Titans- when it was at its best- just for the sake of it. Were the sales of the Comics slipping or something? They should have never start making changes in '97.

I've noticed, the Dandy book 2001 seems like there's something missing. I don't know why but I always have a strange empty feeling whenever I read it. My brother said it may have something to do with Cuddles & Dimples on the front cover, and the fact that they're missing a few prominent characters. The actual C&D strip in the annual just seems to be made of Giant pictures but in actual fact they could have added the same amount of frames to the same storyline in a weekly comic.

Oh, well. The Dandy sure needs to lighten up. Perhaps, one day, the Dandy & Xtreme will split. It would be nice if they did, because I don't even think readers are too bothered about the articles and stuff in the dandy Xtreme.

I think these should be the characters in the split Dandy:

Desperate Dan (On the front cover)
Cuddles & dimples (Still Drawn by Parkinson but with old style storyline, could use the middle pages)
Beryl & Mo
Bully Beef & Chips
Jak
Marvo the wonder chicken, at least until his TV show has ended
Growing Paynes (Perhaps start with reprints, then hire an artist to make new episodes)
Winker Watson (Drawn by anyone you want EXCEPT stephen white)
Korky the Cat, because he's been in the Dandy since it started.
Hyde & Shriek
Bananaman
Smasher

Even if some strips like First Class can't make it into the weekly they can still have an episode or two in the annuals.

[Lew Stringer]

It almost seems that they wanted to get rid of the Dandy by turning it into a magazine, just for the sake of it

What would be the point of that? Publishers are in it to make money so they rarely do things just for the sake of it. The Dandy's sales were slipping to a dangerous level. Thomsons saw that Egmont's Toxic was outselling The Dandy so they tailored The Dandy to match it. Happens in publishing all the time.

The comic/magazine hybrid is the format of most children's comics today. The Dandy was starting to look a bit outdated to be honest.

We can all bemoan changes to the comics we loved as kids but the bottom line is they're aimed at children, not us. Whether we as adults like Xtreme or not is irrelevant.

Lew

[Phoenix]

I sympathise with your aim, and I've been following this thread with interest. The trouble is, I don't think the real issues are being tackled, either by you or by DC Thomson. To discuss or argue about which strips should be reprinted is only discussing cosmetics and is therefore rather pointless. There is more value in recommending longer comic strips and indeed more of them, as Conor does, although his 'back to basics' idea doesn't really hold water because that is a moveable feast. What was 'basic' in one decade, for example, would be quite different from that of earlier or later ones. A girls' strip, as David suggests, would be no more than a token gesture. Digifiend's suggestions about readers sending in artwork and his desire for competitions to be improved are interesting and I will look at that topic later. I also support Lew's point about eye level in the newsagents and stores because how is a child to decide whether he/she likes a particular comic or not if they can't pick it up, handle it, look through it and maybe read a strip or two?

As I see it though, the bottom line is essentially two questions, Are children going to be attracted to it?, and is it affordable? Of course this is a difficult balancing act for the company. They've done the maths and their production costs will determine the price. These costs will fluctuate depending on how many copies they shift. A wastage factor will be built in but no company can carry losses for very long without taking drastic action. In fact, they might well be better advised to reduce the price of The Dandy in the short term, and quite significantly at that, say to £1, on the grounds that if they are likely to lose anyway, they may as well go down fighting. However, although the company determines the price, it's children who decide whether to buy it or not. They can get cash off their parents, £1.99 a bit less easily than £1 of course but, apart from those children whose copy of The Dandy is delivered with the daily paper and paid for in the paper bill, how many are eagerly waiting, as I believe we were, with coins in sweaty palms for the next issue to come out? Not enough, to judge from your comments. David talks about clawing back lost readers. How could the company be sure of doing that? Their spiritual antennae are not going to be tuned in to comicsuk. Children don't really know what they want but they know what they like when they get it. When I was 8 or 9 I suppose if I'd been consulted I might have asked for a mystery or a football story or something with cowboys and Indians. But Thomsons didn't need to consult me and I didn't need to ask because that was what my sweaty coins were being exchanged for in the newsagent's. They either knew what I wanted or their experience was enabling them to provide what I discovered that I liked. Why are they not doing it now with The Dandy?

