EPISODE 9: THE BEANO

This week, we're looking at a real British institution, The Beano, which has been in publication since 1938!

There's a deep dive into British comic history, as this is where my love of the history of comics and cartoons really started. You can hear about how this started when I was little.

This is also our longest episode so far, at over an hour long - we talk a lot about The Beano and how well established and respected it is, nearly 100 years after it started.

(And also, there's some 'help' from Breeze the Rescue Hound this time...)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Morgan Talks Comics, a podcast that is a deep dive into comics from the past and the present. I started collecting comics and ri and started making them in the 1980s and still collect and make them now. Each week I'll be picking out a new or old comic and taking an in-depth look at what makes them special. I'm Morgan Gleave, a professional cartoonist and comic and cartoon fan. I was lucky to have had some really cool comics and graphic novels bought for me when I was little, which grew into a real love of comics and cartoons of all shapes and sizes. I hope you enjoy listening to the show and have as much fun listening to it as I have making it. This week I'm looking at The Beano, a weekly British comic that's been around since 1938 and is a real institution amongst children and adults alike. Joining me again this week is Elizabeth Chamberlain, who will be learning all about the Beano's history and its importance. Okay. Welcome to Morgan Talks Comics. Before we get underway with looking at the Beano, as you can see on the screen, if you're watching us, I just want to give a bit of a shout-out with some sad news of Sam Keith died he actually died last week, but it was announced today. We talked about his work in our first episode, Adolescent Radioactive Blackbird Hamsters, as he was one of the original artists on that, and went on to do loads of other stuff. That was turned into an animated cartoon, which was really popular in the early 90s. And yeah, it was announced this morning that he'd uh died at the age of 63, which is no age at all for an artist. Um anybody else, or anybody else for that matter, yeah, absolutely. Um, so yeah, um just wanted to give a little bit of a acknowledgement of of that passing. Uh he's somebody I've been aware of for a very long time. Uh I've been reading his work probably since I was in my late teens. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

So what was the name of that thing you the comic you mentioned? You said he's so false uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Oh sorry, yeah. So our our very first episode ten weeks ago uh was the adolescent radioactive black belt hamsters.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Radioactive.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah. Black belt hamsters.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Black belt hamsters.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Which was a spoof of the teenage mutant ninja turtles. I remember now.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Yeah. Oh, there's the other thing, somebody gave us a shout-out, didn't they?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Oh yeah, so we also yeah, we also want to give a big a big shout-out and thank you to Taz Thornton and Ash Clearwater. They gave us a big shout-out, our podcast, a big shout-out on their awesomely off-topic podcast. So thank you very much, Taz and Asher. Much appreciated, and it's good to know that some that people are enjoying the show and uh yeah, uh happy to talk about us.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Well, what's the name of their podcast?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

So that Taz and Asher's podcast is called Awesomely Off Topic.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Oh, it's actually called that.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

It's actually called Awesomely Off Topic, yeah, because it taps in a lot to like ADHD and getting distracted and stuff like that. They kind of chat and they can and do go off topic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Beano!

SPEAKER_00 3:32

So this week we're looking at a a real British institution, the Beano. Um, I've did a little bit of preliminary research before we did the show, uh, before we decided to do this episode. Now I thought that the beano was actually a hundred years old. It turns out it's actually 87 years old.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Oh, is that old?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

So, yeah, it's 87. So um, first published in on the 30th of July 1938 by DC Thompson from Dundee up in Scotland. Uh, DC Thompson's still published today. They obviously they publish the Beano. Um they publish uh mostly annuals now. Beano is is has been ongoing as a weekly comic since then. Other comics that they published, like the Dandy. Dandy actually predates the the Bino, I found out. It was a year before that. Dandy now is only published as they usually do a summer special and it has an a hardback annual every year. So it's not really kept up with Bino? No, the the Bino has managed to keep going all this time. Um it man it reached its 4000th issue in 2019, and it's the best-selling comic outside of Japan. Because Japan has a big comic infrastructure with manga and anime, uh a lot more people, it's more acceptable for people, adults and children to read comics in Japan. Uh, but this is one of the it the Bino is the best-selling comic outside of Japan.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

And for once, I actually know it, and what's more I'm pretty sure I've read it. Um, if you're wondering what the funny black bits coming into the picture are, they're the dog, they're Breeze, who we gave some cat food to in very small pieces, so that she would keep out of the way and she's not.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

So if you hear any sniffing in the background, it's Breeze, not us. No, that's right. Um, another big this this issue with the Bino is from from a couple of weeks ago. Just re just last week, it comes out on a Wednesday. Wednesday, for some reason, is new comic book day. I don't know why. Uh used to be Saturdays. Anyway, uh Dennis the Menace celebrated his 75th birthday.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

He's looking good for 75.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Technically, he's 10. So Dennis is a 10-year-old boy in the in the in the cartoons.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Don't you think technically he's 75 and he pretends to be 10?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

I think so. Yeah, I think so. Um so yeah, Dennis this just this week, just this week, uh as we talk, has celebrated his 75th birthday, which is amazing. He's now the kind of the flagship character.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Would you like me to sing happy birthday to him?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

If you want to.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

You nearly landed me in it, then that well not to sing.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Um anyway, and the interesting thing so Dennis first appeared in the Bino in 1951. At the same time in America, there is another character also called Dennis the Menace, who was a young blonde-haired boy in America. They copied. It's weird. I don't, it's they literally came out at the same time. So it didn't mean they didn't copy.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Yeah, oh, it could be the other way around.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Somebody copied somebody. Somehow it yeah, something happened, and there were two Dennises, both called Dennis the Menace. Um, both started in 1951, one over here, one in America. I don't believe the American one runs anymore. You'll see reprints of him, but Dennis is obviously still an ongoing character, and has um become a TV star because he's he's in an animated cartoon. Bino has has tapped into the the the animation market. Is Dennis has been a successful cartoon for I'm I want to say ten years, possibly longer. No Breeze. He's knocking over the Breeze has been really, really helpful here. Um anyway, so there'll be more bits and pieces of history as I as we go through. Um arguably it's the it's the most important comic in in the UK because it's been running for so long and it's well even I've read it as a child.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

