Beano #452; Enter an icon

Let's continue our trip through the decades of The Beano's life, which began with an overview here, continued with a review of the first issue from 1938 here and the first issue to sell a million copies here.

So now we venture into the 1950s and we can see how the comic is evolving and growing to appeal to a new generation.

It's issue #452 from 1951 and it was chosen for the excellent boxed set because of a significant new arrival.

To begin at the beginning: the cover has changed.

Boring old Big Eggo has been usurped as cover star by Biffo the Bear, being relegated to mascot. He now occupies the space previously reserved for Little Peanut, whom I am pleased to see the back of.

Biffo was another Dudley D Watkins creation who first appeared in January 1948 with a Mickey Mouse-inspired look (I assume) and remained cover star until 1974. He continued to appear inside the comic until 1999 has had several attempted revivals since.

The strips were largely rooted in silent comedy and could feature Biffo in any kind of role. Here he is, running a cafe, being vexed by a human fly from a nearby circus.

I do like that image with the laughing walrus.

Time to go inside.

As with previous issues, page 1 has three short comic strips. However this issue has no other page with more than one strip, another sign of the comic evolving, giving characters room to breathe and grow rather than just deliver a quick gag.

Maxy's Taxi is a quick gag strip about a chap called Maxy. Who has a taxi. (Our cabby's here - with fun and cheer)

Here he is delivering a vibrating package: 

No, it's not a box of caravan shakers, it's a jelly.

Have-a-Go Joe (Do or die - he'll have a try) is seen here living up to his motto by testing a batch of bullet-proof waistcoats! 

The last waistcoat is faulty and the final panel is Joe, slumped on the ground, gasping: "Tell my wife I love her..."

Not really, he gets pinged by a small boy with a pea shooter.

The Magic Lollipops (suck 'em and see!) survive from #272, but is starting to look old.

This is a weird one, as a bloke with a complex over his big nose (a kid is seen shouting "What a beak!" in the first panel) and is offered a magic lollipop to help. However the conjuring confectionery turns into garden shears! 

And the chap is insulted, blames the boy and forces him to do chores. The lesson: never offer to help a stranger.

The third page is still the home of Lord Snooty and His Pals, as he was in both our previous looks. However the strip had an 18 month hiatus starting in June 1949 and when it came back, he had all-new "pals".  

Scrapper and Rosie (who were there in #1) are still with us, as are troublesome twins Snitch and Snatch (who joined soon after). They are joined with Big Fat Joe and Mary the mule (formerly Contrary Mary) who had their own strip in #1. Added to that is Pongo the dog and three other refugees from cancelled strips: Doubting Thomas, Swanky Lanky Liz and Polly.

Ah, Polly. now here's another problematic one...

She was a little girl with a clumsy pet dog in a strip entitled Polly Wolly Doodle and Her Great Big Poodle. And she was a black-face caricature.

Like Little Peanut, this creates a dilemma for DC Thomson. Have a look at the image above. Polly is the character second from the right. In this reprint she has been white-washed.

Below is the image as it would have originally looked, published here purely for historical context:

Also note that the reprint removes the names of the pals, I assume to further eliminate the memory of Polly. She is also edited in the strip itself, which hardly seems worth it as she is only in three out of the thirteen panels and barely visible in them. And as a white girl is barely indistinguishable from Rosie.

I get it, though. I understand that this kind of imagery is unacceptable today especially in products aimed at children. However Polly was a rare non-white female character appearing regularly in one the most popular (if not the most popular) children's comics of the day. And she was just one of the gang, completely accepted, rarely the butt of jokes. And that seems special and a bit of a shame to ignore.

Granted, I'm white and not old enough to have read this strips at the time but I'd love to hear opinions of anyone other.

Anyway, this week's story involves the gang trying to ride bikes but as there aren't enough to go round they end up getting help putting the spare parts together to make one big superbike. 

And that's a terrific piece of Watkins art. Incidentally, that's Polly at the back. Now that I think of it, maybe she was always pushed to the back...

My favourite discovery on these reviews has been Granny Green, the boy who pretends he is his own grandmother to keep away busybodies. She/he debuted in #1, continued in #272 and here in #452 it gets rebooted!

They are no longer "Wangles" they are The Quick Tricks of Granny Green. 

"Join the fun with Granny Green - The trickiest Granny ever seen!"

