Comics UK

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote: THOMSON have the dilemma that much of their output is formulaic-----and this is what many readers prefer------and I'm certainly not knocking a winning formula, and I don't blame DCT for putting out a lot of 'samey' stuff, and to their credit, their strips have always shown genuine invention [in the main].

How many Baxendale clones were there in the 60s and 70s? But few people complained......perhaps today with so much rapid-fire imagery on the web and on TV, people are just tired of the non-stop bombardment of visuals from all quarters, and it gets more difficult to impress viewers/ readers.......

You criticisms of Dandy Xtreme don't hold much water if you haven't read it Rab. As I said earlier, British comics have always followed a contemporary formula (tramps, naughty schoolkids, spies, etc). They used to encourage artists to draw in a "house style" too (imitate Roy Wilson or Leo Baxendale) but that's certainly not true of today's Dandy. (It wasn't true of The Dandy 45 years ago either to be fair.) I doubt you'd like it (but as it is targeted for children you're not expected to), but it might be worth actually looking at it before you dismiss it as "samey".

We're going around in circles now so this will be my final post on the matter.

Lew

Very good points Lew you have made..and others..

post should stop there..

I've never read MEIN KAMPF or MAGGIE THATCHER'S MEMOIRS either, but I will still condemn the 'creativity' of these authors, and give both of these publications a wide berth!

Lew Stringer wrote: You criticisms of Dandy Xtreme don't hold much water if you haven't read it Rab.

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:I've never read MEIN KAMPF or MAGGIE THATCHER'S MEMOIRS either, but I will still condemn the 'creativity' of these authors, and give both of these publications a wide berth!

Words fail me...

Digifiend wrote:Freddy, the text stories stopped in the 1950s! Beano stopped the adventure stories in the 70s, so I assume that's what you're thinking of. Dandy was still using them until the 2000s! (The Comet, Winker and Brassneck)

Well the Comet was only in annuals, and Winker and Brassneck had by that time stopped being text stories and became comic strips like the rest.

But I was always under the impression the Billy the cat was a text story, and that didn't come out until the 1960s. General Jumbo stopped in the 1970s and that used text. Or when they say "Text" do they mean no pictures at all?

Hi OF, by general consensus a text story is a story told entirely in the prose format with only a single, heading block illustration. Therefore both the Beano and Dandy ceased to publish text stories in the mid-1950's.

I know there have been the odd exceptions, the Dick King-Smith text story in the Beano for example, but for the most part the above statement is true.

Yeah, Mr Ape in 1998.

Freddy, The Comet debuted in a Dandy Fun-Size, then a Summer Special, before appearing in The Dandy weekly comic in Summer 2000. While Winker Watson and Brassneck in the last few annuals have been comic strips, both were originally of the comic adventure genre. Ninja Number Nine from the 2009 annual is also an adventure strip, but he never appeared in the weekly, although he was meant to - the strips had been held over for several years I believe.

Also, Billy the Cat in the current Beano is an adventure strip rather than a humour strip, as he was in his runs in 2003 and 2005. However, in the 70th birthday Beano, he was done as sort of a cross between Manga, adventure and humour drawn by Laura.

Anyone know why the Dandy started losing readers to an extent that the Beano didn't, and around when this happened?

Let's not criticise DCT. The Dandy is meant for children, and as long as they like it, it's fine. You can say that the Dandy isn't as good as the Beano, or that the changes have made it worse, but would we want the two comics to be almost identical? Part of the reason why both comics have been successful for so long is that they have something different to them - there's no Desperate Dan-type character in the Beano, and nor is there a (direct) equivalent to Dennis the Menace. I might not be a Dandy reader, but it's important that such a legendary comic not only survives, but thrives (I'm sounding like a marketing man)

The Beano's counterpart to Dan was Pansy Potter, but she hasn't appeared now for almost two decades. Dandy's counterpart to Dennis was The Smasher, who has also been dropped. In the past, the Dandy had more focus on fantasy (hence why it kept the adventure strips longer) while Beano focused on naughty child characters.

I'd agree that Laura's Billy the Cat was comic adventure, after all, the villain turned out to be The Bash Street Kids. It is of course normally serious adventure, although the latest version seems to rely on wisecracks a lot. But the fact is The Beano did ditch adventure stories in 1975 - the Billy the Cat stories you mention plus one 1998 General Jumbo are all that has run since, although they did consider a full series for both General Jumbo and Great Flood of London.

Digifiend wrote:Ninja Number Nine from the 2009 annual is also an adventure strip, but he never appeared in the weekly, although he was meant to - the strips had been held over for several years I believe.

Yes, I believe that Dave Windett drew it as a five-parter for the weekly comic, and I noted it on his website over two years ago. He's a member here, mainly lurking.

Yep, his website was where I got the info from.