We didn't buy it, but I had a relative that gave me a great big stack of them. I don't think my mum approved of Dennis the Mess Vennis' birthday.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, I I funnily enough, just this last week, uh I guess because it's been uh Dennis's birthday, there's been uh quite a lot of the early strips have been shown on like on the BBC website and places like that. And I actually saw the very first Dennis the Menace strip um where he's out with his dad walking his dog and he's actually getting himself into trouble. And if at the end of the cartoon, Dennis is the one that ends up on the lead, so his dad's dragging him away on his lead, says Dennis, don't be a menace, and drags him off on his lead. So, yeah, yeah. There we go. So, Beano. When it originally started, it was called the Beano comic when it started, then it dropped to the Beano, and now it's just known as Beano. I think most people still refer to it as the Beano. If you search for it online, it's the beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Well, I think of it as the Beano, yeah, and I was wondering where the word beano came from, but now I remember that it I'm pretty sure I've heard that word from my grandparents meaning some kind of trip out with lots of people or a party or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Yeah, it's a it's a party, some kind of celebration. I think that's why DC Thompson back in the 30s chose that. If you think about the fact that, you know, it is all it is getting on for a hundred years ago. Language was very different then.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

So terms like beaner, I mean I'm aware of the term, but I'll ask my grandson, you probably won't know. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Yeah, yeah, even our eldest grandson probably wouldn't know what it means.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

That's the one I'm in.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah. We have got two.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

I know, but the other one, the other one lives in German. So I doubt if he's come across the word anyway.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Anyway, so looking at the front cover, uh Dennis is front and centre. We have have another one of the longest-running characters, Midi the Minx, here. We'll talk more about that later because I've got some good info about who created them. He's one of my favourite cartoons, my like my first favourite cartoonist. Um you can also see Harsha here, who's a new character who was introduced in in later years. Bino is now um it's not exactly what I would call politically correct, but there's a lot more it's well.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

I hope it's too paying attention to society.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah, absolutely. It pays more attention to society. So we have it, we have Indian characters, we have disabled characters, um normal people, in other words. Yeah, normal people, yeah. It reflects it reflects British society. So, yeah, shall we dive in? Let's go. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Hold your nose.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Okay, so the first thing to notice is that the Bino is now printed in full colour throughout.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

And the f the fabric. The paper's good.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, and it's on really good quality. Again, the quality of comics is is something that's that's much better now than when when they used to be published. I mean, even go even going back 20 years, there's there's a difference in quality. So there's much better quality paper, better quality printing, so that you know the the artwork shows up a lot better. Something that they do here now is they get um people to write in, and they do you could be the boss of the beano, so you'll see a little kid. Um that gets picked out every week and they'll be in cartoon form. Oh good idea. So it's great to get you know, get children involved in in reading the the And is in World World Book Day. Yeah, so this this issue from a couple of couple of weeks ago is is actually celebrating um World Book Day. So here we'll get to another group of schoolboys and girls that we'll that I'll t tell you a bit more about later because they're they're aware of. But what they do now is they use all of the main characters. So you've got Dennis here, you've got Harsha, who's one of the main characters. Harsher, who's one of the she comes that her family were on a joke shop. You'll we'll so we'll see her strip later on. Okay. Minnie is Minnie the Minx and Roger the Dodger, who have been.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Roger the Dodger, I know that.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Yeah. Uh have been there since the 50s at least.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

I don't really remember Minnie the Minx, and I have to say, I envisioned some something quite different than that. Well, this is it. I mean language has changed.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Language has changed and and characters have changed as well, you know. It was it was brilliant that well, she wasn't a stripper in the early ones, was she? No, she wasn't. She's not a stripper in these ones either.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Well I know that as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Um what's also great here is that uh if you can see here where where I'm pointing, the writers and artists are credited, not in the way like they were in 2008 that we looked at last week. Yes, but they are actually credited on every strip, which I've which I've where is the credit?

SPEAKER_02 13:30

I can't see it.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

It's just here, they've got words, so there's Nigel Upteroni.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Does you mean that that black bill near?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah, and then the artwork here is by Nigel Parkinson, who's a uh British cartoonist who's worked good.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

A step in the right direction. The other one's got it better, but absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

So you we've got a strip here with with um a collection of the of the Bino characters celebrating World Book Day at school.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yes, that's really good. I thought I I really like the idea of World Book Day.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Yeah, I I think I think it's brilliant. I think it's really good. So they're all that um I'm hoping that for our American audience they they know that um World Book Day more often it's children that dress up, but some adults do as well. But they dress up as their favourite characters or characters.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

If it's World Book Day, then presumably it's in other countries as well. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, mayor will well be in the US. Yeah, perhaps somebody will tell us.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

So we've got a lovely colourful strip in a really nice cartoony style, logical, nice and logical, follows through quite well.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

And I can't see the font from here. Is it uppercase or both?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

It's lowercase, it's uppercase. Right. So way to go then, haven't they? Yeah. So whilst whilst the beano is held up as a you know a really great thing to get kids reading, yeah, we've still got this well. But it's just it's just this thing that's become that is a standard in comics that it's it you working up again.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Yeah. And Rubino's gone so far to change, it could just more.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

This is it. So you've got characters here talking about the books that they want to read to their teacher. Um Harsher here is being the Groffalo. Um Dan is uh sort of like he's a lot he's a young like a secret agent spy kind of character. So he's talking about James Bond. And um then we we move in and we see Roger the Dodger, and then uh they start talking about um a haunted castle. Now we've got like Frankenstein's monster coming to life here at the at the in at the bottom of the page. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