It's still a prose story, but now a page and a half long. And it's a complete rewrite of the story from #1.

It clears up some problems and adds some details to make the premise make more sense (Jimmy's dad has gone on a business trip to Australia; The Aunt supposed to look after him is taken ill; the family solicitor supplies "granny" with money;) but it hits all the same story beats.

The best additional detail is that Jimmy's dad had apparently used to have a drag act! We are told that he had been an actor and "had often done turns dressed up as an old lady". He still has a trunk full of costumes, wigs and make up. I assume for sentimental reasons.

If you're wondering what was on the other half-page, it saw the arrival of a strip about some kid.

"Look! Here's a new pal you'll enjoy - He's the world's wildest boy!" 

It won't last.

Next we have our first picture strip luckless orphans The Hungry Little Goodwins ("Two brave runaways whose only friend is a hunted highwayman"). A weird hybrid adventure serial of Dickensian poverty and robbery. 

A brother and sister, Jeff and Nell are on the run (from what, I know not) but have a guardian angel in the shape of one "Dick Turnpin", a notorious highway robber. 

I'm not sure why the writer chose not to call him Dick Turpin, the name of the real-life highwayman, romanticised in William Harrison Ainsworth's 1834 novel Rookwood. 

It certainly wasn't copyright reasons. And why change by only one letter? He even has a horse with the same name (Black Bess). And the surtitle on page two calls him "Dick Turpin". 

Anyway, this week's thrilling story has our heroes duped out of money by a mean baker and grabbed by the beadle!

The two of them are forced into the workhouse and made to scrub the floors. Things get full-on Dickens when, after being served "thin, watery soup" for a meal, Jeff asks for more. 

Needless to say, Dick rescues them by threatening the beadle with a pistol.

Incidentally, the novel Oliver Twist was published 100 years after Turpin was hanged. But the story was started only 3 years after Ainsworth's novel was published. 

The second of only two prose stories is Tommy's Clockwork Town. And it is bonkers. 

Set in the old west, young Tommy Tucker is travelling across America with Professor Corker and a lorry full of clockwork people and a towns-worth of building to house them. 

This week they run across a small town with unruly children ("all sons of cow-punchers") so out-of control we discover them throwing their school-teacher in the river!

To teach them a lesson, town unleashes the mechanical marvel that builds an entire town next door, complete with clockwork people. Now, as with #272's Tick Tock Timothy, "clockwork people" essentially means androids. 

"The clockwork figures looked so natural that Pudge and his pals thought they were real people."

Take that Boston Dynamics!

Anyway, the town teacher rounds the boys up and thrashes some discipline into them. They are soon turned into model citizens. And I don't mean like clockwork models. It's uncomfortable.

I have, however, been surprised in just how little corporal punishment I've seen in these early issues. I guess it didn't become a comedy trope until later. Was it Leo Baxendale's fault? Come back next time...

Page two of this story is shared with another Wild West story, this time comedy strip Ding-Dong Belle, about a woman sheriff (a woman?). Here she is tackling the contemporary problem of knife crime. 

The second of this issue's two picture strips is the continuing adventures of Jimmy and His Magic Patch (Who is Jimmy's latest chum? None other than Robert the Bruce, by gum !).

We last saw Jimmy as a peasant slave in #272 but our adventure today begins with Jimmy on a school field trip to collect what would today be referred to as minibeasts. Fascinated by a spider he begins thinking about the story of Robert the Bruce. And soon... 

The downhearted King of Scotland is shown the famous spider by Jimmy and it gives him resolve to continue into battle. Jimmy, having recently studied the Battle of Bannockburn, gives Robert the strategy he needs to win!

It's the bootstrap paradox!

It's never mentioned in the story  but Robert's enemy here is the English army under Edward II. This means the English readers of The Beano (a significant majority) would cheering on an English defeat.

The story is resolved by Jimmy pouring his jar of minibeasts down some enemy (English) soldiers' jerkins.

Then, after winning the day, the patch sends Jimmy home.

"If only they knew, Tommy. If only they knew!"

The back cover still has Pansy Potter on it, but thankfully no Tin Can Tommy. Pansy gets the whole page to herself now and the strip has been re-titled Pansy Potter in Wonderland.

The original Hugh McNeill strip has been significantly retooled by Jimmy Clark and is far less cartoony than previous. As the title suggests, she now lives in a land full of fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters. 

