To celebrate its 85th birthday, the Beano, Britain’s longest-running comic, is undergoing a woke makeover. In collaboration with Inclusive Minds, known for their work on ‘reworking’ Roald Dahl’s books, the comic is introducing a new and diverse range of characters while also ‘rebranding’ its existing ones. The Sunday Times has the story.
For generations the Beano unleashed a riot of peashooters, pranks and slipper-wielding parents on a weekly basis.
But now, as it prepares to celebrate its 85th birthday, the country’s longest-running comic has undergone a quiet transformation to make it more appealing to its idealistic young readers – with the help of Inclusive Minds, the consultancy that recently rewrote Roald Dahl’s books to remove offensive material.
New Beano characters are vetted and shaped by a vast digital focus group of children and advisers from Inclusive Minds, which seeks to “embed authenticity” in children’s books and comics.
After remaining largely unchanged for almost 70 years, the Bash Street Kids have been joined by five new pupils; Harsha, Mandi, Khadija, Mahira and Stevie Starr, in an attempt to better represent the demographics of modern Britain.
Fatty and Spotty, long-time students at the unruly school, were rebranded as Freddy and Scotty to stop youngsters with acne, freckles or weight problems being taunted by classmates.
Mike Stirling, 49, creative director of the Dundee-based comic, whose inaugural edition from 1938 featured a controversial caricature of a black child, is unfazed by the prospect of being branded “woke” by ageing former readers.
“We have never seen that as a pejorative term,” he said. “It’s awareness and being awake to things. What would be easy to do would be to sleepwalk and keep the Beano the way it had always been done for ever.
“When we make a new character, [Inclusive Minds] connect us with an ambassador who advises us. That allows us to get the details right in terms of clothes they are wearing and cultural celebrations their family might get involved in.”
Stirling has updated its most popular school saga — which continued to feature inkwells and mortarboards long after they had vanished from the real world.
“The Bash Street Kids were completely anachronistic,” Stirling said. “There were ten kids. Nine were boys and one was a girl. All of them were white. The make-up of that class was OK in 1954 but it had to change.”
The new intake includes Mandira Sharma, known as Mandi, a nervous girl whose anxieties are used to highlight mental health problems, and the hijab-wearing Khadija Raad, a talented artist. There is parity between male and female characters thanks to newcomers such as Rubi, a ginger-haired scientist who uses a wheelchair, and Jemima Jones, a junior ghost hunter who is black.
“We don’t take out the characters that our readers’ grandad or granny knew and loved,” said Stirling, a lifelong Beano reader from the coastal golfing town of Carnoustie, Angus.
“We keep them in but have brought in new characters alongside them. We never get too battered and beaten when older people say, ‘I don’t like this’ because as long as the kids like it, it’s golden.”
Older content is carefully analysed before being reprinted — with strips deemed to be offensive excised. Examples include a Lord Snooty strip from 1953 — when the comic sold about a million copies a week — where the main character is “gifted” an African servant with an offensive name. Reprinted vintage Beanos feature a warning that the content reflects the attitudes of their time.
The comic, published every Wednesday, sells about 40,000 copies but most children interact through its website, while revenue is raised through spin-off novels, merchandise and film and TV.
In previous decades parents and teachers were portrayed as petty, vindictive and not adverse to walloping Dennis the Menace — and Minnie the Minx — with a slipper or cane. Changing societal attitudes mean they are portrayed as sympathetic and nurturing.
“I was always a bit spooked and scared about going to school, but my kids don’t think that way,” Stirling said. “It’s a chance to see their pals and teachers help them if there is a problem. We reflect that in the comic now. Similarly, the mums and dads have become characters in their own right, rather than just disciplinarians.”
In today’s Beano, libraries are promoted as being like “Netflix for books”, while characters who once punched playground rivals and hurled stink bombs dutifully wear helmets when they cycle or skateboard.
Stirling insists, however, that the spirit of anarchy and mischief-making lives on. In 2018 he sent a cease and desist letter to Jacob Rees-Mogg, claiming he was “masquerading” as Walter Brown, a foe of Dennis the Menace better known as Walter the Softy.
The Conservative MP for North East Somerset was served with a tongue-in-cheek legal warning alleging he had been infringing intellectual property rights by having the same spectacles, hairstyle and “snootiness”as the pompous comic character.
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