It's taken a while to find its way into my hands but I've finally got myself the latest Beano book (or annual as it's now dubbed) and after the superb Dandy annual D.C Thomson are offering this year I certainly had high hopes for the Beano. The covers illustrated by Nigel Parkinson are superb and the spectacular back cover portraying of all the characters on the number 75 (for 75 years) bus links in with the two spreads inside the front and back covers.
Nigel certainly has his work cut out inside with him lending his hand to Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and Pup Parade. In one of the Dennis the Menace stories Nigel provides an absolutely fantastic double page spread portraying Dennis' trip to school!
Following the Dandy annual I won't deny that I was a little disappointed by the Beano annual. It's not that this annual contains anything bad as there are plenty of high quality strips such as Lew Stringer's Biffo the Bear and Hunt Emerson's The Three Bears (for example), but it seems to lack the same excitement or fun as the Dandy annual. The Beano annual has hardly changed over the past ten or fifteen years whereas The Dandy has modernised and as a result the Beano annual feels sort of dated. It's still good though and I recommend picking it up if you haven't done so yet but if you have to choose between the Beano or the Dandy, I'd go for the Dandy.
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