That's really good to do the whole story on the street.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah, it's lovely, and the fact that they've they allow traditionally the um Beano did sort of like single page strips, and I think certainly by the 50s the middle pages was a double spread double page spread, so you'd have two pages of story, but here they have four pages to allow the story to actually breathe and be told properly.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yeah, so then that in itself is encouraging the children to you know participate. Yeah, they could um they could dress up as the characters in Bino, couldn't they?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Well I think kids do. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I think kids do. You know, that it could it's it's accepted that you can be some kids dress up as as film characters, some dress up as as book characters. Superman. Yeah. Lots. Um and then you can see here there's actually like a an advert with a token so you can go so kids can actually go out and get a book. You can get a book for a pound. You could go into supermarkets and pick up a book for a pound, and they'll have special editions of of of popular books. Bunny Bus Monkey, very popular here, Jamie Smart. Uh on the thing here, yeah. Spin-off from uh Rolled Doll, so Cholly and Chocolate Factory here. Yes, but this is really all good, I think. It's really good, it's get it's encouraging you know literacy and stuff like that, which is just fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

I think I think it's so so important in the world.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

As time goes on, nearly everybody has to be able to read. In the past, it didn't matter if you were doing some jobs, you wouldn't need to read, yeah, but write, but now of course, everybody has to say when they're started work, when they're not, and have a contract and all the rest of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Absolutely. So flicking over here, there's an advert for uh subscribing. He's got Nasher, who is Dennis's Dennis the Menis's dog. He's what is it they call him? He's a Yorkshire tripe terrier.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

What's that mean?

SPEAKER_00 18:20

He likes eating tripe and refuge and waste.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Oh, do they have the result of that in it?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Sometimes you've sea like blown up to like three times his normal size because he's gone and eating like a dustbin or something like that. Anyway, so that's that's an advert for actually subscribing to the Bino. So they up they do an offer, you know. You can get five issues for a you know for a pound each. Um marketing that's I think Bino sells at 349 now, so it's still quite a lot, really. 350 a week, yeah, yeah. I mean it's pocket money money, but yeah, 350 a week. Um the next trip is numb schools now. I know that numschools has been around for a long time. I I remember seeing it when I'd looked at Bino, gosh, in the 70s and possibly and certainly in the 80s.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Well, I don't excuse me, but I hear I don't remember the stories I read in the 70s and the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

So this is it, because it's um because I'm a visual learner and I I pick up on visual stuff, so stuff gets stored in my head. Literally, like what it is, the non-schools are little characters that live inside the main character's head.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Oh, well, that's right for you, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

And they actually control what they say and what they do and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

That seems very good, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

So here it's uh the words and art are by by the same person, so they've that there's there's been one person doing a strip, and as you can see, that there's like a little go there's little gag strips at the bottom of each page as well. Where's that? So, what do penguins like to eat? Burritos.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

That's a sign of the times that the kids will know what a burrito is.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, so as I said, the um still published by DC Thompson, based in Dundee, up in Scotland, and they really dominated the British comic scene in the in in the 20s and reading in leading into the 30s. Well, the 30s was when they really started going. Um yeah, so they've they've just they've just dominated the market. So here we've got Dennis and Nasha as seen on on C B B C because they're an animated cartoon now, you know. They're they're just as popular as an animated cartoon as they are as a a cartoon, you know, a drawn cartoon. And being on C B B C is where you need to be. Absolutely, and you can see here we have a a character in a wheelchair, so making disability a normal part of the strips. So Dennis, Dennis has always had like a gang with him, so uh what's the name?

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Is it a female? I can't remember. Is it a male or female? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Female. There's a young girl who's in uh so like you say, Dennis is supposed to be supposed to be ten in these strips, but it's been ten since 1951.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

So didn't he have all boys in his gang originally?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Originally, yeah, it was uh there was uh there was a character called Pie Face who was always eating pies. There was remember that. Yeah, um Is he gone? I no, I think but I certainly remember seeing Pie Face in some of the animated cartoons and he still loved eating and stuff like that, but he they sort of changed the character so he became more of like a chef, so he made his own food. He was he became a real f even though originally yeah, the gag before originally was that he he liked He just they call him pie face because he ate pies all the time.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Who ate all the pies? Exactly. Is that where the expression came from? I don't know. We'd have to look that up.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

You can look it up on two later. But as I say, Dennis, even though he's still seen as being a troublemaker and gets into it gets into trouble, the way comics are now, it's much more does he get his come up on it?

SPEAKER_02 22:30

He kind of does sometimes. But you said the first one, you saw that the lead, on the yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

So yeah, the first one you the very first Dennis strip that he was seen at the last panel of of of the strip was Dennis being led away by his dad on a lead. Um now it's much more I I don't I can't think of the right word here, but it's much more modern, modern, yeah. So we have disabled characters, we have characters from different ethnic backgrounds and stuff like that, and it's that's much more yeah, it just reflects the the real world around us, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

The world of the world they wanted it to be at the time.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah, and here the cat the you could you can see in Dennis interacting with a robot character, so it's it's it's reflecting sort of modern technology and stuff like that as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Yes. So there's Dennis and Nasha having fun with robots. Uh then we've got a pri we've got a uh a contest page, so there's there's opportunities for readers to win lots of lots of questions.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

What have they got to do?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Um so here they've um they've got like a multiple they've got multiple choice questions. All of these quit all of these sorts of quiz. There's three quizzes and there are they're all multiple choice, so you can win you can win uh an Android tablet here with loads of uh then there's also some books on offer.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Oh I need a new tablet, my spiking.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

I'm too old.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Well, you could fib about your age.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Don't spread things like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Anyway, so I mean and again, competitions have always been popular in in in comics and cartoon, you know, in comics and cartoons. They've all they've they've kind of been there from from as long as they've probably existed. And then we've got some single single panel uh strips, single strips here. Um, and again, everyone's credited.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

These Calamity James.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yeah, and he's kind of um the style here. You can see a real mixture of styles of artwork. The artwork here on Calamity James is more akin to sort of like the older, more traditional style that that the Beano has, especially from the 50s. It really took off again after the Second World War because obviously they wanted you come they they were saving paper and everything. Yeah, exactly. But they it it became really popular again after the second world war, leading into the 50s. 50s was a real heyday for the beano, uh, it really sort of came into its own with with the characters and so on. Like, like I say with Dennis and Minnie and everyone being in being uh uh coming along.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Uh so and if you can sorry to interrupt if you can hear funny noises that again is is the dog looking for anymore.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

The dog is looking for food. Uh and we've got a page here of of cr crazy jokes, or rather car raisy jokes.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Tell me one.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

So what did the tornado say to the car?