I believe that they are underestimating their readers, or what is worse, ignoring them, and those readers are walking away in droves. I actually believe that the company don't know what to do to arrest the slide. They would seem to have lost the plot. Perhaps the only thing that is saving The Dandy now is that they really don't want to lose such an iconic comic. But the fact is they should know what to do and what they should have been doing. They've had 80 years of experience of successes and failures. I should also point out that EVERY ONE of their story papers from 1921 onwards showed how it should be done. They placed maximum emphasis on the relationship between the editor and his young readers. He would talk to them as a friend, introduce the forthcoming new stories and the enthusiasm that he drummed up would be shared. He would give them information about some relevant topic, introduce competitions and start clubs perhaps with messages in code. Knowing that children like to collect things, he would give them cards, booklets, even games. They were ephemeral but then so were the papers. There was a real sense of belonging, it was as if everyone was in it together, but it was actually just you and the editor.

Children are actually loyal and fickle at the same time. Because of this, one of David's other suggestions might well claw some lost readers back. The Dandy's cartoon figures appearing on TV or DVDs does have some appeal. But David feels that the brand should only be exploited in this way if The Dandy gets a substantial increase in readers. I think the revamp of The Dandy must come first, and quickly, and with some aggressive marketing, before the company loses more readers from those they still have, because really what is needed is the two formats working in tandem and therefore feeding off each other. There would be another balancing act to perform here too. Apologies for stating the obvious but a comic strip requires the reader to fill in the bits between the frames where the animated cartoon does not. Children love cartoons on the television. The more there are of favourites from The Dandy, perhaps the comic will seem that bit less desirable simply because the strips are so static. Nevertheless, I would try it. My suggestion for what it's worth is individual 10-minute cartoons of Winker Watson, Korky and Dinah Mo. They would provide lots of scope for adventures in school, out of school and a well-loved animal. The cartoon shorts could then be combined into a 30-minute programme airing initially just once a week along the lines of the Huckleberry Hound Show. The trouble is that really all this should have been done long enough since. It will take time to revamp the paper and time to prepare the animated shorts, even if there can be an early agreement about how to proceed on both fronts. Knowing how ruthless Thomsons can be with failing papers (see my list of cascading fatalities on a different thread), we may just not have that time.

[STARBOY]

Are the prices of comics not also influenced by the larger retailers? I mean at £1 would WH Smiths,Asda etc be interested in stocking the Dandy ? Is it not just simply the case the the Dandy has run its course? I mean the characters aren't exactly cutting edge like they were when they first came out are they?does the age ranfge theDandy is aimed at (waht is it 9-10yeras old) interested in A cowboy and an unfunny cat etc? maybe they need to simply revamp the comic side from scratch re the comic characters and go for an all new approach and all new characters for todays kids ? I'll get me coat then shall I?

[Lew Stringer]

Let's not forget that The Dandy WAS revamped - a couple of years before it went Xtreme.

(see http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/oc ... ublishing1)

They turned it into a glossier, brighter, more modern looking comic with longer stories and new characters.... with publicity across the media... and sadly it still didn't do enough to stop the decline in sales.

It simply wasn't working as a comic, hence the shift to a comic/magazine hybrid. If sales are stable now then that's good. Thing is, sales on practically every periodical are falling, not just The Dandy. People are simply getting out of the habit of buying magazines and comics on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

Is Manga still popular with kids? Perhaps UK publishers should try that format - nice handy chunky books with a tactile feel to the paper, complete stories per book, character development, exciting page-turners. I'm not suggesting imitating that wide eyed style, just the format. They could call it.... DANGA!

Lew

PS: I want a credit and a free subscription if they use that name.

[Brendan McGuire]

Lew, what do you think the sales would be if they called it the Mangy?

(sings: Grab my coat and grab my hat leave my worries...etc.)

[SID]

Question: What sells better? Dandy Xtreme or Classics from the Comics? And who generally buys Classics?

[AndyB]

I think Dandy Xtreme by quite a lot. Of course, that's partly due to poor circulation, but Classics doesn't cost that much to produce (one editor and one art assistant, who also edit the Fun Size comics, plus fresh cover artwork each month)