This week feature that wacky prankster Old Father Time. He turns her Beano back into a 1949 issue (presumably the one where her new look first appeared).

Also note her Popeye-style limbs now.

After a couple more japes Pansy grabs the sands of time and turns the tables:

With that ends another enjoyable issue that great old institution: The Beano.

Another totally insignificant....

Oh, okay then. Yes this issue is in the box because it has the first appearance of Dennis the Menace, arguably the most iconic British comics character. And one of the most iconic British fictional characters of the 20th century. He is a character I have written about at length, most significantly here.

And, in spite of this being a widely reprinted strip, I will present that first Dennis strip in full for those of you who may not have seen it:

Next time: We head into the 1960s and visit some more famous mischief-makers.

The Beano #272: Immediately post-war

Aw yeah! We are carrying on our 80th birthday celebrations for The Beano. Last week we looked at the very first issue from 1938, now we leap ahead to December 1945, the second world war is over and Beano sales hit one million copies for the first time. In fact, if the printing presses would have allowed it DC Thomson would have sold much more, but here we are.

At this point, due to paper shortages, The Beano was fortnightly, alternating weeks with The Dandy, it is also a mere 12 pages long, the smallest the comic will ever be.

Edit: A kind reader points out that there was a time when The Beano shrunk even further. They assure me that it briefly went down to 10 pages between 1947 to 1948, and I see no reason to doubt them.

So we start, as always with the cover. Big Eggo is still the cover star, despite how boring he is. This fortnight he is thwarting a hot air balloon disaster. I don't care.

Page two has three strips, starting with a clever bird called Cocky Dick (no sniggering at the back) "he's smart and slick". He needn't trouble us.

Below that is Good King Coke (He's stoney broke) who is playing association football. His rubbish performance in goal leads to him producing a statue of him squatting so that the angry fans can kick it up the jacksy. It's... well it's confusing.

And rounding out this page is The Magic Lollipops (suck 'em and see). We have covered this strip before but suffice to say, a rude man who steals from a child gets his comeuppance.

The lolly shrinks his head so his titfer no longer fits.

Page three brings us the joy of Lord Snooty, having winter fun building snowmen. A bunch of grumpy adults try to tear them down but our pals win through with the aid of marble sculptures. Slap up Christmas feasts all round.

Two page picture strip Jimmy and his Magic Patch comes next, a long-running adventure serial about a boy with a patch on his trousers that enable him to travel through time. Which is pretty good. (Readers of a certain age might remember Tommy's Magic Time Trousers from Round the Bend which was a direct parody)

As we join our story already in progress, Jimmy is an indentured serf, forced to turn a giant mechanical wheel. At the end of the tale, he chides a rodent in a pet shop.

Prose story Tick Tock Timothy is next, a two -pager and one of only two prose stories in the issue.

Timothy is a mechanical marvel, a clockwork toy that might as well be an android. He may need winding up but he responds to Mary's every command. In this episode he even seems to get angry at the cruel blacksmith who has stolen him.

The ongoing adventure quest is to bring back Peggy's remarkable toy-maker father, kidnapped by a jealous king. It's pretty well written and I'd like to know more.

Page two of the story also contains this delightful ad for the next issue.

Next comes the continuing adventures of Tom Thumb. 

He has evolved from the prose story he had in issue #1 to a picture strip. He also has gained a tiny friend called Tinkel who appears to be some sort of ethnic caricature but I'm not sure.

An encounter with a bully leads our heroes to a Pickle Rick sewer adventure before ending up in the sea!

One page prose story The Wangles of Granny Green is, I'm delighted to say, still appearing. 

The adventures of a boy who pretends to be his own grandmother, a scheme first concocted in issue #1, this week he/she tricks some swots into dropping through thin ice! This seems a particularly dangerous form of vengeance, but whatever.

Another survivor from issue #1 is Rip Van Wink (he's 700 years old). He appears to now be working as an errand boy and has moved from picture story to full comic strip.

An hilarious misunderstanding leads to him digging up a small tree and taking its "short root" through the park (geddit?).

Hairy Dan also survives, though now noticeably more cartoonish. Which I like. 

Little Nell and Peter Pell are newcomers, a simple strip of a little girl with a pet pelican. 

And just like that we find ourselves on the back page already. Tin Can Tommy is still there, as he was in issue #1, now cut down to half the page. Also now full comic strip, Tommy also appears to have gained a robot brother and a robot cat called Clanky. Whatever became of the parents from our previous look I do not know.

