The Dandy is dying. The depressing amount of issues left that appears down the side of the cover and the amount of reprints that fill its once fun pages – a comic I have grown up with and loved is dying. And it hasn’t got much longer left…
It angers me. It really does.
The Dandy famously (or apparently not-so-famously) revamped on October 27th 2010 – the magazine content was gone and within its place came zany new stories, bonkers new characters and a lot of new fun we’d never seen before in comics since the death of Oink.
After reading #3508 of this incredible comic – I immediately though, “This is amazing! Finally, a proper comic!”. At this point, The Beano was certainly around its weakest with possibly the worst Christmas Special I have ever read just around the corner and when compared to the almighty 76 page Christmas Dandy – rightfully named ‘The Monster Special’ with its extra-long stories and wide range of talents.
But people still preferred the 48 page Beano to the 76 page Dandy. Why? Because of the artwork.
The Beano certainly has nicer artwork, sticks closer to the traditional style and certainly has a more appealing style with cartooning greats such as Ken Harrison and Dave Sutherland drawing in its pages. But whilst The Dandy has a more modern style to it – it’s certainly funnier than the stale Beano.
It frustrates me. People take one look at The Dandy and say “What have they done to it? It looks nothing like it used to! What’s happened to Desperate Dan and why doesn’t he have cow pies any more?” etcetera, etcetera…
But nobody gave The Dandy a chance. No one decided to actually read the stories. because adults just look at the artwork and make stupid assumptions.
This is what frustrates me. I understand if you prefer The Beano to The Dandy because you prefer the characters – that’s fair enough. But to immediately label The Dandy as something that looks like it was drawn by “fourteen-year-olds” (as once said by one of the regular nostalgists that continue to slag off The Dandy) is simply idiotic.
So people prefer comics with good artwork and weak stories to fairly good artwork and very funny stories? My mind’s blown.
What’s a well-drawn comic strip without a good storyline? Answer: Something you’d see in The Beano.
I don’t know about the rest of this seemingly messed-up nation who also believe TOWIE deserves awards and think programmes such as X-Factor are actually entertaining but I for one know that when it comes to comics – I’d much prefer a good storyline to good artwork.
I lose a little bit of hope each day living in this stupid generation.
Rest in peace, Dandy – you were brilliant…
More to come very soon, until then, farewell!
- Harry Rickard
