The Dandy Annual 2012

The Dandy Annual 2012

D.C. Thomson

Celebrating 75 years this year's Dandy Annual doesn't fail to live up to the thumb's up I gave the writing standard of last year's collection of corny gags and silly scenarios; in fact I'm wondering if one particular script writer was responsible for the first quarter of the book at least for it comes across in a very coherent style, or maybe it's down to a good editor - Either way, it's mostly excellent stuff.

I'm still not a fan of abstract geometrically challenged cartooning ; well not if it's low on the storytelling ability quota but you can't go wrong with Laura Howell's absolutely brilliant visual take on the classic Bully Beef and Chips - I didn't realise it was the Brummie-based cartoonist at first; just found myself chuckling away then saw a small signature on the side of the first of a couple of cracking strips that feature a much welcomed return to over-the-top cartoon mayhem where within a couple of panels we see more punches thrown than a year's worth of some American superhero comics - And drawn by a girl! Drawn well, very, very well - Put that in your pipe and smoke it, macho-men! Oh, yeah and whoever wrote it did a good job too, with single pagers.

Desperate Dan, The Dandy's very own cow-pie eating Superman, takes the breadth of the book to serialise his holiday across the United States with Nigel Parkinson doing a more than fair proximity of Ken Harrison's art style. Not sure about Nigel Auchterlounie's Puss and Boots but his Corporal Clott's a surprise hoot!

I understand men old enough to know better still waste their time berating the weekly Dandy comic, well I don't get to see that and someone my age wouldn't appreciate it on a regular basis anyway, but my wife's hard-earned money was well spent buying me the annual for Christmas!