The Dandy 1937-2012, Desperate Dan

总部位于阿伯丁的DC Thomson几周前宣布，英国连载时间最长的漫画《The Dandy》将于今年12月发行75周年纪念刊，那将是这份漫画最后一次发行印刷版。消息让喜爱《The Dandy》的人感到难过——这份漫画曾为许多人的童年带去许多无拘无束的快活时光。

西蒙•赫弗(Simon Heffer)在英国《每日邮报》(Daily Mail)上撰文写道：“75年前，Desperate Dan第一次出现在《The Dandy》漫画上，吃了第一个牛角馅饼（cow pie，该漫画人物最喜爱的食物——译者注）。如今，现代世界令人不快地掺和了进来。”与此同时，#SaveTheDandy（拯救《The Dandy》漫画）开始成为Twitter上的热门话题。
20世纪50年代，《The Dandy》的发行量达到每周200万份的巅峰，现在则降至每周不到7500份——而与其同时期的美国漫画英雄如今仍主宰着全球电影票房。

 

The Dandy
Front page of first issue
Publication information
Publisher	D. C. Thomson & Co.
Schedule	Weekly* (some issues are out longer than a week)
Format	Children's
Publication date	4 December 1937 –

The Dandy is a long-running children's comic published in the United Kingdom by D. C. Thomson & Co. The first issue was printed in December 1937, making it 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.
The publishers have announced that the final printed edition will be issued on 4 December 2012, the comic's 75th anniversary, after sales slumped to 8,000 a week from a high of 2 million a week in the 1950s, but The Dandy will continue to be available online.^[1]

History

The first issue, under the name The Dandy Comic, was published on 4 December 1937. The most notable difference between this and other comics of the day was the use of speech balloons instead of captions under the frame. It was published weekly until 6 September 1941, when wartime paper shortages forced it to change to fortnightly, alternating with The Beano. It returned to weekly publication on 30 July 1949. From 17 July 1950 the magazine changed its name to The Dandy.
In 1938, less than a year after the comic's debut, the first Dandy Annual was released. Originally called The Dandy Monster comic, this was an annual bumper edition of the comic and has been released annually since then. In 1954 the first Desperate Dan Book was released, mostly consisting of reprints. Another was released in 1978, and it was released yearly between 1990 and 1992. Bananaman and Black Bob also had their own annuals.
Although later issues were 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!"
In 1963 the first Dandy summer special was published, a joint Dandy-Beano summer special; the first exclusively Dandy Summer Special was released the following year.
In 1982 the Dandy comic libraries were released, which later became known as the Fun Size Dandy. These were small-format comics usually featuring one or two long stories starring characters from The Dandy and occasionally other DC Thomson comics.
In September 1985, the ailing Nutty was merged with The Dandy, bringing with it the Bananaman strip, currently the third-longest-running strip still in the comic. Just over a year later, the short-lived Hoot was also merged with The Dandy, most notably incorporating the character Cuddles into the pre-existing comic strip Dimples to form Cuddles and Dimples, another of The Dandy's longest running comic strips.
After issue 3282 (dated 16 October 2004) The Dandy underwent a radical format overhaul.^[2] 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" (a comic strip about the adventures of the writers of The Dandy) appeared, and two supposedly new ones also started, though they 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 did not necessarily grace the cover every issue; instead, celebrities and other cartoon characters were featured; the first Dandy Xtreme had Bart Simpson on the cover. The Dandy Xtreme had a theme for each issue, usually a movie or TV show.

Dandy stamp issued by Royal Mail

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, and all the comic strips from the Xtreme era except for Desperate Dan, Bananaman and The Bogies were dropped. Bananaman was also taken over by a new artist, Wayne Thompson, and Korky the Cat, who appeared in the comic's first issue in 1937, made a return drawn by Phil Corbett. Korky's strip was changed from 1–2 pages to 3 panels, to make way for new comics. Many new celebrity spoofs such as Cheryl's Mole became a feature, but other new strips included Pre-Skool Prime Minister and George vs Dragon, drawn by Jamie Smart and Andy Fanton. The 76-page Christmas special featured a pantomime, a 12-page Harry Hill strip, free gifts, and the return of some characters. More recent new strips are "Punslinger", "Dad's Turn To Cook", "My Freaky Family", "Animals Eat The Funniest Things", "Star T.Rex" and "Brian Damage". Song parodies and fake recipes also appeared in The Dandy.
On 19 March 2012 the Royal Mail launched a special stamp collection to celebrate Britain's rich comic book history, which included The Dandy among many others.^[3]
A follow-up to Waverly Book's The History of The Beano: The Story So Far, called The Art and History of The Dandy, was released in August 2012, the Dandy's 75th anniversary year. A Waverly book about The Dandy was originally to be released in 2007 for the comic's 70th birthday, but was cancelled with no explanation.

The statue of Desperate Dan in Dundee City Centre alongside a statue of Beano character, Minnie the Minx.

 

 Desperate Dan is a wild west character in the British comic The Dandy. He made his appearance in the first issue which was dated 4 December 1937. He is apparently the world's strongest man, able to lift a cow with one hand. The pillow of his (reinforced) bed is filled with building rubble and his beard is so tough he shaves with a blowtorch.

 

 

 Cow dung, also known as cow scat, is the waste product of bovine animal species. These species include domestic cattle ("cows"), bison ("buffalo"), yak and water buffalo. Cow dung is the undigested residue of plant matter which has passed through the animal's gut. The resultant faecal matter is rich in minerals. Colour ranges from greenish to blackish, often darkening soon after exposure to air. It is also known in the American southeast and west as "cow pies".