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Um well um we're in for no, I don't want to go for a spin. Oh so the jokes aren't always they're like Christmas cracker jokes.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

They're Christmas cracker jokes. Um he got an advert for some uh for a series of books about dragons, which looks quite cool. It does look good, it's got really nice artwork.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Is that um comic kind of books or no?

SPEAKER_00 26:26

These these are book books. I suspect they are illustrated books, but they are textbooks, yeah, story books. Um so as as mentioned earlier, we've got this character Harsher, who's come into who's come into the Beano more recently, um bringing in some ethnic diversity, and the um her where's she supposed to be from? They live in Bino Town.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Oh, so you don't know where she just is.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah, yeah, so they all they all now because because of the way sort of uh the Bino is is sort of marketed and everything, it's but it's there's a and you know they've actually said that there's the the town is called Bino Town and and all the characters live there in different parts of it, but um yeah, so Harsha here, her family run a joke shop and she quite often plays pranks and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Yeah, her family will lack like African or I think they're supposed to be an Asian family.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Oh right. Um I saw I saw the Bino a couple of months back. I picked I picked one up and there was quite traditional things like they were eating traditional Indian food and stuff like that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

I'm hungry. What's this one?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

So Harsha, there's um what are they doing with the podcast? So because Harsha does Harsha does plays tricks and jokes on people, it this is you know something that's been in the beano for forever, really. This is showing you how you could play a trick on somebody, and they're suggesting that you film the trick as well. So get your get your get your phone design. Get your phone out and fill and film a trick on somebody.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

What are they doing?

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Um so basically, what they're doing is they're getting some bubble wrap out of a package that looks suspiciously like an Amazon package here.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

They don't have bubble wrap now, do they?

SPEAKER_00 28:39

No, they don't. So this is funny, really, because a lot of Amazon packages come in card or paper now. But anyway, they say get some bubble wrap, put it underneath a doormat or rug at the front of a house. Make sure you can't see the bubble wrap poking out, uh, and then find a place nearby to hide and wait. So you've got the the editor of the the guest editor is in this strip as well. And then when somebody stands on the on the mat, there's a big loud popping noise because they stand on the bubble wrap and all the bubbles get burst and they get scared.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Is that it?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Yeah. Well, I think they need to work on that, and then they've then down here at the bottom they say, think you've got a funnier prank, drop a comment to, and then they've got a beano uh email address for a chance to appear in a prank vlog. They probably can, but no, they can't.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

That's why they're asking the people to do it. Because let's face it, that's the uh level.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

They need help. They do. So here we've got a character who's been in been in the Bino since the 50s, Middy the Minx. Basically a female version of Dennis, really, who she's again causes causes mayhem wherever she goes, and uh you know, in the older strips you'd see her dad chasing her down with a slipper and stuff like that because she'd been she'd done something naughty. We'll get that now, no, but she's always getting into into scrapes and stuff. Nice, nice little side note here that this is drawn by a female cartoonist as well, which I think's great.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Um well why shouldn't it be? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

It should be that you're paying no attention to it, no, no, it and it it shouldn't make any difference. I mean, again, the style of Minnie is not a million of miles away from how she looked when she first appeared. Um, so there is more of a a a sort of a uh what we would call a house style for the beano, where a lot of the characters look quite similar, so they're they're drawn in a similar fashion. Again, they're supposed to live in this one town, you know, they've got this kind of shared universe kind of thing now going on. I don't want to live there, do you? No. But you can see Minnie here taking people around. Uh she's being a tour guide, she's supposedly taking them out on safarin, and a tiger turns up at the end. But Minnie's Minnie's brave and stands up to the tiger, but the tiger ends up with being a bit of a softie at the end. And she ends up making some some cash at the end.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Oh, is that a word search?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

So we've got a big word search here with Minnie down down here at the bottom with a load of uh zoom animals. So yeah, there's a big word search, loads of different animals that you've got to find and characters from the cartoon.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Yeah, it's good for good for spelling.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Ah, so this here is the the female character from the Dennis story. So a lot this has happened now a lot that a lot of the other characters have spun off and got their own stories as well. So this is Ruby, she's like a real sort of science, sort of geek, you know, she's really into technology and stuff like that. And yeah, in the in the cartoons as well, you see her making lots of gadgets and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

By the way, I'm nodding. I forgot to speak.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

So here she's she's um you can see her in a wheelchair here, and someone's come running over. And she's made she's made some kind of gadget which does seems to do very different things. There's another character here who says he's really accident prone. But it's like um he he drops some food, so the she uses the the gadget to blow the dust off it to make it cool, make it clean, and then ties up his shoelaces so he doesn't trip over again. Stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yeah, thank you, Grease.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

She's looking, somebody must be on the territory. She's looking out the window.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah. Uh here we've got another character that's seen at the beginning strip, Dangerous Dan, who's uh he's a uh a young secret agent, so he his hero is James Bond.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Dangerous Dan, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Right, has he got gadgets? Uh I don't think he has a lot of gadgets. He I'm I'm thinking I've seen him with like look a little walkie-talkie and stuff like that, but he's predominantly put you know works works with his wits and his his brains more than anything else. So he's a he's a newer character again, showing a bit of ethnic diversity here as well. Um getting into trouble in cinema, gets stuck on some bubble gum that's on the floor, like that. Then there's another uh the the next page is there's uh another challenge thing here. Have you got Britain's funniest class? So coming up soon, you've got you've got a you've got a week to to get in there if you're in a funny class. Right, and now the Bash Street Kids. Bash Street Kids. So I've got some history I've got a bit of a history lesson here.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

So the Bass Street Kids um first came about in the I think they came up a bit later than Dennis, and it was about 1953, they're originally done. No, they they were created by a great British cartoonist called Leo Baxendale, who uh who worked originally started freelance for DC Thompson, so he he created the Bash Street Kids. They were originally called um oh where is it? I've got it written down. Yeah, they were it was the sorry it was originally called when the bell rings, so when the school bell rings.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Oh, the Bash Street Kids is better than later.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Apparently what had happened is that that Leo was uh sitting in the offices uh the DC Thompson offices in in Dundee, drawing strips for whatever. He created a lot of the a lot of the well-known characters. Oh yeah, which is brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Because he used to sit with us.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Sadly, he died in 2017.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Oh, not that long ago.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

But he was one of my first real comic book creating heroes.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Did you meet him?

