Dandy to end

[The Shad]

www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/13/oldest-comic-the-dandy-faces-closure

The Dandy, the UK's oldest children's comic and home to cartoon strip characters including Desperate Dan, the cow-pie eating cowboy, is facing closure after 75 years.

In its heyday between the 1950s and 1980s, the Dandy sold 2m copies a week as young fans lapped up stories of Desperate Dan and Korky the Cat.

But it has suffered circulation decline since then as successive generations of children have grown out of the habit of reading weekly comics, with their free time given over instead to watching TV and more recently playing video games and surfing the internet.

The Dandy has outlasted children's comic titles such as the Beezer and the Topper by 20 years or more. But a series of relaunches in the past five years – including a switch to a fortnightly called Dandy Xtreme, and most recently a move in 2010 to introduce celebrity-themed comic strips featuring the likes of Harry Hill and Cheryl Cole – have failed to halt its circulation decline.

By the second half of 2011, circulation had dipped below 8,000, according to the most recent official figures, and the title is expected to cease publication shortly, according to insiders.

A spokeswoman for Dandy publisher DC Thomson confirmed that the closure of the print title was being considered as part of a review of the company's magazine business, but indicated that characters such as Desperate Dan would continue to exist online.

Characters such as Desperate Dan could also continue in print by switching to DC Thomson's sister title the Beano, home to Dennis the Menace. The Beano had a circulation of 38,000 in six months to the end of December.

[ShayMay]

...Well, [censored]. Genuinely saddened.

[L. T. Dangerous]

Each issue costs nine hundred and fifty-two pounds, I'm not surprised parents aren't buying it every week. It was 35p when I was a kid!!

[Mambo's Here! Look Busy!]

I guess the kids these days just don't like reading comic books.

Now is the time for us old fogeys!

[Lost Mercenary]

When the Dandy became Dandy XTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME it had already died in my eyes. Now hearing that my childhood comic had introduced celebrity comic strips into it only makes it seem like a walking corpse.

In a way I'm glad its ended now. I still have all my old issues and annuals to remember and read. Including my oldest one from 1969. God bless Car Boot sales!

[Devo DrakeFox]

I never liked Dandy to begin with, to be honest. Still, it's gonna be weird looking at the magazine racks and not seeing it there.

[The Stiv™]

Maybe they should just cut their production costs by including reprinted material.

[Beeth]

Eh, was always more of a Beano person myself.

Even so, the price of one of those has gotten depressingly high since I last got it. It was something like 30p the first time I got it, come early 2002 when I gave up getting them it was double that. I distinctly remember the period it was 52p for a while, then the very next issue I got had "STILL ONLY 55p!" across the top, the lying gits.

Only recently I found out the price is now one pound fifty for an issue (£2.50 if there's a "free gift" included!) so I'm very glad I ducked out when I did. Can't imagine the Dandy has fared much better price-wise. Couldn't see either one lasting tbh.

[madhair60]

Aug 14, 2012 13:20:49 GMT The Stiv™ said:

Maybe they should just cut their production costs by including reprinted material.

Was this... are you joking?

More later, you [censored]s.

In other news, things cheaper before Tories, film at eleven. This is desperately sad news. Probably gonna duck out of this thread now, already a bunch of stupid, ill-informed stuff in it.

[Sam]

Aug 14, 2012 13:20:49 GMT The Stiv™ said:

Maybe they should just cut their production costs by including reprinted material.

This seems familiar...

[Balls]

Aug 14, 2012 17:11:22 GMT madhair60 said:

Aug 14, 2012 13:20:49 GMT The Stiv™ said:

Maybe they should just cut their production costs by including reprinted material.

Was this... are you joking?

Guarantee he is. I believe it's in reference to the little known comic "Sonic The Comic" to which this happened.

And then it spawned an online forum full of ABSOLUTE [censored]ING [censored]S

[L. T. Dangerous]

Have to say, though, this part is rubbish:

But it has suffered circulation decline since then as successive generations of children have grown out of the habit of reading weekly comics, with their free time given over instead to watching TV and more recently playing video games and surfing the internet.

First off, how can it be a "habit" to read weekly comics that you "grow out of"? If that were the case, readership would hold continuously steady as a constant stream of readers would come and go as they fell into and out of the habit. And the article says the comic's heyday stretched into the 1980s- bit of a video game boom in that period. TV's been around for much of the comic's life, too.

The "there's lots of stuff on TV these days" excuse is more viable for a channel to use if their ratings have declined now there are hundreds of channels watering down viewership. It's not viable for a comic that can be read at any time of day. Unless, of course, DC Thompson truly believe children are hooked into a Matrix-esque machine of television and video games whenever they aren't in school. Clearly (said the guy who's not a professional) it comes down to a) the price, b) the marketing and c) the quality of the comic. I stopped reading the Dandy when I thought it stopped being good, not because of video games.

