The Dandy is the world's third longest running comic, its first issue being published back in 1937. The Dandy's heyday was the 1950's when it sold up to 2 million copies a week; this has fallen now to around 8,000, hence we assume the decision to go online.
For those of us, of a certain age who grew up on the staples of The Dandy and The Beano, there are many fond memories of Desperate Dan with his cow pies, and Bananaman (which ran as a cartoon series from 1983 to 1986 and was my favourite TV show, for some reason my seven year old self thought it to be highly amusing after school to be eat a banana sandwich whilst watching Bananaman!).
The first edition of the Dandy hit the shelves on 4 December 1937, and continued to be published weekly until 1941 when war causedpapershortages meant that the comic was published fortnightly alternating with The Beano. Happily for comic fans both comics went back to weekly publication in 1949, The Dandy staying that way until today! After the publication of this week's final comic, The Dandy will go to a digital version, check it out at http://www.dandy.com/.
I visited the site today and on first glance and reading I liked it, the first issue 'issue zero' of the digital version is available free of charge, so there is nothing to lose popping on over to the site and downloading it, whether you be an old time comic fan like myself or a new reader!! All the old favourites are there, Desperate Dan, Bananaman, Korky the Cat and Brassneck etc, and its brightly coloured and as easy to read as a paper version.
The digital version of the comic is available after this issue zero at £1.49 an issue or £29.99 for a years subscription (perhaps a Christmas present for the comic fan?). There is also an iOS and Android phone app coming.
Nothing stays the same forever and I think it is a bold step by The Dandy team, doing that they can to keep this iconic publication going. I font think I will be subscribing, because I haven’t bought a copy of The Dandy in paper form since about 1988 and I know I don’t really want to start now. But I hope the publicity surrounding the digital launch and the well designed website will garner The Dandy a whole new young audience of cow pie fans!
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