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| Images copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd |
According to what some people are currently saying, based on ancient Mayan prophecies, the end of the world is nigh. Well, personally, I don't buy it - not yet, anyway. However, I can understand how people could be misled into thinking that such was the case. The world - as you and I both know it - is essentially 'expiring' at an alarming rate, what with the steadily-increasing deaths of celebrities we grew up with (or their once-good reputations tarnished beyond repair), the advance of technology, the change in society's habits - and, last but not least - the death of The DANDY.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking: "You cannot be serious!" However, it seems to me, and to those of a similar age, that the world today is far different to the one we grew up in. And remember, we grew up with radio, colour television, the telephone, computer games, video recorders, space travel, etc., so we were hardly in the stone age. With the demise of The Dandy, it's one more nail in the coffin for the world with which we (that is, my contemporaries and I) were once so familiar.
Every Christmas, toys such as ACTION MAN, LEGO, MECCANO, AIRFIX, CORGI, DINKY, MATCHBOX, etc., to choose from; truckloads of colourful, sturdy Annuals on sale, Yuletide numbers of seemingly innumerable, favourite comic weeklies - essential elements which flavoured our very experience of the Season and gave it the magic which we so fondly remember. I hope that the children of today will look back in adult years on their childhoods and remember them with equal fondness, but I have a hard time believing that they could ever be as magical as my own. Yeah, I know - I'm sure that every generation thinks the same.
Every time someone dies, the world for them has effectively ended (natch), so it shouldn't be such a difficult prospect for the rest of us to come to terms with. However, this year, with just one remaining British comic of yesteryear left standing, it really does seem that the world we once knew is coming to an end. The CHRISTMAS BEANO is going to feel mighty lonely this year as it peeks out from newsagents' shelves. Will it even be here in December 2013?
Welcome to my world. It's dead, Jim! (Or very nearly.) Anyway, on that cheerful note, enjoy reading the above Christmas cover stories from a time when the world of comics was in far better shape than it is today. (Not to mention far more recognizable to people of my age group.)
