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Dandy comic selling just 7000 copies a week


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Old 30-09-2011, 09:23
cy_bones
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What I want to know is why they find it nessecary to give free gifts with every issue.
To try and make it stand out and to appeal to kids - obviously doesn't work!
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Old 30-09-2011, 15:17
neo_wales
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Shame its not doing better, I used to have the Beano and Dandy but The Eagle was the better comic
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Old 30-09-2011, 16:47
NightSurfer
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Is there anywhere you can get hold of the old comics? I used to read all the comics going, besides Dandy and Beano, I read The Beezer, Buster, Whizzer and Chips,
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Old 30-09-2011, 19:30
Shaiya
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Now Dan's gonna really be desperate.
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Old 30-09-2011, 19:48
JAS84
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What I want to know is why they find it nessecary to give free gifts with every issue. DC Thompson have dropped loads of comics through the years WWW.Toonhound.com are a good source.
Actually, Beano and Dandy don't do this every issue like many of the licensed titles do. And it's DC Thomson. No P. Also, Toonhound is NOT a good source for this, they cover mostly Fleetway, not DC Thomson.
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Old 30-09-2011, 19:50
JAS84
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Is there anywhere you can get hold of the old comics? I used to read all the comics going, besides Dandy and Beano, I read The Beezer, Buster, Whizzer and Chips,
Second hand. You'll often find them on ebay.
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Old 01-10-2011, 01:05
Gulftastic
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I wish they'd do collected editions. I'd love to read the full colour Jack Silver stuff again.
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Old 01-10-2011, 09:36
Kal_El
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A few years ago when my daughter was young enough we used to get her the Beano and the Dandy, but after a while it became obvious that the adverts and "advertorial" were just sinking the content so we stopped getting them. This was particularly gutting for me as I grew up with the D.C Thompson comics right across the board - Victor, Warlord, Spike... you name it I probably bought it. The Dandy was especially guilty of this; it just seemed to want to sell you the latest console or toy, and strapped a bunch load of sweets to the cover to entice the kids.

They reckon that kids aren't bothered with comics so much these days but I totally disagree. They just aren't offering the content they used to. It's the death of decent content that's lost the audience. It's like no-one sat back and said "what are we actually offering here?" Whether it's big business to blame or whatever, the sad result is the British comics are fading away really slowly. Shame.

Maybe as the economic problems start to bite and parents become less inclined to spend on further electronic gadgetry, the comics may enjoy a resurgence. I find it hard to believe that even today's kids wouldn't get a kick out of a fresh copy of Beano, Dandy, Topper, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee, Buster, etc, etc every week at the right price with a proper consideration for their audience.
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Old 01-10-2011, 16:05
neo_wales
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My grandchildren enjoy comics/magazines but the competition from the internet if fierce and even I'll admit that the interactive sites from the likes of cbeebies are fun and educational. I've never been a supporter of too much online time for young childrean but I have to say I'm well impressed with the quality and content I've seen. But you can't beat real books (says grand dad here who recently got a Kindle )
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Old 01-10-2011, 20:04
Kal_El
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There's some great websites out there, but still the comics offer something else completely different imho. All I can say is, if it were up to my kid (OK maybe a few years ago not so much now), there'd be a ton of comics still to choose from just like there were in the 80's. She loved the Beano and Dandy etc, but once the ads started pushing the content out of the way and the cover price became a constantly moving target, we had to call it a day. But she read, and still reads, our old comic annuals and whatnot.
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Old 03-10-2011, 14:08
JAS84
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I know what you mean there. When I was 11, I got £3 pocket money a week, and also got the Beano which was 40p at the time (didn't buy the Dandy, but that was the same price). The price of a Mars bar back then was around 32p. Nowadays, a Mars Bar is 65p and The Beano and The Dandy are £1.50 or £2.50 if there's a gift. Granted, the comics did go up from 24 pages to 32 in 1998, but that only added 5p to the price (from 45p to 50p). In 13 years, the price has tripled for normal issues and gone up five-fold for issues with what used to be called free gifts. In comparison, a Mars bar's price has only doubled. The reason? The supermarkets and WHSmith are to blame for this, they charge over the odds to stock the product (and issues with gifts attached take up more space). Not stocking it means lost sales, so DC Thomson and other comics publishers are trapped, and have no choice but to pay up. This has affected The Dandy badly recently. And low sales means smaller print runs, which also means higher unit costs. And actually, advertising has decreased if anything, which is something else which bumps up the prices, they have to make up the shortfall.
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Old 13-10-2011, 13:27
IRKarl
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They tried to update the Dandy by getting rid of Desperate Dan and there was an outcry. The Dandys just to dated to be relevant & its impossible to update it.
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Old 13-10-2011, 20:21
JAS84
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What difference would one character make? Besides, Dan got a drastic makeover three years ago, he's been vastly modernised.

Also, the Dandy you see now is very different to the versions out in 2003, 2006, and 2009, they've had three major revamps in the last decade. The only characters to survive them all are Dan, Bananaman, and arguably Korky the Cat (who was dropped before the 2007 revamp, but later had reprints before getting a major makeover with the 2010 revamp).

