 |
| Copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd |
Who among us of a certain age ever thought we'd see The Beano Annual priced at £11.99, or Oor Wullie & The Broons (combined) Annual at £15.99? That's £28 for two Annuals, for crying out loud! Fortunately, WHS are selling any two D.C. Thomson Annuals this year for only £12, meaning that, essentially, you're getting Oor Wullie & The Broons Annual (if that's one of your choice of two, that is) for virtually nothing.
The Beano is celebrating its 85th Anniversary this year and this milestone is highlighted in the Annual, which contains all-new material. The Oor Wullie & The Broons book must surely just be regurgitating (again) pages that have already appeared in previous books in this series, but that won't matter if you haven't seen them before, I guess. Regular Crivvies may remember me speculating a few years back whether the Dennis who appears in the modern Beano is the original Menace or the son of the original, and now it seems official - he's the son of the one who first appeared in 1951.
I base this on the fact that when the modern Dennis's grandparents are seen in flashbacks to when dad was a boy (and the spitting image of today's Dennis) they're the doubles of mum and dad as they appeared in the '50s right up until a few years ago, when a 'new look' was suddenly introduced. It may well be that this has been an established fact for a while now, but not being a regular reader of the weekly comic, I missed the precise moment if or when it happened.
However, there's no doubting it in the Dennis stories in the book for 2024, though whether Gnasher and Gnipper are the originals (and therefore really old - though Gnipper would no longer be a pup) or whether they're supposed to be the offspring off the originals is something I'm still unsure of. I've taken a quick look through The Beano book and it all looks top-notch, art-wise (except I still don't like the cutesy, smiling Dennis as opposed to the surly, frowning one I read as a boy), and Oor Wullie/Broons volume has some classic Dudley D. Watkins art, as well as pages by Ken H. Harrison, Robert Nixon, and others.
So, unless you're prepared to wait and see whether the books will be further reduced around Christmas or New Year, I'd advise that now is the time to buy them before stock runs low. You could spend your £12 in far worse ways, so run down to WHS at the earliest opporchancity and plonk your pounds on the counter and give yourself a treat. (Cover images borrowed from DCT shop to spare me the hassle of scanning my own copies.)
8 comments:
Thanks for the tip, Kid. I like to get the Beano/Dandy and Oor Wullie/Broons joint books if I can. I was in Irvine the other day and popped in the Oxfam shop and was delighted to find a range of Broons and Wullie books for £1 each. I bought 3 that I needed and the girl told me she'd only just put them out. I was chuffed 😊
That's a good price, M, as I've seen some charity shops asking for ridiculously high prices for those books. They seem to have lost their grip on reality, some of the prices they charge.
I see a lot of Broons and Oor Wullie (and a few Beano's) books in charity shops for £1 but most are from the 1980s to date. I'm afraid I have little interest in the Beano, Broons or Oor Wullie now bit I loved them as a kid and liked the Best of Beano \Dandy annuals when it reprinted the classics. Pretty pricey though bit they usually you see then pretty cheap in the sales a few new years if your happy to wait.
Sometimes they're sold out by then though, McS, and as I have every hardbacked yearly Oor Wullie/Broons book since they first came out around '96, I'd hate to miss one by waiting too long. The ones drawn by Dudley D. Watkins are the best (humour-wise), with the Ken H. Harrison ones being a close second.
Dudley's Broons and Oor Wullie are co!if book\strip classics whenever I see them I'm transported back to being a kid and the Christmases of my childhood.
And the same goes for me too, McS. The Christmases of childhood are always better for some reason, eh?
Same old story no sign of these in my local WHS . Normally about mid October before they make an appearance if past years are anything to go by. Bah!
Funnily enough, AL, I asked in WHS not long before I bought mine whether they had any Annuals in yet and was told by some young lad that they usually got put out around October - only to see a cardboard display stand with the DCT Annuals a couple of days later. Whether they were already out when I asked or whether they were put out in response to my enquiry, I couldn't say, but it might be worth having another look in your local shop.
Post a Comment