Anyway, the boys are teasing the cat who gets its own back on them by disguising soap bars as chocolate.

But.... they're robots!

Do they normally eat? Do they need to? It throws up so many questions I will never see answered!

And finishing off the issue is another long-running popular character: Pansy Potter, the Strongman's Daughter.

The supernaturally strong little girl was created in 1938 by Hugh McNeill and has had various revivals over the years (including a run in Sparky). 

It's a welcome little anarchic burst that seems to prefigure the way the comic will lean as it goes into the 1950s

And that, faithful reader, is that.

An all to brief jaunt into the world of austerity Britain, The Beano still holds its head up as the standard bearer of UK comics.

Next time we shall venture into the 1950s as we see the million-dollar debut of a certain schoolboy...

The Beano issue #1. Not for vegans.

And so we continue our 80th birthday celebrations for the world's longest-running weekly comic: The Beano. 

Presenting a full (well, nearly) review of Issue #1 of The Beano, from 1938!

No, I haven't gone mad and bought that copy that was on sale on Ebay last week for £25,00. 

There is another way, right now to get a hold of issue 1. For a mere £25 (that's a thousand times less!) you can buy this handsome boxed set from DC Thomson which includes the 80th Anniversary bookazine (available separately) as well as art cards, a poster, an exciting free gift (the Gnasher Snapper! I had one of them but ripped it...), a replica Dennis the Menace Fan Club wallet (with badges) and eight reproduction comics representing the span of time of the life of The Beano.

However this first issue is not a completely faithful reproduction. Take a look at the reprint front cover, printed above. Now look at the original, as taken from that Ebay seller's listing. 

Spot the difference? I'm not talking about the colour or the alignment. I'm talking about him. The mascot in the top left corner. The grinning black child in tatty clothes munching on a watermelon.

That, dear reader, is Little Peanut. He was the mascot of The Beano in its early years. And is now expurgated from reprints. 

Thanks also to that Ebay listing, I also know the same mascot presided over a joke page, also missing from this reproduction.

I publish it here for historical context: 

Now, I'm of two minds as to how I feel about this.

I completely understand why DC Thomson would choose remove a character that is, at best, racially insensitive but I'm also interested in how art forms fit into history.

For example, when Warner Bros released their series of Looney Tunes "Golden Collection" DVDs in the 2000s, they came unedited but with a caveat (sometimes delivered by Whoopi Goldberg). When referring to the racist/stereotyping caricatures one would find in the cartoons, it stated that "these attitudes were wrong then and are wrong now". However they argued that to edit these out would not only be interfering with the artists' work but also be like pretending it had never happened, which is worse.

And then again, I'm sure some people would buy these reprints specifically to give them to children they know. And there are things we'd be, at best, uncomfortable showing to a child of today.

And then again, again, there are many other things I've seen in these reprints I'd be uncomfortable to show a child. But we'll get to that.

Let's start with the cover star Big Eggo.

 He's an ostrich who is constantly losing his egg (yes, "his", he is presented as male in spite of the egg thing and there never being another ostrich). In his debut he recovers an alligator egg thinking it is his.

Hey! Leggo my Eggo!

It's worth noting here that pure comic strips were rarely seen on the front cover of other publications at that time. More likely a full-page illustration or a picture strip - that is to say illustrated panels with prose beneath (like in the contemporaneous Butterfly). It is also in full colour, which would have made it (and The Dandy) stand out.

Let's take a look inside. And the first thing to note about page two is that, like most other pages in the issue, it has a rhyming couplet at the top. Usually relating to the strip below it, or sometimes a joke. I'll quote some as we come to them. This page has: "The Crowd Tied Poor Ping in a Knot - To Prove He Wasn't Talking Rot."

This relates to the strip on the first third of this page: Here Comes Ping the Elastic Man. Ping stands on a street corner bragging of being "the only elastic man in the whole world". A gang of strangers pull at him in different directions to prove he wasn't talking rot. 

It's a pity the creator isn't still around. I'd love to ask him how he wrote Elastic Man.

The rest of the page is wasted on a picture strip called Brave Captain Kipper. Our Blimpish hero has gone to sea in a row boat to kill a whale. And through wacky happenstance: 

Hooray! He murdered that endangered species!