SPEAKER_00 35:25

No, no, I never did, but when I was really little, so when I was nine, uh there was a great uh little children's bookshop in the town that I grew up in. And quite often we go there with our Christmas money or our pocket money or in Leicester, yeah. Um anyway, there was this great book, and I saw this fantastic book which had cartoons all over the front of it. I think Dennis was on the front of it, Dennis the Menace, and it was called It's a Funny Business, and it was basically Leo Baxerdale's kind of autobiography, but it was talking about the history of cartoons probably kind of sort of from about World War II onwards.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Have you still got it?

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Yeah, still got it.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Um maybe we ought to look at that.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

It's a absolutely fascinating, but it what's brilliant is that there was there's little me at nine, obviously fascinated by comics and cartoons. I'd grow you know, I'd grown up with them, but it at that age I wanted to buy a proper book about make it about the history of cartoons. Um it was great with loads of with loads of Leo's artwork and it um and it was wonderful to read, so I've I've been fascinated by the history of comics as long as I've been reading them, really. Uh, especially uh the British history, knowing because we've not we've not got a massive scene over here, but the the the fact that things like when we looked at 2000 E last week, it's been around for nearly 50 years. Bino is is getting on for a hundred now, which is just fantastic, and it's still published today, anyway. So, yeah, uh I I've gone a little bit off subject here, but it was the first book I actually read about how comics were made and the history of it, and Leo talking about growing up as a as a jobbing freelance artist working for DC Thompson and stuff like that, talking about other artists who he admired that he worked with and stuff like that, which is great. So, Leo actually created the Bash Street Kids. When he first created them, he did I think it was sort of like a single panel strip because the the the DC Thompson offices overlooked a school in Dundee, so they could they could see kids coming out and playing at playtime and stuff like that, and apparently that gave them the inspiration for a group of school kids.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

They do such strange things, they do, they do, they do, but um yeah, he's give for me again.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

He uh yeah, so Leo came up with this concept of a uh a cartoon about school kids. Um when he first submitted it, it it didn't get it didn't get picked up straight away, um, but it was about three years later, which I think was about 1956, I want to say. Um but that then it got picked up by uh one of the editors of of the Bino, and that's when it got and they got I think they gave it the title When the Bell Rings. Um it was a and to start off with it, it was really chaotic, and the kids were more way more troublesome and like tear-aways and stuff like that, and like wouldn't do their homework and all this kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

Not a good example at all. That might be why my mum didn't like it if it was uh So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

So this is it. The beano sort of shows kids as being well the worst, yeah, but they're having fun, and it's just that they cause trouble. But like the teacher was the teacher's wife, the you saw the teacher's wife occasionally, the teacher is always as the characters still look pretty much the same as they did originally. They've they've changed some things again with changing with the times to modernising. For example, there was a character called Fatty.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

You can't have that now, and you can't have that now.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Cat Fatty is now called Freddie. Um he's still large, but they they don't took they don't he's not called Fat, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

I was going to say the the one that ate all the pies, was he on the large side?

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Um no pie face weirdly weirdly wasn't it? It's quite wiry. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

I know people like that that can eat themselves silly and it makes no difference whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Yeah. Well you've got harsh earth is making an appearance in here as well, so they brought they brought in some other characters.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

What's here? They're slugs.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

They look like slugs. Are they woodworms? They're woodworms.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

We don't like those. Don't like woodworms.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

So the woodworms are eating the desks here and everything. The teacher's throwing down as coming in with a pile of homework or whatever, and he goes to put the homework down on his on his desk and it collapses because it's it's been eaten by woodworms.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Did they put the woodworms there? Was that is that just happened?

SPEAKER_00 40:27

I'm not sure. I the the they're they're looking at the woodworms out in the out in the playground. They're outside playing football and they the goal actually breaks here. You can see the goal breaking when the football when the ball's kicked to it. And then what uh one of the other ki one of the characters, uh Herbert is called, looks at the looks at the wood with a magnifying glass, and you can see that there's um there's all these little woodworms are.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

So think it was a good idea, but that inside Herbert.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Herbert.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

Bucky Herbert.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Yeah. So again, lots of the characters here in the Bino have been here for a long time, um, but they have changed with the times as well.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

I was thinking that of Herbert, you know, um Grubby Herbert and all the rest of it. I wonder if that came from this or whether, because people say somebody's a Grubby Herbert, they've actually taken it and put it into the carriage.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

I'm not sure, because I think Herbert is a is a is a more recent character. So we've got a lot of the original characters. There's uh I mean Wilfrid, Scotty, Toots, Danny, they were all there in the beginning. Plug uh Smithy is is a bit dumb, he's a bit silly. Um you got Plug here, who's been Plug actually launched his own comic uh in the 70s. He he actually had his own comic.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

Well, that's quite remarkable for a crafting character, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 41:58

It is, isn't it? Yeah. So Bash Street Kids, and I think when it started, the Bash Street Kids was a was also originally a double page spread. I think it was in the centre pages of of the Beano. Yes. So when it was printed back then, it was made it was mainly it would have a colour cover back and front, and I think by that time the the it was printed in black and white, but with a third colour, which generally was red, they'd have red as a like an accent colour. So into his list. I whether whether they chose that because um Dennis and Dennis and Roger and Minnie all wear red and black jumpers and shirts.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

I suppose fewer colours to print's cheaper.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

It probably makes no difference now with the modern printing systems.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Yeah. So here we go. So they they they get made uh uh a load of bikes out of out of wood, and then they'll go to jump on them to ride off, but the woodworms have got to them and they've they're uh they're left in a pile of dust. Uh-oh, well that works. And the little characters down here, you can see the little cat with its hat on.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

The cat is a recurring character that's been there since the beginning. Um, he's actually the caretaker's cat.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Did you just turn up and not do anything?

