The Beano
| The Beano | |
|---|---|
| |
| Genre | Anthology Comedy Slapstick |
| Publisher | DC Thomson |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Original run | July 30, 1938 (Weekly Comic) 1949 (Yearly Annuals) - present |
| Wikipedia | |
The Beano is a long running British Comic published by DC Thomson. Alongside The Dandy, it pioneered in being a children's comic that primarily focussed on humorous comic strips told with speech bubbles rather than captions. Becoming a breakout success during the Second World War, it later gained a reputation for its anarchical stories focussed on troublemaking kids, becoming a staple of UK pop culture. The Beano is known for such strips as The Bash Street Kids, Rodger the Dodger, Ivy the Terrible, Billy Whizz, Minnie the Minx, and most famously Dennis the Menace, which has spawned several cartoon adaptations.
The comic has been published weekly since 1938, with the traditional yearly Christmas anthology annual starting one year later in 1939.
Annuals
The Beano Book 1981
The book opens with a double page spread of Gnasher playing with, and then eating a giant bone.
The Three Bears
The bears trick a delivery man into delivering a large supply of oats to their cave, and Pa stuffs himself with porridge.
The Beano Book 1984
Billy Whizz
Unable to capture Billy Whizz on photograph for a t-shirt promotion, the photographers take him to a sweet factory. Billy hopes they will feed him so many sweets that he can't run fast, but instead, they snap him running in place on the conveyor belt.
As a reward for the successful photo shoot, he gets filled up with sweets anyway, getting his wish.
Gnasher's Tale
Gnasher finds himself unwillingly in the care of Walter the Softy, where he is overly pampered. While he hates being shampooed and loosing his spiky fur, he enjoys gorging himself on all the "softy dog food".
The Beano Book 1987
Pup Parade
Desperate for free treats, Tubby trades places with a chihuahua to trick his owner into thinking he has grown up a big dog. He is spoiled so much he ends up stuffed with a tummy ache.
The Beano Book 1995
Ivy the Terrible
Ivy doesn't want to share her birthday cake with the other kids at her party, and does everything she can to keep it to herself, imagining herself eating the entire cake in one sitting.
The Beano Annual 2005
Calamity James
Alexander Lemming stuffs himself with food purchased with James' tooth fairy money.
The Beano Annual 2009
Ivy the Terrible
Ivy dreams about a land of candy, with one boy having gorged on a tunnel made of toffee.
The Beano Annual 2016
Bananaman
Bubblegum Bert tricks Rodger, Minnie and Dennis into eating "special gum" that causes them to inflate. While trying to save the day, Bananaman is tricked into eating banana gum, and suffers the same fate. Crow pops him down to size, but the kids remain inflated, tethered down as balloons as punishment for their usual unruly behavior.
Chapter Books
Dennis the Menace - Mountaineering Menace
Dennis and Annie's mountain climbing rivals hire an oompah band to prevent them from sleeping so they can get a head start on the climb. In retaliation, Dennis drops Gnasher into Fritz's Alphorn, causing him to inflate as he tries to play to the point where the buttons on his shirt pop off and strike the other players.
Other Anthologies
A Library of Laugher from the Beano and Dandy
The Bash Street Kids
A reprint of a 1958 strip depicts Teacher experimenting on the Bash Street Kids in a science lab. Several of the pupils emerge inflated, with one popping.