So, this is one thing that really struck me about this single issue. A lot of animals are killed in this comic. And that is definitely something one would not see in today's stories aimed at children.

Page three gives us our first legit comics superstar, from the mind of Dudley D Watkins. Marmaduke, the Earl of Bunkerton, known to all as Lord Snooty. 

It's interesting here to see his original "pals".  Only two of these characters survived into the era when I was reading it, indeed surviving until the strip was cancelled in 1990. There was, apparently, a reshuffle in 1950. The two were Rosie and Scrapper. Mischievous twins Snitch and Snatch would join a few issues later. 

Our story begins on the Earl's birthday. It's clear he doesn't want a stuffy old dinner party with a bunch of posh kids, so instead he sneaks out. 

(Also, note the dead tiger on the floor.) 

Yes, he might be a wealthy individual, pretending to enjoy the rich lifestyle by day, but he sneaks out and changes his costume for a life of adventure!

That reminds me of someone. Maybe someone also created the following year... 

A quick introduction to his pals leads to a goat and cart ride and a collision. 

A sneaky slip back into the castle and Snooty can confront the posh boys as they arrive... 

Bit mean, that.

Next up, the one character in the issue that is not original. Morgyn the Mighty (also by Watkins). 

Yes, Morgyn, a sort-of Tarzan-like character who had became stranded on the mysterious Black Island, filled with dangerous animals.

It was originally a prose story published in Rover back in 1928 but this was his first appearance as a picture strip. It didn't last long. 

To protect his precious goats, Morgyn has to stab a giant eagle... 

And a shark. 

More adventure next week.

Moving on, medieval adventure with Tom Thumb "The Boy Who's Only Six Inches High!" 

The first prose adventure in the book, a poor couple with an inexplicably small child (at least it was an easy birth) are having their land overrun by the Baron's men on their hunting trip. Tom rides the family cat (Peterkins), armed with a darning needle to stop them but ends up captured. The Baron wants him to be his jester but wily Tom tricks them and escapes.

The second page of this two-page strip has a "joke" at the top of it: "Mary's lamb, nicknamed " Button," rushes motor - Button's mutton." 

And that's not our last dead sheep...

Humour strip Whoopee Hank The Slap-Dash Sheriff next.  

Whoops! That stranger was robbing the bank and tricked Hank into keep the people inside while he made a getaway. Luckily a handy nearby civil war cannon (yes, really) can be used to shoot nails into the path of the robber's suspiciously contemporary car. 

Worth noting here that this is an example of a hybrid strip story/comic strip. There are speech balloons and captions. It took a while for this "comic strip" thing to properly catch on.

Another example is on the next page: Hooky's Magic Bowler Hat. 

A nice young man called Hooky Higgs offers a passing Indian carpet seller some of his picnic, and in return... 

A genie is quite a gift. 

He is, like Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt (created two years later), a very literal genie. 

Next panel: Hooky is pink.

They next accidentally stray in the path of a charging bull. Hooky asks for protection and: 

I love that illustration. And I'm happy the bull survived.

Another prose tale now with one-page story The Wangles of Granny Green. "Tell Your Mum, Tell Your Pa - Jimmy Green's His Own Grandma !" 

I love this concept. An eleven year old boy whose mother died and father works away a lot is fed up with interfering neighbours restricting his freedom. So he cooks up a wizard wheeze to disguise himself as his own grandmother to keep up appearances. 

This could be a great movie pitch. It's Home Alone meets Mrs Doubtfire!

Next page has three short strips.

Wee Peem (he's a proper scream), a mild prankster, seen here with an exploding cigar. 

Little One Dead-Eye Dick (He's a fun-man and a gun-man), seen here shooting a hat that had blown away. 

I don't think that's how wind works.

And finally Hairy Dan (How Dan won the race with his hairy face), seen here using his beard as a sail. 

Three more strips on the following page.

Contrary Mary (You can't play a joke on Mary the Moke) seen here contemplating disguising herself as a goat. 

(Incidentally, Mary was one of the characters that joined Lord Snooty's pals in 1950.)

Smiler the Sweeper (A clever wheeze for catching bees), seen here narrating his actions. 

And finally Helpful Henry (Just too bad for Henry's Dad), seen here just before he steals street paving slabs. 

Another one-page prose story, The Wishing Tree. 

