The Dandy Annual 2013

I didn't read much of the Dandy as a child. I had access to maybe half a dozen annuals and a handful of random issues but I didn't much like them. There was something about the characters, something lacking, which meant they didn't really click with me. Looking back now I suspect it's simply that they weren't as relatable as their counterparts in the Beano. A man with a dangerous addiction to pies and a humanoid cat with no discernible personality were no match for the simple premise of a boy and his dog causing mayhem.
 
I wasn't completely disinterested though. I enjoyed Winker Watson, from the decidedly simplistic, perhaps even crude, art style to the concept of the character it was a strip that offered something different to the likes of Desperate Dan. Beryl the Peril was mostly enjoyable too. Yes, she was essentially a female version of Dennis the Menace but as I pointed out above he was a character that appealed to me.
 
With the 2013 annual alleged to be the final printed annual of the Dandy's 75 year history I thought I'd get a copy. I was interested to see what approach the editorial team would take. Would they take the opportunity to revive all of their retired characters, dusting them off for one last outing? Would they go out all guns blazing, presenting us with a wealth of newly created personalities to hint at a world that could have been? Would they take the mildly metafictional and decidedly mature approach of presenting a title-wide apocalypse detailing the downfall of Dandy Town?
 
Sadly they did none of the above.

The Dandy Annual 2013 features, broadly speaking, exactly what you’d expect. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn’t come across as a celebration of the comic’s history. It feels more like things are being played safe. Considering what the future has in store for The Dandy that’s a real shame. There was no need to play it safe. The editorial team and writers could have gone out practically any way they wanted. Playing it safe is what brought them to this juncture in the first place.

Desperate Dan appears in several strips, all of which revolve around his love of pies. Winker Watson appears several times too, proving to be just as enjoyable as he was in the late-80s. His strips, drawn by the enigmatic Wilbur, are all two pagers featuring the young schoolboy getting one over on a fully grown man. It’s charming that such a concept is still deemed capable of entertaining kids.

Beryl the Peril remains quite enjoyable here. The strip featuring Beryl and her dad visiting a shoe shop is particularly funny. It begins with a picture of her father brandishing a slipper and a panel that reads “Cripes! Dad’s forgotten it’s the 21^st century!” Never has a joke about parental abuse of children been so amusing.

The Bananaman stories are among the most solid. That’s predictable when you consider the character’s status as one of The Dandy’s most recognisable figures. The amount of backstory sketched into his enemies is impressive considering the meagre amount of space provided. It’s a very clever use of panels and naming.

Elsewhere there are characters like Peter’s Pocket Grandpa, the Badd Lads, the Banana Bunch, and Brassneck inoffensively propping up the page count. There’s also Keyhole Kate, a bizarre creation that I hadn’t ever come across before. Kate is a young girl obsessed with looking through keyholes. It’s clear that so flimsy a premise could (and probably did) become tiresome very quickly but it doesn’t here thanks to the way she’s written. It’s very subtly hinted that she’s a junkie who suffers from withdrawals should she go without looking through a keyhole for too long. It’s a ridiculous gimmick and so the natural thing to do is to drive it to an extreme. It works beautifully.

Not everything about the annual is positive. The Cuddles and Dimples strips made me hate the titular characters, which I can’t imagine was the intention. One of the strips (a Smasher story) is printed twice. This is presumably a mistake, but it’s a clumsy one that should have been avoided. I was also annoyed at the lack of contributions from Jamie Smart too. He was one of the highlights of the issue I bought last August and I was expecting something from him here. That he wasn’t featured at all is a great shame.

If this is the final ever Dandy Annual it should provide a decent insight into what the comic was about. But it was a missed opportunity. What could have been a celebration of the past 75 years was instead a perfunctory entry into a yearly tradition with little thought given over to the future or the past. As I said last August, it’s no wonder the title’s going under.