SPEAKER_00 43:24

No, he goes, You quite often see him go around sweeping with a brush and stuff like that. So he actually sort of a well that's handy, isn't it? But again, the teacher has always looked the same, and he's he has a wife who looks very similar to him. The about the only difference is that she doesn't have a mustache, but she's called Mrs. Teacher. So, yeah, so they're great. Um, I love the fact that it's it's still it they're still carrying on now, and again, from what the it was kind of the real start of my love of the history of comics as well, finding out about find. Buying this book when I was little and and I've I've got I've still got it, I reread it quite often. Um I've got a lot of Leo Baxendale's other stuff as well.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

I think we ought to look at some of the things you've got, the books that you've had for long. Yeah. Just to give a bit of background.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Absolutely. So here we've got kind it's kind of like a letters page. You can email him in, you can email the stuff, you can send stuff in by post. You've got social media on here as well. Of course. So you've got the guest editor from this week, and uh yeah, the be the beano boss. So yeah, your letters, photos, and jokes. So you've got people, you've got kids sending in photos of them reading the beano or artwork that they've done. So the guest editor is called Zebedee. There's a young boy called Zebedee.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Oh, we can assume that's a boy. So we'll call him a male cartoonist, shall we? Since we mentioned the female one.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

And they've got people point Yes, absolutely. You've got characters, you've got people dressing up here as characters. So there's a character here, Sylvie, who's dressed up as Minnie the Mexicans, and you've got Minnie sort of giving it a thumbs up. Uh and then every picture in this page as as one gets a book sent to them as well. So again, encouraging literacy.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

It is indeed, yes. And encouraging them to write letters or emails or things, which is also exactly it's brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

So you've got you've got kids actually writing in and sending in photos.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Did you do that as a child? Did you send things in?

SPEAKER_00 45:48

I did. Uh I did write to 2000 AD when I was younger. Um I wrote to I wrote to television programmes actually. I wrote to a programme called Playaway.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah, that was uh uh a children's programme when I was little.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

And I'd No, I didn't ever go into friendly competitions or do anything because my mum always said, Oh, there's no point, you won't win. Well of course you won't win if you go in. But my daughter won a big prize once in a competition in the libraries. So um, you know, people do win. And I know somebody else who won a car.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

There you go. Yes. So this is really cool. It's get it's it's encouraging children to engage with the comic as well, and it's lovely just seeing all the photos of them with lots of copies of the beano or artwork that they've done, dressing up as characters, stuff like that, sending in jokes. Yes, and then there's a more recent strip here, Betty the Yeti, which is uh written and drawn by Hugh Rain. So it is again we've got an artist who's writing their own strips as well.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

I thought Yeti was spelled with two R two T's on the T.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

No, it's always it's always been with a one with one T.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Not when I've joined it.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

So there's little Betty here who I again looks like an Asian character with uh her uh friend the Yeti. Uh talking about trying to get him to disguise himself as the Easter bunny here. Like you do, like you do.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

What's this? Colouring.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

And then we've got yeah, colouring. So here they've got it, they call it hide and shriek, and they're going help Yeti hide from the angry mob, draw disguises on him so they run right past. So what I think the running gag in the strip is that Betty is always trying to disguise Yeti, so they're Yeti. They have people trying to catch him and stuff, so they've they've they've got ideas of things like you've got like sunglasses here and a crown and shirts and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

So actually getting people to draw and be creative, be creative, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Which is brilliant. That's what I love about comics, it it encourages creativity so much. Um yeah, and we've got Nasha. Nipper is his son.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

I remember n Nipper, but I can't remember anything about it.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

Oh, it's the the the dog called it's the dog, isn't it? Dog or Nasha.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

So Nasha is Dennis's dog. Um and I think I believe Nipper is supposed to be his son.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

Where's the rest of the litter?

SPEAKER_00 48:35

I can't remember because I'm sure there was actually a litter. I'm sure there was more than one dog, but Nipper is the only one who seems to have survived.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Yes. Did they did they go and explain the facts of life? I don't think so, no.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

No.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

I missed the opportunity there, wasn't it? I don't like this one because it's all grey and blue, and not every other one as being very appealing, and I would want to.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

So here they've they're going into like cyberspace, they're they're imagining that they're they've actually gone into they're being uploaded into the computer, and they're saying like the inside of the computer is all sort of grey and boring and stuff like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

I've I've read a few books that and start doing that sort of thing. I have to say that's when I put them aside.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

What's interesting here as well is that the computer itself is actually quite old-fashioned. Most people now would use a laptop, but here we've got a good computer with a monitor, a camera, a separate tower, and then keyboard and all the rest of it. And you know, it's much more common now to have a have a laptop.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

But it's not probably common for those artists if they're working permanently in an office to do um whatever they're doing, they're not doing it on a laptop, are they?

SPEAKER_00 49:54

Absolutely, and there's there's kind of a uh we we talked a bit about style earlier, that the the style of the cartoons is fairly consistent throughout. So you will have there's about a dozen different artists who work on on the beano, but they're there's more of a uniform style. When um uh going back to Bash Street Kids, when when Leo Baxendale started it, it was very the he very he had very much had a style of his own and it stood out, and they were actually aligned, allowed, aligned, allowed to sign their work as well, which was quite a big thing at that time.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

Yes, it does seem as if the British ones are really keen on crediting people. Well, they're always like that. I mean, when you said was that right from the beginning?

