Grannymar wrote a piece last week about the Beano inspired by a post she saw about it. It made me want to go out and buy the 70th birthday edition this week, mainly to remind me how things were (albeit only 6 or 7 years ago) and to see how things have changed since then. I managed to buy one, now let’s see what’s new!

Outside

Well, the first thing that caught my eye, was the fancy little plastic cover it’s in this week. The free gift is a “Ghashional Menace Day” kit, consisting of “Snappy Gum”, a “freaky Floater”, “Gross Flies”, and a “Parp Whistle”. Ah, the days of cheap gimmicks and the free sweets that came with it.

I must say though, that I prefer the free gift to come like this in the plastic cover, rather than stuck onto the comic with sellotape. The sellotape was a nightmare! It meant that to remove it, you had to damage the comic in some way, whether at best it just be discolouration from the tape – or at worst you rip half the front and back pages to shreds. I remember bringing the Beano home, and carefully cutting the sellotape at the point where it left the comic and started to stick to the freebie. That way, I managed to avoid any damage to it, although I did have to deal with the sellotape being forever stuck onto the front. Still, it does something for preserving it, right?

Well, OK maybe the plastic cover was the second thing to notice, but I didn’t want to start things off by going on about the price! When I almost bought one last week (with Aoife leaving it at the checkout!), it was €1.57 or so. This week’s special issue was €2.34! A bit of a loading for a plastic cover, 8 more pages and some slightly-better-than-the-cheapest toys. Back then it used to cost around GBP£0.60, which came out to around IR£0.90, or around €1.20. It makes me wonder how the kids these days can actually afford it!

Cover

Cover hasn’t really changed much, with the exception of highlighting some characters I’ve never seen before. Wallace and Gromit appear with Dennis and Gnasher in the main front cover pic. Since when were they in the Beano? Other than that, there’s another character I’ve never seen before in one of the smaller pics to the side… Wonder who they could be?

Oh, and the back cover is a full-page ad for Space Chimps… boring…

Inside

Right, now the juicy bits. Page 2 comes as a surprise with a table of contents along with a blurb from Nick Park, who’s the guest editor for this issue. That probably explains Wallace and Gromit on the cover… A little perusal of the contents brings up two newbies (or at least new for me): Fred’s Bed and Billy the Cat. Everyone else I remember though

Right, I’m not doing to start describing the entire comic. Just the best bits!

I can see the Colonel is still absolutely anal about his military garden ornaments! And Bea looks a good bit older now, I’m not sure whether it’s the visible tooth, or the height… And, oh that’s new. Does the Dennis story always come in a 2-parter now?
Billy Whizz, and the Numskulls are just the same as always
Sergeant Slipper being bad, who’d have thought
Wow, Biffo’s face looks a lot different than before. Not liking it…
And Minnie, minxing just as much as ever. Chester seems to have slightly more “panel time”…
Fred and his bed, are really weird… I can say that much
Ah, Fatty – still obsessed with food I see. Wonder if he’d be too heavy for the Wii Fit board?
Wow, the Bash Street kids have got with the times, and have mobiles?!
Billy the Cat is a superhero? Oh dear, obviously the writers have run out of decent names…
Oh, and Ratz? Not funny…

In Summary

All in all, I think it probably could have been better for the birthday issue. 10 years ago for the 60th birthday was a lot funnier and had more interesting and engaging stories than this one. Still brought back a few memories, of my not so long as childhood