Johnny Gray is visiting his grandmother who warns him of the secret wishing tree (which I believe looks like the actor Michael Gough). Johnny goes down and wishes his father (a policeman) could capture the burglar plaguing the town. Said burglar appears and wishes for a horse, which appears and takes him directly to the police station, thus fulfilling both wishes.

Next page: Big Fat Joe (1 ton of fun), another character that would join Lord Snooty in 1950. A bully gets what-for with the old water-displacement prank. 

Another two-page prose story, The Shipwrecked Kidds, comes next. 

Cyril and Ethel Kidd are two spoilt rich kids, putting down their help, until a freak windstorm strands them, Big Bill Thomson (a sailor hired to send the family on a trip) and Mickey (the cook's assistant) on another mysterious island while the rest of the family and staff are safely on dry land.

It's a fun romp with a nice change in how the characters relate to each other. The children really are awful to the adults right up until the point where they realise they might die.

Page two of this has another joke: "Little pheasant, flying by, sudden bang - Pheasant pie." So there's another death.

Then comes Rip Van Wink, the original Philip J Fry. He awakes from his cave seven hundred years after he put his head down.

He trepidatiously wanders out into the real world searching for food (that length of nap will make you hungry) and immediately shoots an arrow at a passing hiker (his enormous backpack made him look like some kind of beast).

Showing no hard feelings, the hiker gives him some food.

However, he hadn't taken into account that Rip would have no clue what a banana was, let alone tinned food. After eating the bananas whole ("Ugh!") he pops the beef on the fire to cook. It, of course, explodes.

One more one-page prose story with luckless hound My Dog Sandy.

Out driving sheep with his cruel owner, Watkins ("Watkins had a small-sized sheep farm but he was also a dealer."), a fire engine tears past them, sending the sheep into a panic. Sandy does his best to keep them from harm but two of them are "hit and killed instantly" as the engine plows through them.

Watkins takes it out on Sandy with a thrashing ("You stupid brute!"), causing him to run away. He endures several more Dickensian miseries before being taken in by kindly young shepherd named John Murray. And then their true adventures begin. I guess.

Time for one last two-page prose story: The Ape's Secret.

Circus boy Jimmy (who performs an act with spring heels) is due to inherit his uncle's business (the circus itself) but just after Uncle Jed dies a performing chimp (Algy) snatches the will and hides it. So cruel uncle Jules gets it instead. Can Jimmy and kindly clown Tumbler save the circus and themselves and figure out exactly what Algy did?

I liked this one, it had a real Lemony Snicket air to it.

Another picture story next with The Wild Boy of the Woods.

We have covered him before, specifically because he owned a GIANT ROBOT HITLER!

Quick version, he's a low-rent Tarzan called Derek.

Above you can see him as he's about to enter his tree house with fish he'd caught on privately-owned land. Not a treehouse, it's a house in a tree. He's opening the front door. 

He lives with an old hermit he knows simply as Grandad.

There's a room in there to cut his hair.

The hermit announces he's leaving home after living a lie. See, Derek is no relation, he was simply found in the woods. So the hermit headed off into the city to find out where he came from, leaving Derek behind to fend for himself.

None of that makes any sense but it sets up the story of a boy living in the woods with nothing but his own wits, which is a good premise.

However, whilst out poaching again, he stumbles into a trap for him, laid by gamekeepers and hauled off meet justice.

What happens next? I'll never know.

Two more humour strips are on the penultimate page. The first is Uncle Windbag (He tells tall tales).

Another Blimpish figure, his curious nephew asks if he'd ever hunted tigers. He regales him with the time caught a tiger by the tail and literally ripped its skin off.

I mean, at least he didn't kill it but let's face it, a skinless tiger won't live long.

Anyway, young Billy decides to prank his uncle by draping a real dead tiger's pelt over himself.

Below that is tedious strip Monkey Tricks in which animals play cricket.

There is no joke to speak of.

And now, we've reached the back page and the secret origin of Tin-Can Tommy The Clockwork Boy.

Cartoonish art hides a dark background.

Yep, let's kick off with a dead child.

A displacement activity for the mourning father is to build a robot.

That's literally all that happens in issue one, let's look forward to more android antics in the future!

And that's the end of The Beano, issue one from 1938. Join me next time for an issue from 1946!

(No point complaining, I am doing this.)

Finally tally: Number of dead animals: 12

Dead humans: 3

Dead bees after being sucked into vacuum cleaner: Unknown

Animals spontaneously generated by magic: 1 horse