The Dandy

The Dandy
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Publication information
Publisher	D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd
Schedule	Weekly
Format	Children's
Publication date	4 December 1937–present
Number of issues	3,539
Creative team
Artist(s)	Paddy Brennan James Crighton Bill Holroyd
Editor(s)	Craig Graham

The Dandy is a long running children's comic published in the United Kingdom by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. The first issue was printed in 1937 and it is the world's third longest running comic, after Detective Comics (cover dated March 1937) and Il Giornalino (cover dated 1 October 1924). From August 2007 until October 2010, it was rebranded as Dandy Xtreme.

History

The first issue, under the name The Dandy Comic, was published on 4 December 1937. It was published weekly until 6 September 1941, when wartime paper shortages forced it to switch to fortnightly, alternating with The Beano. It returned to its weekly schedule on 30 July 1949. From 17 July 1950, the magazine changed its name to just The Dandy.

Though later issues became all comic strips, early issues had many text strips, with some illustrations. In 1940, this meant 12 pages of comic strips and 8 pages of text stories. Text stories at two pages each were Jimmy's Pocket Grandpa, British Boys and Girls Go West, There's a Curse on the King and Swallowed by a Whale!.

After issue 3282 (dated 16 October 2004) The Dandy underwent a radical format overhaul.^[1] The comic changed format and content, reflecting a more television-oriented style, now printed on glossy magazine paper instead of newsprint. The price was raised from 70p to £1.20 (99p for the first two weeks), a new comic strip called "Office Hours" appeared, and two supposedly new ones also started, though were actually revivals from a few years earlier ("Jak" and "Dreadlock Holmes").

In August 2007 (issue 3426), The Dandy had another update, becoming the fortnightly comic-magazine hybrid Dandy Xtreme, priced at £2.50. Unlike previous incarnations, Dandy characters didn't necessarily grace the cover every issue; instead, celebrities and other cartoon characters were featured. The first Dandy Xtreme had Bart Simpson on the cover.

From 27 October 2010 (issue 3508) The Dandy returned as a weekly comic and dropped 'Xtreme' from its title. The contents received a major overhaul, with all the comic strips from the Xtreme era except for Desperate Dan, Bananaman and The Bogies being dropped. Bananaman was also taken over by a new artist, Wayne Thompson, although Korky the Cat, who appeared in the comic's first issue in 1937, made a return drawn by Phil Corbett. Many new Celebrity spoofs such as Cheryl's Mole became a feature, but other new strips included Pre Skool Prime Minister and George V Dragon, drawn by Jamie Smart and Andy Fanton. The Christmas special was a cracking 76 pages long, featuring a pantomime, more celebrix, a 12-page Harry Hill strip, more free gifts, and the return of some characters.

Editors

The original editor was Albert Barnes. According to The Legend of Desperate Dan (published 1997), Dan's famous chin was modelled on Barnes. He stayed in the role until 1982, when he was succeeded by Dave Torrie. His replacement was Morris Heggie, who left the editorship in 2006 to become the DC Thomson archivist – Beano editor Euan Kerr was promoted at the same time. The current editor is Craig Graham.^[2]

Dandy comic strips

Further information: List of Dandy comic strips

Over its near seventy five year run hundreds of different comic strips have appeared in The Dandy. A number of strips in the comic have run for a very long time. The longest running strips being Desperate Dan and Korky the Cat who both started in the comic's first issue. Following mergers with both Nutty and Hoot, the Dandy inherited a number of their strips most notably Bananaman from Nutty and Cuddles from Hoot who teamed up with a Dandy character to form a new strip entitled Cuddles and Dimples both of the aforementioned strips have been quite long running having been in the Dandy since the 1980s and both having appeared on the front cover of The Dandy and the comics from which they originated. After the closure of The Beezer and The Topper, the Dandy inherited some of their strips as well such as Beryl the Peril, Puss n Boots (who had been in Sparky before being moved to The Topper) and Owen Goal (who appeared in the other comics under a different time).

In its near seventy five year run the comic has had a number of different cover stars (comic strips which appeared on the front cover) firstly Korky the Cat, who was on the cover from 1937-1984. Desperate Dan, long since the comic's most popular character, then took over the cover, a position he retained until 1999 when he was replaced as cover star by Cuddles and Dimples. However, they weren't on the cover for very long as Desperate Dan had been restored to the cover by the end of 2000. The comic revealed that Cuddles and Dimples were thrown off the cover for 'being too naughty', though in reality the comic's readers wanted Dan to return as the cover strip. In 2004, following a major revamp, Desperate Dan was replaced on the front cover by Jak a character created for the cover, slightly based on an older strip with the same name, although other characters, including Dan, also made occasional cover appearances. During the Dandy Xtreme era the comic had no cover star, with covers often given over to celebrities or current trends, but after the comic returned to its weekly, all-comic format in October 2010, the popular British comedian Harry Hill took over the cover spot.

There are frequent fictional crossovers between Dandy characters, with most of the characters living in the fictional Dandytown. Many of the comic strips in The Beano are drawn by the same artists, and crossovers between the two comics also occur occasionally. Quite often, one comic will make a tongue-in-cheek jibe at the other (e.g., a character meeting an elderly lady, and stating that she's "older than the jokes in The Beano"). In the strips, it is expressed that the two towns are rivals with each other and before The Dandy did a drastic format change they had an embassy in Beanotown which many of the town's citizens attempted to overrun, but failed (the embassy had no existence in The Beano). This rivalry inspired the spin-off computer game Beanotown Racing, in which various characters from both comics could be raced around points in Beanotown, including the Embassy. The game was given a large amount of advance publicity in the comics, with story lines often revolving how the characters each acquired his/her vehicle.

The comic strips that are in the comic now are: Celeb Strip, Harry Hill's Real Life Adventures in TV Land, Postman Prat, Bananaman, 99 Genius Homework Excuses, Go Compare!, Punslinger, Watch This Space, Mr. Meecher, the Uncool Teacher, Rocky O'Flair, Mr T's Safety Tips, Jibber & Steve, My Own Genie, Rocky's Horror Show, Are you ready for the question, Noel?, Count Slugula, What's in a Name?, The Bogies, Pepperoni Pig, Korky The Cat, Nuke Noodle, Snoop Dawg, Knock! Knock!, Twitter, Space Raoul, George vs Dragon and Desperate Dan. The only strips that have been in every issue since the revamp are Harry Hill's Real Life Adventures in TV Land, Desperate Dan, The Bogies and Bananaman. The Dandy has never quite used as many reprints as The Beano has. Exceptions include Dirty Dick and Screwy Driver (1970s), Snip 'n' Snap (1999, 2007), The Nutters, Piggles and Ali's Baba (2004), Blubba and the Bear and Smasher (2007), The Banana Bunch, Fiddle O Diddle, Korky The Cat and Molly (2010), My Own Genie and Space Raoul (2011).

See also

Children's literature portal

• The Dandy Annual
• The Beano
• The Magic Comic
• List of DC Thomson publications
• List of magazines published in Scotland
• British comics

References

1. ^ "What exactly is going on at the Dandy?". BBC News. 2005-01-10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4161707.stm. 
2. ^ http://www.a2mediagroup.com/?c=137&a=20056

External links

• Official Dandy site
• Comics UK: Dandy
• The Dandy on Facebook
• The Dandy on Twitter