The Dandy

When I was young I would buy The Beano every week. I don’t have many memories of the content but I remember enjoying the comic and many of the characters. I would receive The Beano Annual every Christmas and skim through it reading the stories involving characters I liked.

Dennis the Menace was a favourite, partly thanks to Gnasher. I was less interested in Minnie the Minx, whose particular brand of anarchic tomfoolery seemed identical to Dennis’s. I branded her a rip-off and avoided her.

I was never a regular reader of The Dandy. I owned some annuals picked up from car boot sales and passed down to me second hand, but I found the characters less appealing than those appearing in The Beano. It didn’t really appeal to me. I distinctly remember thinking that it wasn’t as funny.

On Tuesday 14^th August The Dandy was trending on Twitter for a while, as was #saveTheDandy. It had been revealed that there was a very real possibility of The Dandy ceasing publication because its readership has become so poor in recent years.

I had a look through some of the comments that were being made and quickly realised one of The Dandy’s key problems: it’s priced at £1.99. It also became apparent that the same cast of characters were being trotted out as when I would read annuals as a child, which struck me as odd as well. I had expected a few names that I didn’t recognise to appear.

I decided that it would be unfair to write the title off without actually looking at it though, so I decided to buy the latest issue to read through. This revealed another problem the publication is facing: I visited nine shops before I found somewhere that had it in stock. If it’s hard to track down it’s going to be hard to buy.

As it’s essentially an anthology The Dandy is a mixed bag in terms of quality. I was surprised to find that Desperate Dan, the title’s most recognisable character, appeared in only one strip on the back cover. Meanwhile Korky the Cat, a similarly recognisable face, was reduced to a brief appearance on a page encouraging readers to submit jokes.

While I fall a little outside of the target age range I still found things to enjoy. In addition to Desperate Dan I enjoyed the two Grrrls! strips, My Dad’s a Doofus, Bananaman, Olympikids, and Mega-Lo Maniacs. Anyone familiar with The Dandy will possibly have noticed that three of those strips are by one man: Jamie Smart. His thick line work and expressive faces were a wonderful discovery. He’s someone I’d like to see more work from in the future.

Being a former Beano reader it was also a joy to see the artwork of Nigel Parkinson again. His one page Banana Bunch strip featured some of the most detailed art of the entire issue, each panel packed with movement and personality. Even something as simple as a panel drawn in silhouette stood out, simply because I hadn’t expected to find that level of quality given to a children’s magazine.

Sadly, and predictably, there was some pretty ropey material too. The Bogies (featuring Bogie Won) was a barely veiled Star Wars pastiche starring lumps of green snot and a golden robot. I appreciate it’s a kids title but that doesn’t necessitate the inclusion of disgusting subject matter. And surely there must be something more recent that could be homaged ahead of a franchise that first saw life in 1977.

Professor Cheese’s Olympic Wheezes, Spotted Dick and Silly Moo were all fairly humdrum and unimaginative, while a three panel strip featuring Wolverine (yes, that Wolverine) performing magic was just confusing.

While I did find enjoyment in issue 3594 of The Dandy I don’t believe there was enough to warrant the relatively high price tag. If The Dandy is to remain aimed primarily at children then a lot of work needs to be done to compete with the dozens of TV channels and hundreds of computer games available to them.

Children of today have so much choice that spending two pounds on something that will only last them an hour is unappealing. Right now The Dandy either needs to be reinvented with fresh characters relevant to today’s kids. Lazy gags about mobile phones don’t cut it in 2012 because most kids are unaware that they used to be carried in briefcases.

My suggestion would be keeping the same tone but trying to attract a greater range of aspiring comic book writers and-or authors in an attempt to see if a new character catches on or the title can gain a reputation for being somewhere young talent can be seen (which would make it more appealing to adult comic fans). It’s a lofty goal but there’s no reason The Dandy couldn’t strive to be a U rated 2000 AD.

It would be sad to see such a well-established title cease publication but having read an issue I’d understand if it did.