SPEAKER_00 50:43

No, they weren't, it's it's it does seem to be a more recent thing, um, even you know, when we were talking about 2000 E last week, 2008 started in 1976, and I'm I know they started crediting artists quite early, but to start off with, I don't think they actually did.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

Yeah, so it's just ridiculous that they didn't, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

Um when somebody authors a book, you don't just knock their name off.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

An artist had to be really successful to be to be known by name, uh, in in in comics and cartoons. So a lot of the the early luckily there's some great comic historians in the uh well around the world, but in the UK especially. Um so I I really got into comics and cartoons when I got into my early teens, so I started reading a lot more about the history of stuff. So I started learning who were the people who'd actually made the comics, you know. And now it's very different because you know American comics are usually credit, you know, artists and writers are credited on the front cover, um, and credited credited properly in the comics as well.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

Oh, we in the US something like that. Oh, I thought they weren't doing that.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

It's much more common. I mean, and over here, some but somebody as successful as Jamie Smart, who's you know, the the current king of British comics, I'd say he's he's probably the most most successful. Um it's great, he's known by name, you know. It's not he's not known because of his characters, you actually know who create you know, Buddy vs Monkey are really popular, but you know who created them.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

But then they have a book, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:33

So you would have that because books do.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

But they did start in the Phoenix comic, and they're now collected into books, and the books are just selling really, really popular.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Could you just remind me Bunny versus Monkey? Yeah, are they British made or they are they are a British cartoon?

SPEAKER_00 52:53

I thought they were British. Yeah, they're a British cartoon, but they've become globally successful.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

The way the children love them.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

The fact that you can go into a supermarket and buy bunny versus monkey books is just absolutely brilliant. So it it does show that and all there's a little side note here actually about being able to buy comics in a supermarket. Um, 2000 AD will now be available in Asda. So yeah, I know you can get it in Tesco already, but is it now going to be available in ASDA? Asda's a massive amount of stores, so that's really cool. That's that it's it's got you know bigger distribution again.

SPEAKER_02 53:33

Excuse me. Breeze, no.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

She's looking at us all innocent as if she's doing nothing. There's a good girl. Um another page here, encouraging literacy. So we're talking about reading. We've got another another older British character here, Banana Man, who is a sort of a bumbling superhero.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Um and then lots of uppercase. Oh, I could.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

I really could. I know. But it's but it's it goes it's encouraging reading, you know.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

I've always thought that's good.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

Which is brilliant. And another single-page strip here. Billy Wiz. Billy Wiz, I think, started in the 60s. So again, another character that's been around for a really long time. Um, the the uh what's what am I looking for? What's the word I'm looking for?

SPEAKER_02 54:34

The the they've evolved, have they?

SPEAKER_00 54:36

Yeah, they've evolved, but he he he's like a ri he's fast, he's super fast, you know.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

So that's why it's called Billy Whiz.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

That's why it's called Billy Whiz.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

Well, I thought that was another name that had actually not aged well because when I saw Billy Wiz, I didn't think of Hull going fast.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Absolutely, yeah. See here, the fastest boy in the world. But again, the way it's drawn is not a million miles away from how it started in I think the 60s. I want to say 60s. The style is not a million miles away from how he looked originally. I can remember seeing it when I was reading the Bino in the 70s.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Well, sorry. No, carry on. I was thinking that maybe you need to put them together and actually look. You might find they're more different than you think they are.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and then the last strip in the comic is Roger the Dodger, another established character's been there, been there a long time.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

You know what you're gonna get with this, don't you, Roughly?

SPEAKER_00 55:43

You kind of do. I mean, you yeah, I mean what's the joke at the bottom? So, what is a cheesemonger's favourite type of music? R and Brie. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

I love jokes like that, they're really bad.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

They're really bad, they are really bad. Um again, Roger Roger the Dodge has been around for ages and he's always working, he's he'd always be coming up with dodges to get out of doing his homework, or his dad would say go and mow the lawn and he'd work out a dodge so he didn't do it and stuff like that. Bring the goats in. So you can there's a there's a very much a pattern. I mean, there's a pattern to all the strips here. It's like the the stories are effectively the same every week, it's just a different joke, you know, or a different or you know, a slightly different setting.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

You've got you know, you've got Nasha turning up here, and of course, um the children reading it, they're coming and going. They don't know it's all the same. Well, this is it. This is some children don't stop though, do they, Morgan?

SPEAKER_00 56:45

No, some people do not stop reading comics, and then the back inside cover here. We've got uh it's advertising for for what's coming in the next issue, so it's saying when it the the number and then when it's on is when it's uh being published, and then um here I mentioned earlier uh Dennis's 75th birthday. So that's that was coming at that's as we were recording that that's last week's issue.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

Have you got a copy?

SPEAKER_00 57:16

No, I haven't, but I could probably pick one up actually. Uh down here at the bottom, it's quite small, but there is actually um there's the address of DC Thompson in Dundee. Uh there's email here. And there's the you need a need a microscope to um, and then there's the editor editing details and the designers and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 57:44

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

And yeah, so the back page is they this is another reader who's been turned into a cartoon. So you go called Make Me a Menace, and she's called Not So Innocent Millicent. This is I love this, and I only I only discovered this recently as the art here is is by uh a really great British cartoonist called Hunt Emerson, who I luckily Hunt Emerson.

SPEAKER_02 58:11

That doesn't sound like a British name, does it?

SPEAKER_00 58:13

It doesn't, but Hunt is his real name.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

I believe, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

I've met him.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

Oh, when did you meet him?

SPEAKER_00 58:20

I met him in 1987, and I knew he was going to be at the convention, and I got him to sign he signed and drew in one of my books that are for his still got it. So that's another one we could probably look at. Looking at British comics, which is great. But Hunt is oh my gosh, he's been cartooning is he's still with us. He's still with us, yeah, he's still with us.