The problem isn't the content, it's awareness of the product. Kids don't read it because they don't know about it, not because they don't like it.
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Old 13-10-2011, 20:41
cnbcwatcher
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I used to buy both the Beano and the Dandy but I eventually gave up on the Dandy as I thought it was a bit "tacky". I continued buying the Beano til I was about 15 or 16
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Old 14-10-2011, 11:15
cy_bones
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The problem isn't the content, it's awareness of the product. Kids don't read it because they don't know about it, not because they don't like it.
Maybe they should have a TV advert halfway through TV Burp on Saturday night...
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Old 14-10-2011, 11:33
be more pacific
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The problem isn't the content, it's awareness of the product. Kids don't read it because they don't know about it, not because they don't like it.
Do Beano and Dandy still cross-promote each other regularly? If so, your argument about consumer ignorance would only stand up if Dandy achieved figures at least equal to its sister title.
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Old 16-10-2011, 12:43
JAS84
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They both use guest strips from each other to advertise the other comic (although it took several months for them to start doing this, Beano didn't advertise the Dandy revamp until early this year, and the revamp was 51 weeks ago) - but the two comics are so different to each other that even a member of DCT staff ("classic comics" on the Comics UK forum) has said that they'd be incompatible for a merger should Dandy fold. Anyway, Beano may be doing better than Dandy - but that's actually not doing so well either, Beano's readership is shrinking too (they've just increased it's page count to try and combat that). Advertising in The Beano isn't enough. Plus, it's one thing knowing it exists, it's another thing knowing where you can buy it. Dandy's not so easy to find, and the subscription info only appears in the comic you're reading (so Beano's can be found in the Beano and Dandy's in The Dandy, but not vice-versa).
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Old 16-10-2011, 15:03
be more pacific
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They both use guest strips from each other to advertise the other comic (although it took several months for them to start doing this, Beano didn't advertise the Dandy revamp until early this year, and the revamp was 51 weeks ago) - but the two comics are so different to each other that even a member of DCT staff ("classic comics" on the Comics UK forum) has said that they'd be incompatible for a merger should Dandy fold. Anyway, Beano may be doing better than Dandy - but that's actually not doing so well either, Beano's readership is shrinking too (they've just increased it's page count to try and combat that). Advertising in The Beano isn't enough. Plus, it's one thing knowing it exists, it's another thing knowing where you can buy it. Dandy's not so easy to find, and the subscription info only appears in the comic you're reading (so Beano's can be found in the Beano and Dandy's in The Dandy, but not vice-versa).
But isn't the lack of availability due to drastically dwindling print runs? It's not as if DCT is printing 50,000 copies of which 43,000 go unsold.

At one time, you could guarantee that Dandy would be available at pretty much every newsagent in the UK. Now they're probably not even producing enough to cover the number of retailers.

As I said on a previous thread, the Beano and Dandy brands desperately need to propped up by licensed spin-offs. Just look at the pathetic sales figures (100,000 or less) achieved by some of the most well-known US superhero titles. Yet those legacy titles can continue because their parent companies make a fortune selling the characters/concepts more successfully in other media.
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Old 26-10-2011, 21:32
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I thought Dennis The Menace and Desperate Dan were the icons of both comics?
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Old 27-11-2011, 22:38
Killer Gorilla
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I think the Beano and Dandy's time has been and gone, unfortunately. They seemed old-fashioned when I was a kid and I'm 35 now.
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Old 28-11-2011, 19:30
VoodooChic
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I think the Beano and Dandy's time has been and gone, unfortunately. They seemed old-fashioned when I was a kid and I'm 35 now.
Really? I loved The Beano and I'm 37 - bought it from 1982ish till (blush) 1988.....less so The Dandy more a bonus comic every now and then when I was allowed an extra
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Old 28-11-2011, 20:44
Killer Gorilla
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Oh I liked them as a kid, but they still seemed old fashioned. Kids getting caned (or slippered), whose main motivation in life was getting food, wearing shorts as part of school uniform, teachers with mortar boards, it all seemed as old fashioned as Enid Blyton books. It was stuff a generation or more in the past when I was a kid, nowadays it's stuff from kids grandparents time.
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Old 28-11-2011, 21:52
kezzy38
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Oh I liked them as a kid, but they still seemed old fashioned. Kids getting caned (or slippered), whose main motivation in life was getting food, wearing shorts as part of school uniform, teachers with mortar boards, it all seemed as old fashioned as Enid Blyton books. It was stuff a generation or more in the past when I was a kid, nowadays it's stuff from kids grandparents time.
But they were still good, of course. Always good. It's even better now, Postman Prat and Mr Meecher are especially good!
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Old 28-11-2011, 22:42
RIPLEY75
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I used to read The Dandy as a child.I saw a copy of it recently and Harry Hill was on the front cover??!!! wtf??
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Old 03-12-2011, 20:59
JAS84
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He became the Dandy's new lead star when it revamped last year. Desperate Dan usually occupies the back cover though.
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