In 1991, my prepubescent self was genuinely aghast to hear that Dennis the Menace, the front-page character of my favourite weekly children’s comic the Beano, was about to change his entire image. To appear more ‘cool’ and yoof-friendly, editors had decreed the spiky-haired young hooligan must begin donning a blue tracksuit and trainers, whilst jiving around listening to gangsta rap on his brand-new Sony Walkman.
The whole appeal of the Beano was supposed to be that, no matter what year its readers were actually living in, it remained forever set within a perpetual but vanished 1950s England which already seemed much better in certain ways than the 1980s and ‘90s in which I was raised. Sure, I had a GameBoy, but Dennis, the Bash Street Kids, Roger the Dodger and other lucky two-dimensional souls had peashooters, catapults, itching-powder, soap-box go-karts, and the ever-present, enlivening danger of being whacked by angry parents’ slippers and teachers’ canes. Thankfully, it turned out the whole threat was just a con, a publicity stunt to suck in more readers.
Dennis did appear looking like a dick at the start of his regular strip, but by the end of the story had reverted back to wearing stripey shirt and short schoolboy trousers as usual. Sanity had prevailed, and the Beano would never become filled with modish contemporary crap which would go out of date in the next five minutes anyway (like Sony
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at least Judge Dredd isnt woke
As with books by Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming, readers of the Beano will need to seek out issues published before 2020, or even earlier.
Are the Commando comics safe with DC Thompson?
I spent 10+ years as an expat in Central Asia in 2000s. My son was born there and went to a local school. I like to think we had the only Beano subscription in that part of the world. When we returned to the UK, the lad had no trouble adapting to our ‘education’ system and retaining his wits.
I suppose that must be artificial snow. The self-regarding great and good told us our children would never see snow.
Four quid for a comic!!! Back in ’68 at Uni in Birmingham, I used to take the Beano and Private eye. From memory, the Beano was fourpence and The Eye one and six. So the pair were under two bob. They were both an entertaining read back then too.
I guess all credit must go to the Editor: John Anderson and Creative Director: Mike Stirling. Here he is, sounding very proud of his teams’ creations;
“I’m very proud to be Beano’s current Director of Mischief! People sometimes comment on what a ‘great’ job title I have. The next question is almost always, ‘But what does that mean?’
I’m responsible for guaranteeing our characters are as funny and as mischievous as they can be.”
https://shop.beano.com/beano-director-mischief
I look forward to how the usual suspects try and spin this obvious wokeness as somehow being all the fault of women.🧐
Still nothing? No explanation, much like the literal man-made woke debacle at Jaguar? You do surprise me.🤥
😁
Was it the Beano that once featured a Middle Eastern chain-smoking character called Mustafa Kamel (i.e. must-have-a-Camel; a brand of American cigarettes).
If the new Beano wanted to ‘update’ this character, they would have to feature one who vaped, or worse.
The one rermember was Mustafa Fag… maybe they went on to do a sponsorship deal with Camel?