Oh and some country called Nippon has weekly comics and apparently, so the legend goes, they're really, really popular and they supposedly have loads of telly and games and whatnot over there.

[Pitt]

That's disappointing. I preferred The Beano when I was younger but The Dandy was still a big thing for me.

Same goes for Classics From the Comics, though I honestly didn't notice that series' own cancellation until I looked it up out of curiosity.

[Charles]

This would, of course, happen when I started picking the Dandy up again two months ago - someone told me how good it now was and he was right - so it's my fault and I'm very sorry.

It's not just the loss of really, really funny strips - there's also, as Lew Stringer points out, the sudden loss of work for UK comic creators in the UK. And as Alexander Matthews, creator of the brilliant Nuke Noodle and Grrrls points out, there's no equivalent comic at the moment for kids (the Beano, sure, but it's not as funny atm).

Artist Andy Fanton got in a pretty nasty dig on the press coverage: "Ah, where were they all when we needed them, eh? Ah yes, bemoaning the fact that Desperate Dan looked different, that’s where."

Aug 14, 2012 8:48:00 GMT Lost Mercenary said:

Now hearing that my childhood comic had introduced celebrity comic strips into it only makes it seem like a walking corpse.

The celeb strips went out with the last Harry Hill in Christmas 2011 (with the exception of The Bogies and their pisstakes). And going back to Lew again, kids comics have been using celebrities since the 1920s, including the Dandy ("issue one of The Dandy in 1937 featured Our Gang... a strip based on the Hal Roach films.")

We can also thank Harry Hill, in a roundabout way for the Dandy becoming a comic in 2010 again after three years as the "Dandy Xtreme".

[Sam]

Lets never thank the mess that is Harry Hill for anything.

[Charles]

If Harry Hill is responsible in any way for Jamie Smart doing anything comic-related, I will thank him with my life.

[ShayMay]

Man, Jamie Smart is incredible. For those of you who have yet to check out Corporate Skull, firstly, send all children and relatives away, and secondly, make sure you do - it's hilarious.

To be honest, there was a time when I was like 'ugh, Harry Hill comic, ugh, Desperate Dan looks weird', but then someone brought up the excellent point that it was different, which doesn't automatically mean worse. I don't actually know whether it is worse or not; the fact is, I'm not going to go and buy a comic I have no interest in any more (even if it were excellent) to find out.
However, I do think that the argument that 'kids have more to entertain them nowadays' is bogus. Back in the much-touted '50s, television would have been the hot new thing on the block, yet the Dandy still sold well. I don't have a clue whether or not the Dandy hasn't changed enough or whether it's changed too much (as, again, I haven't read it and haven't talked to any kids who have), but I certainly don't think its decline was inevitable.

The one thing that has disappointed me the most about the whole situation has been the old-time fans who have been quite vocal in their condemnation of not just the Dandy but a number of related comics as well, and the subsequent responses from the creators. I understand that being lambasted for doing your job by people who should be far too old to care would get frustrating, but responding to it really only exacerbates the situation. It just ends up with both sides trading supercilious comments, and it doesn't do much for the whole "immaturity" stereotype surrounding comics.

I really do hope the Dandy can find a way to get through this and draw readers back in. I really enjoyed being able to trade Desperate Dan stories with my younger cousin back when he bought it, and it's a huge part of our heritage and my childhood that I think kids should be allowed to experience - even if it's not exactly the same experience I had.

[Charles]

Aug 16, 2012 0:07:40 GMT ShayMay said:

Man, Jamie Smart is incredible.

He does the whole layout of the Dandy for them and half the puzzles - the Batman tie-in one was a classic. ("Bruce's greatest enemy, THE TERRIBLE JOKER (really it's his dad) has got all his awful Batman puns mixed up!")

However, I do think that the argument that 'kids have more to entertain them nowadays' is bogus.

Mm. Fanton pointed out that not only does the Beano sell 30k extra issues, the Moshi Monsters magazine sells 170,000. These licensed mags sell - not for very long because it's tied to a fad brand, but they do sell quite a bit. Other entertainment doesn't stop kids then.

EDIT: Oh, hey, maybe this is why the Dandy's bombing, it doesn't have enough free gifts*!

Titles without a cover mount – a giveaway toy, gadget or collectors' item – will struggle to compete for attention.

God, imagine if that was the reason?

* Only occassionally - and in the 90s, they were regular. There were TV ads for the Beano and Dandy and they always focused on that week's free gift!

[ShayMay]

Aug 15, 2012 23:12:14 GMT Charles said:

as Alexander Matthews, creator of the brilliant Nuke Noodle and Grrrls points out, there's no equivalent comic at the moment for kids (the Beano, sure, but it's not as funny atm).

