What would have been your Alternative Favourite Comic(s)?

[SID]

Now I notice (and not surprisingly) that for people whose favourite comic was the Beano opted for the Dandy.

Now for those people: What if the Dandy hadn't existed as well? What DCT comedy comic would you choose?

[Digifiend]

I've already stated that would be Beezer - which closed just before I started buying that type of comic. After 1993, probably Buster (I know, it's Fleetway, but if both Beano and Dandy were gone, there'd be no DCT comics left).

[SID]

I know, it's Fleetway.

Tut! Tut! Tut!

Funnily enough, for the comedy comics, I always liked DCT but for the adventure (more 'serious'), it had been then IPC/Fleetway.

[Jonny Whizz]

I recently picked up a Buster from 1998. What surprised me was how poor the colouring was on most of the strips - a couple were still in black, white and a single colour I think, whereas the Beano had been full colour since 1993. I assume most of the material in it was reprints by that time anyway.

[Digifiend]

All reprints except Buster himself I think, although the shortlived Crazy Maisie appeared in the last few issues, including the final back page.

[AndyB]

By 1999 even Buster was reprint. They used primary and secondary colours only for about half the pages in each issue.

[felneymike]

Mine's pretty boring, also most of my "alternatives" were read by my brother in real life, so instead i'll guess an alternative for him.

Childhood:
The Beano
Alternative:
The Dandy
But my brother got that, so if i was getting The Dandy he probably would have got a sucession of flavour of the month TV cash-in comics. In fact i'm surprised he didn't.

Going into teenage:
Judge Dredd Megazine
Alternative:
2000AD
As my brother got that, if i was getting it he probably would have got super hero comics. He did in fact buy Spider Man just the once, it's still laying around somewhere and keeps turning up. This was an old Newsagents at the very end of the days when they still seemed to be semi-independent, it sold a few really obscure publications (not "Tractor Modeller" and such, but a paperback format Sci-Fi anthology from the states, and some semi-independent gore-soaked "Tekno Comix" also from the USA, i have one somewhere that i managed to persuade my mum to buy called Lady Justice)

Now:
Commando
Alternative:
2000AD
My brother doesn't get comics any more, and those are the two i normally get, so really i'd just have more money... to spend on old comics!

[TwoHeadedBoy]

(Again, apologies for bringing topics back from the dead!)

Back in the day, I'd get the Beano, Dandy and occassionally Buster, whilst my brother would get Thunderbirds, Stingray and Sonic the Comic (this was the early 1990s, obviously). All bases covered there, more or less, but there was always the occassion when an "alternative" would be considered - usually Marvel's Ren & Stimpy or Beavis & Butt-Head comics, or 2000AD on a VERY rare basis.

[SID]

If the Dandy had not been around, I would have read the Beano.

I would like to change that.

If The Dandy hadn't been around then I would gone for The Topper. Luckily although I never got it myself, my younger brother did so still got to read it very week. My favourites being Send For Kelly and The Whizzers From Oz.

[dishes]

This thread happened the year before I joined the forum. Nice to see some lapsed users' avatars again.

My regular comics were Dandy and Beano. If either of them didn't exist Buster (my most often bought occasional comic) would have been its replacement.
Failing that, Whizzer & Chips, Topper, and Beezer, in that order. We're talking roughly 1986-89 or a bit later.

In my later Victor-reading days, (new) Eagle would have been the obvious replacement, or Roy of the Rovers, though in the period I'm thinking of they both were incorporating too much non-comic material for my liking.

[SID]

Good choices, dishes.

My biggest regret as far as reading comics as youngster is missing out on certain which I liked later on life. Plus not getting into action comics earlier.

For example; going back to the early 70s I would have gone for Cor!! and Buster. Being a Star Trek fan, I would have liked to have gotten the last issues of TV21 (unfortunately I was too young have appreciated the comic earlier). Of course that would have led to its merger to Valiant and once liking that, getting its sister paper - Lion.

I think I would have done if I was born five years earlier possibly starting with Eagle - my dad's favourite comic as a kid.

Thank God for eBay.

[Lew Stringer]

I don't really have any regrets about the comics choices I made growing up. I tended to stick with my favourites and stop and start with others.

I think I must have tried every comic (except girls' comics) during the sixties and seventies, if only for one issue.

At one point I did regret stopping TV21 in 1966 when Smash! came out, but Smash! swiftly became my favourite comic. In the 1980s I acquired a near-complete run of TV21 (and filled in the gaps over time) so all's well that ends well.