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Discuss the latest article by @Charles EP M. here
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Digital Dandy
- Thread starter Gary Oswald
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Really love this article. I was delighted when it was sent to me and I saw Charles had written little Dandy style sub headings.
Really interesting. I remember this at the time, but I didn't know all these details.
As a kid who always preferred The Beano, my impression at the time was that The Dandy had chased novelty and superficial nods to modernity (I mean before the digital version as well) whereas The Beano had cheerfully continued to set itself in some timeless version of 1938 mixed with 1965, and felt more genuine as a result. In hindsight I don't think that was entirely justified - I've since read some of the more recent Beano annuals and found that they have managed to incorporate modern elements without it feeling too ridiculous (I never thought I'd see Minnie the Minx shouting at Roger the Dodger through Skype about not pulling his weight in the MMORPG they're playing, the joke being it's just before a real monster unleashed by another strip smashes through her window).
Also when Charles listed the strips of the Dandy at the start I felt my age, because a lot of those belong in the Beezer and Topper to my eyes and were only later incorporated into the Dandy - but this is just whatever era you started reading a comic of course, as we'll see in an upcoming article in this series which Charles kindly helped me with...
As a kid who always preferred The Beano, my impression at the time was that The Dandy had chased novelty and superficial nods to modernity (I mean before the digital version as well) whereas The Beano had cheerfully continued to set itself in some timeless version of 1938 mixed with 1965, and felt more genuine as a result. In hindsight I don't think that was entirely justified - I've since read some of the more recent Beano annuals and found that they have managed to incorporate modern elements without it feeling too ridiculous (I never thought I'd see Minnie the Minx shouting at Roger the Dodger through Skype about not pulling his weight in the MMORPG they're playing, the joke being it's just before a real monster unleashed by another strip smashes through her window).
Also when Charles listed the strips of the Dandy at the start I felt my age, because a lot of those belong in the Beezer and Topper to my eyes and were only later incorporated into the Dandy - but this is just whatever era you started reading a comic of course, as we'll see in an upcoming article in this series which Charles kindly helped me with...
my impression at the time was that The Dandy had chased novelty and superficial nods to modernity (I mean before the digital version as well) whereas The Beano had cheerfully continued to set itself in some timeless version of 1938 mixed with 1965, and felt more genuine as a result. In hindsight I don't think that was entirely justified - I've since read some of the more recent Beano annuals and found that they have managed to incorporate modern elements without it feeling too ridiculous (I never thought I'd see Minnie the Minx shouting at Roger the Dodger through Skype about not pulling his weight in the MMORPG they're playing, the joke being it's just before a real monster unleashed by another strip smashes through her window).
What came up during research is DC Thomson chased modernity better for the Beano, with much more intense long-term market research and it's likely the long-term that paid off. They did do research for the 2004 relaunch (I remember a while back finding that they learned the target audience really didn't care about Corky the Cat) but what use is that in 2006? They learned their lesson by 2016, a lesson many other comic companies haven't.
Feels like Korky the Cat way outstayed his welcome, he felt like an old-fashioned character even in the 1990s - if we want to draw comparisons between the Dandy and Beano, he's the obvious analogue to Biffo the Bear, but IIRC the latter was knocked off the cover by Dennis the Menace long before Desperate Dan did the same to Korky.What came up during research is DC Thomson chased modernity better for the Beano, with much more intense long-term market research and it's likely the long-term that paid off. They did do research for the 2004 relaunch (I remember a while back finding that they learned the target audience really didn't care about Corky the Cat) but what use is that in 2006? They learned their lesson by 2016, a lesson many other comic companies haven't.