D.C Thomson Origins: Pup Parade

Pup Parade, or The Bash Street Pups as you may know them, arrived in The Beano issue #1326, dated 16th December 1967. Illustrated by Gordon Bell, the pups looked very different in the beginning to what we know them today! 

The original series ended in 1988, lasting over 20 years! The Pups then moved to The Topper the following year, still drawn by Bell. It remained there until the comic ended in 1990. They then even survived the merge with The Beezer, lasting for another good two years!

Since June of last year, The Beano started reproducing old strips by Bell from the 1980's, giving them a fresh lick of paint! The result was very nice, only ending in April of this year.

Nigel Parkinson took over from the reprints, and the Pup Parade strips that appear in the Beano today are all brand new!

The Bash Street Pups weren't the only dogs to begin in the late 60's! In August of 1968, Dennis the Menace got his world famous sidekick - Gnasher! At the end of his first appearence in issue #1363, Dad sent Gnasher to Pup Parade, where he appeared the following week.

44 page bumpers!

This week both The Dandy and The Beano were 44 page specials. I am going to start with the Beano. Now, if I was to spend about three quaters of the post moaning and groaning about Fred's foul facts and the extra Bash Street kids pages that somehow make it a pull-out - then this blog would be continously repeating on itself. After all, I wrote about all that in my previous two Beano posts. Seeing that I hated it when there were two pages, I am not, repeat: NOT, going to stand this. As well as the 2 useless pages we already had, they've put in 4 extra pages with made up drawings and reports. But I'll forgive them as they put in a 10 page Bash Street Kids story!Moving on, I thought that the Dennis the Menace artwork was good this week (especially the box scanned below), as was the brightly coloured Numskulls! It's one of my favorite stories yet! Also, we saw Minnie the Minx's mum in this strip, which, as far as I can remember, is for the first time! (Can anyone correct me on this one? I'm sure The Beano Review are going to love her!And finally, "DEN DO"... what do you think it is? I'm guessing something along the lines of Beano Manga, who knows?Ok, now moving onto this weeks Dandy. Now I knew instantly that the so called "suprise gift" is an old, unused gift from the old Dandy Xtreme comics. How do I know? Well, I got a Xtreme-erang! Which was basically a green, plastic boomerang with a small sticker on it. It will forever remain sellotaped to the cover of the comic. (This weeks Beano gift was MUCH better - a Dennis and Gnaher mini bowling alley!) The other gift was some "Bogies stickers", excellent artwork as I'm sure you'll all agree.This weeks madvertisement (drawn by Nigel Auchterlounie) was the classic "open eyes specs"! You know the one - where there is a picture of some glasses with eyes in them so that you can sleep in class but look like your still awake! Amazing!Another of Nigel Parkinsons "Where's Harry?" puzzle is in this weeks issue. Tell you what, I'll let you in on a little secret. Here's where you'll find Harry: !%&!#$"{}+_--(_)*! The Harry Hill story this week was also quite funny, but I'm not quite sure how it got from an Elephant in Harry's bed to a runaway teleision. Just another myster in The Dandy! You will also spot Dave the Squirrel in George Vs. Dragon - make sure you like his facebook page! I also liked this weeks Sea Dogs, who were been chased by Cut-throat Cat! ARRRRR!!!!!Both The Beano and The Dandy were great this week, so make that you go and pick up a copy!

ARRRRRR!!!!!!! Pirates of the Caribeano!

Surprisingly, I enjoyed this weeks Beano MORE than the Dandy (for the first time since the Dandy revamp)! Maybe it was Barrie Appleby's amazing Dennis the Menace artwork, or Ken H. Harrison's Minnie the Minx (with the striped background, or even the 50's "As the bell rings stories"! Another enjoyable bit is a whole page of Gnasher! A bit like Gnasher's Tale, Gnasher bit(e) shows a story from his point of view, and this week with quite a funny ending! An amazing way to finish off the comic. I enjoyed all of these, but of course, a brilliant comic always has a down-side.

First of all, I didn't quite understand the Ratz story, but never mind. The artwork was good. Also, with the Bash street Kids pullout, it isn't a pull-out. It just isnt. Just because you've got readers drawings on page 15 and jokes on page 18, does not make it a pull-out. It's been on the centre pages for years and so technically it's always been a pull-out. Freds foul facts (which I find is ok) and Roger's Dodge Diary (possibly a modern day version of Roger's Dodge Clinic) aren't going down well with the readers. Maybe Sterling will replace them with something else, maybe even a new character! Who knows? On the other hand this weeks Dandy was good, but some parts were boring and pointless. Ok, so Kid Cops, Justin Beaver and George vs Dragon were good, I found that the Supervision Song contest voting cards and Eurovision Wrong contest were boooooooring! Bananaman wasn't brilliant this week either.

I think I'll just leave it at that.

Ok, I'm going to start blogging normally again as from my next blog, which will be a review on The Beano 3D Annual.