This is probably the best time to mention this: I actually got a hold of the Beano Annual 2011 (my great-aunt, who got me into the Beano, the Dandy, and even STC back in the day can be a bit forgetful nowadays), and I have to agree. The art is still fantastic (especially Tom Paterson's work, which is inherently funny), but the scripts have lost a lot of 'pop' in almost every way. Sentences that should be exciting and be punctuated with an exclamation mark seem to make use of ellipses instead, and the antics of the characters don't seem to have the same energy or imagination behind them.
I know the obvious counter to this is 'but Shay, you're almost twenty! Of course it won't seem as fresh or exciting to you!', but I don't find myself making that complaint with old Beano annuals. I do accept that I may just be nostalgia-blind as a possibility, but honestly, I think the Beano might just be a prime example of a comic not doing enough to change, and stagnating as a result.

On a further tangent, Oor Wullie and the Broons are another two culprits (this may be outside some of your frames of references, but bear with me). In what I can only think of as a baffling attempt to bring back more traditional values, there was one startling, sexist moment in which the mischievous scamp-with-a-heart-of-gold Oor Wullie exclaimed: 'Next time, ah'll leave the cookin' and the sewin' tae the womenfowk. I ken my place!' If this is what comes of never changing a formula I want no part in it.
It doesn't help that the comic timing seems a bit off. There was one Broons strip in which the joke was revealed one panel shy of the end. The last panel was literally just Joe reiterating the joke.

That said, 'gi'en' it moose laldy' is one of my favourite sound effects.

Aug 16, 2012 0:11:56 GMT Charles said:

Mm. Fanton pointed out that not only does the Beano sell 30k extra issues, the Moshi Monsters magazine sells 170,000. These licensed mags sell - not for very long because it's tied to a fad brand, but they do sell quite a bit. Other entertainment doesn't stop kids then.

That was a point I was intending to make, actually. These magazines designed to cash in on this month's hot new toy have a huge sales boom, but also a very fast decline. I don't think they can really be compared to the Dandy.
And as for the free gifts, I can't remember anyone who bought comics when I was a child being particularly fussed about them. They were a nice bonus on a magazine/comic we wanted to buy for the content. I really don't think children's attitudes have changed so vastly in the interim, either.

[L. T. Dangerous]

If the comic does end, it will be interesting to see what will become of the Dandy brand. There are decades worth of material there to be reprinted in books aimed at older comic fans. But those fans probably won't be terribly interested in the more recent strips. It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, is marketed with the Dandy name on it in the immediate future.

Out of interest, how many issues do comics like Simpsons Comics and SpongeBob shift? Fair enough, they're monthly and they're reprints of American comics (and Simpsons Comics is aimed more and more towards kids over here, oddly, despite, I've always felt, being a teen-to-young-adult-centric book in America) but obviously they're doing something right to survive for so long in a dying market while mainstays are suffocating.

On that note, actually, how well does Spider-Man Magazine do and has Disney's interference with it led to a drop in sales at all since the strips stopped being created by UK writers and artists?

[ShayMay]

Perhaps it'll be relaunched online, and Beryl the Peril will murder her dad in cold blood after he grounds her!

[L. T. Dangerous]

Might as well, every other comic's taking the dark, gritty route these days.

Thanks a lot, Chris Nolan

[The Shad]

Aug 16, 2012 13:19:57 GMT L. T. Dangerous said:

Might as well, every other comic's taking the dark, gritty route these days.

Thanks a lot, Chris Nolan

Frank Miller? Alan Moore?

[Balls]

actually it was me I did it

[Charles]

DC Thompson sez:

A lot of people have tweeted us regarding news reports surrounding the future of The Dandy. A statement follows:

DC Thomson is continuing to develop its magazines operation & portfolio to create an efficient business model that will build on the strength of our existing brands and products. There are many challenges within the industry at present, but we’re excited that the digital revolution has also given us an opportunity to innovate and develop.

We’re celebrating the fact that The Dandy has been in print for 75 years and we’re doing a lot of planning to ensure that our brands and characters can live on in other platforms for future generations to enjoy.

We will release a special edition of The Dandy to mark its 75th anniversary on 4 DEC 12. This issue will be the last printed and will include a reprint of issue #1. There’s still a healthy appetite for The Dandy so we’re making it relevant for a new generation.

There are exciting plans in the pipeline to take the title in a different direction & ensure that the next 75 yrs are just as popular.

We’re counting down 110 days until the 75th anniversary bash & we’re working on some tremendously exciting things for The Dandy's future. What comes online then that will set the tone for the future. We’re excited that the digital revolution has given us an opportunity to innovate and develop and we’re confident that future generations will continue to enjoy The Dandy.

What comes online? They're not saying.