SPEAKER_02 58:47

And he's still working with it.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

Well, evidently because um he does he publishes a lot of his own material, he's do he's designed uh record covers, he's done loads of stuff. He's a real um aficionado on jazz. Oh so there's a a great comp collection of cartoons I've got of his, which is about um which is about Max Million, who's a saxophone he's a jazz saxophon saxophonist. But this is great here. You can um they're they're taking an at you know one of the readers here, and they've actually turned him into a character, and they're being they're being naughty, they're being a menace, but they that they're seeing how they can get away with it. They set up the you know the premise here that Millicent Millicent looks innocent, but and she's going having biscuits, and her mum's saying, Don't eat your biscuits before dinner, and she's going, Me? No, and she's looking all innocent. Mum's going, Oh, you are a good girl, have some more chocolate or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

That's very good. Yeah, can you imagine how thrilled Mind is? Have they got Millicent's proper name?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

Um, I mean, there's a picture of Millicent here, it just says it they're just using her first name, so they're just saying Millicent and not not put her full name up.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

But imagine if she looks at that, she'll keep that forever. She'll be so thrilled.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

But isn't that brilliant? You can actually be in a comic.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:21

No, I'd be thrilled to be in a comic.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

Yeah. Why have you never put me in one of your comics? I have put you in one of my comics. Have you? Yeah, you're in my graphic novel.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:31

Am I?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

Yeah. What am I doing? Being yourself. Oh crumbs. So that's the beano. Um I don't think it's bad to say that this is a real British institution, you know. The fact that it's it's existed for so long, it's still going, it's still popular, kids still love it now. Um, I think a lot of people who have read it since they were kids still read it now.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

Um I think everybody would know pretty known.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

I think most people in the UK certainly would uh have probably bought the Beano at least once and and probably read it. Um it's great that the great tradition of a I think it's I think it's a br it's very much a British tradition, is that there is an annual every Christmas. Um Beano and Dandy still have an annual every Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:32

Is that just a British thing?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

I'm not sure because I mean Americ some American comics do do what they would call an annual issue, so it would be a thicker issue of a of an actual comic, but I don't think they do. Over here we have hardback, this sort of A4, just over A4 size uh comic. Proper book. But we have a proper hardback book with you know I've I've still got my original 1950s Eagle annuals, um, which my I I mentioned before my my my grandmother bought for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:05

Hang on, is Eagle British?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

Eagle is a British comic, started in the 50s.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:11

So well that's something else to ask the US people. Do they have annuals?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

Yeah, because every child gets an annual for Christmas, don't they? Let us know. Yeah, let us know. You know, do you do you get an annual every year? It used to be it used to be a tradition that every Christmas you'd get an annual for Christmas. Um you do see it now, you're more likely to see them in supermarkets, certainly Dandy, Bino, um, and uh there's a few of the comic ones, but they're quite often there'll be spin-offs from characters from video games and stuff like that. You know, mighty I'll just did off a bit. Minecraft had an annual uh quite recently, you know. It's probably not as big now, but it was it had its moment where it was a really big game, and that the there was a proper annual for that. So yeah, um, there's the beano. I thought this would be be a longer. This has been, I think, our longest episode yet so far. Um, again, partly because I knew a lot about the history of the beano, because I'm talking about you know Leah Baptist.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:19

Well, there's so much about it, absolutely even I know things about the bean.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:25

So this is it. Elizabeth knew a lot for uh for a change, you actually knew a lot about the parameters.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

Yeah, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

So there we go, there's the beano.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

Um the other question is is it available abroad? I'm not sure. I would have So I'm asking the abroad people, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Yeah, let us know, guys, because we know we've got we've got people what uh listening in in America and and in Australia and uh other places. Can you get the Bino in a in in your country? You know, have you actually heard of it? Um so anyway. And what do you think of it? Yeah, absolutely. What do you what do you think of it? You know, I still think it's gr I think it's great the fact that we've still got a weekly comic out every you know, it's been it's been out every week for nearly for nearly a hundred years, it's still going, it's still relevant, it's it's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

Isn't it 75 years you said?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

78. No, sorry, 87. 87 years it's been going for.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

Right, yes, that's poaching um hundred, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:38

That is very good.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

Yeah. There we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:42

Right, thank you for showing me the bean over here. You are very welcome. Um enjoyed that. Oh, how many out of ten? It's gotta be nine and a half out of ten. It misses the half by having too much uppercase and not having upper and lower case. Don't laugh at me, it's really important.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

No, it is it is important. I mean, you can act you mean look just you know, to actually reiterate that point, looking here on the cover, all of the text, even the smaller text uh announcing the cart the the strips and stuff like that that are in it, it's all in it's all in uppercase, it's not upper and lower.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:27

I will explain why it has to be an upper lower case. I'm always banging on about it, aren't I?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

And hopefully we'll dig out we'll dig out a comic. Say Marvel have used it, they've sometimes in some of the Spider-Man comics it's the the captions in the bubbles, you know, as the comics used to talk, um were actually done in upper and lower case.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:50

Well done wh who was that?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:51

So that was Marvel comics.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:52

Well done Marvel.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

And that's actually and that's actually been recent, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

Um That is good.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

Yeah. And Spider Man's a big title, you know. Spider-Man again is is a character that's known outside of people that read comics.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

Yes, I think we ought to look at some of the um BBC comics, and if they haven't got up and out lowercase, I'll be very, very disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:17

Yeah, that could be that could be really interesting because like say it I love the fact that like the Bino has gone, you know, Dennis is now a cartoon on the BBC, but the BBC now also make comics of their own characters. So children's television characters get get their own comics that's come that come out every week. Yes, yeah. So Britain do actually have a comic industry, it's just it's a bit different to certainly to the American one where it's more it's it's more superheroes and stuff like that. Over here, we tend to have a lot more humour comics. And yeah, yeah. And we still have war comics as well. Commando has been around since well, I don't think we ought to encourage that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

No, mind you, it's relevant at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:05

But commando is as again, it's published by DC Thompson as a as a coincidence here.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:10

See, that's another one that means something different to me. Oh no, I'm not gonna end another one laughing.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

I think you might. Anyway, um I could talk about I could talk about the B the Bino and British comic hit history for hours and hours and hours, but I'm sure you wouldn't you wouldn't want to have that. So we'll actually wrap up now.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:35

And um maybe we'll do another one of the Marvel ones or something next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

So tune in next tune in next week. Let us know what you thought of this week's episode. Um have you have have you read Bino wherever you are in the world?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

Do we have annuals?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

Do you have annuals? Yeah. And um we will see you on the next episode. Bye. Bye.