I've just finished reading the latest Dandy annual and I must say - it's a cracker! It's over 100 pages for just £7.99, so I highly recommend buying a copy. If you're saving it as a treat until Christmas, stop reading now.
It's great to see a good number of classic characters in the lineup. There are a few that really stood out for me, the first being Winker Watson illustrated by Will Dawbarn. If the weekly comic was still around this would definitely a strip I'd like to see in it, in this format and two pages long!
Another character that really stood out was Big Bang Benny. I'm afraid that I can't identify the artist but whomever it is they've done a fantastic job on it. They didn't try to draw in the style of Ken Reid but in their own style that looks absolutely fantastic, hopefully we see more from him/her in the near future.
My favourite story in the whole annual was the eight-page Jack Silver adventure, illustrated by Will Dawbarn. Like his Winker Watson, this was coloured in the classic style.
And finally, I was pleased to see the return of Nigel Parkinson's Banana Bunch, even if it was only for one strip towards the back.
This book is a definite improvement on last year's already great Dandy annual. £7.99 is nothing for the fantastic content and if you weren't previously planning to, I recommend giving this year's annual a try.
Hopefully I'll be writing a review for The Beano annual soon, once I've bought and read it.
5 comments:
Bing Bang Benny was drawn by Mike Donaldson. They're signed NA+MD which implies Nigel Auchterlounie wrote them.
I'd got the Nigel Auchterlounie signature, but I wasn't sure about the MD. Now that I've seen the skeleton of Bono-o lying in the desert it seems obvious that it was Mike! How did I miss it?
I like Dawbarn's stuff more and more each time I see it, and am happily anticipating reading this annual on Xmas Day, BUT...
Couldn't any of the Dandy folk come up with a more original cover than that? How many times have we seen Dan with a cow pie?
On a Dandy Annual cover? Not very often. The last time was in 2002, before most of today's readers were born.
The full list of annuals and specials (as per Al's gallery) is as follows:-
1952 - Monster Comic back cover cameo
1963 - Beano/Dandy Summer Special
1989 - Summer Special (on a sailboard sail)
1990 - Dandy Book
1992 - Desperate Dan book
2002 - Dandy Annual
Dan only had five of his own annuals. He first appeared on the Dandy Book cover in 1985, and after the joint Beano/Dandy Summer Special 1963 he didn't return to the cover of the Dandy Summer Special until 1983.
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