The Beano Annual 2009 - D. C. Thomson (Editor)

...I used to be in the Beano club when I was younger, and had a subscription to the Beano magazine. I have to say though that I haven’t read a beano in about 15 years! I was quite intrigued to see if Beano had changed at all since I had read it last.

The annual is a hardback book, which is around A4 size. On the front cover is a picture of Dennis the Menace and Gnasher reeking havoc on Beano town, along with some Beano Town residents either ...
...open the book, I quite liked the designs used on the inside of the cover on the back and front. They have pencil drawn sketches of the characters in different stages of being drawn, so some of them are just plain heads or bodies, and some are finished pictures without any colours.

There is no glossary and no page numbers in the book, but there is around 50 different stories (comic strips). Most of the stories are around 2 – 3 pages long, ... more

I was on Amazon recently and needed to buy an extra little something to make my order to over £5 so that I could get free delivery, I saw ‘The Beano Annual 2009’ for 97p so I decided to get it!

I used to be in the Beano club when I was younger, and had a subscription to the Beano magazine. I have to say though that I haven’t read a beano in about 15 years! I was quite intrigued to see if Beano had changed at all since I had read it last.

The annual is a hardback book, which is around A4 size. On the front cover is a picture of Dennis the Menace and Gnasher reeking havoc on Beano town, along with some Beano Town residents either cheering them on or booing.

When you open the book, I quite liked the designs used on the inside of the cover on the back and front. They have pencil drawn sketches of the characters in different stages of being drawn, so some of them are just plain heads or bodies, and some are finished pictures without any colours.

There is no glossary and no page numbers in the book, but there is around 50 different stories (comic strips). Most of the stories are around 2 – 3 pages long, and some are only a page, but I think this is a good length as the stories seem quick and snappy and don’t get boring.

Many of the characters I recognised from the earlier Beano comics, there is Dennis the Menace and Gnasher who enjoy making fun of the the nerds of Beano Town, Walter and his friends. There are the Bash Street Kids which is set in a school and the pupils always manage to get up to mischief, Ivy the Terrible, The Numskulls and Roger the Dodger. Most of the stories are about children being quite naughty and getting up to no good! There were a couple of stories I don’t recognise though, one of these was a comic strip which has been drawn in manga style, which is called ‘General Jumbo in A Fete Worse Than Death’. I’m not sure if it really fits in with the style of the Beano magazine, it seems quite adult for a childrens comic. I suppose that they are trying to appeal to a wider audience.

In one of the stories they have also used a play-on-words from the film “Reservoir Dogs’, and called the story ‘Reservoir Dodge’, I’m not sure many children would have understood the joke.

There is a board game printed in the book which you can play on, though you would have to find some way of keeping the book flat so that you could play it without the pieces falling into the middle. You have to supply your own dice and counters, but it does look quite fun and it’s a nice addition to the book for added fun.

I liked reading the stories with the characters which I remembered from when I was younger. The classic characters such as Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street Kids still have a certain appeal about them, but I just think I have outgrown Beano, I definitely think that it is a childrens comic book. I’m not so keen on the new stories, I don’t think they really fit in with the traditional Beano style, though I suppose they are trying to keep up to date and appeal to a wider audience to keep competing with the other comics on the market today.

To be honest I was actually quite surprised that Beano was still bringing out a yearly annual since I haven't really seen the comic around the place, but it was a nice blast from the past and I did enjoy reading it.

The rrp price on the back of the annual is £7.99, and I have to say I would never have bought this if it hadn’t have been 97p, but it was a nice thing to read and cheaper than a magazine!
 

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