Scans_Daily

Hi! Hope you've all enjoyed your holiday dinners and gotten at least some comfort from the day.

Tonight we'll have something to help your digestion, Beano! The Beano is arguably Britain's greatest weekly humor comic, having run for decades, and unlike many of the British comics I've been presenting, is still being published.

As before, I'll describe the strips you're not going to be seeing, as I'm only going to post six of nineteen story pages from issue 2137, July 2nd 1983.

( We start with Dennis the Menace. No, the other one. )

*"Baby-Face" Finlayson: An underage bandit. In this strip, he attempts to steal strawberries, only to be foiled by first birds, then the strawberry patch owner with an anti-bird net. "Baby-Face"'s father is named "Daddy-Face", by the by.

( Throw the book at him! )

*Minnie the Minx: A very naughty girl. In this strip, she tries taking up busking. Her complete lack of musical talent is only one of the problems with this idea.

( Things you did not know about the Hornblower family )

*Ball Boy: A soccer strip. Ball Boy's good at the overhead kick, but awful boastful about it, so the other lads find it amusing when he literally puts his foot in his mouth.

*The Nibblers: A family of mice. Their raid on a cat-guarded tin of biscuits is foiled by a budgie. Their attempts to get rid of the budgie fail, but accidentally get the cat mad at the bird, and the budgie switches allegiance.

*The Bash Street Kids: An unruly bunch of schoolchildren and their long-suffering teacher, Mr. Teacher. The class is invited to visit Farmer Payne's farm. Teacher reminds them of the Country Code, but their antics wind up causing Teacher to violate all the rules.

*Gnasher's Tale: Dennis' dog has a feud with a cat that yowls at night.

( The Sacred Cow has spoken. It is time for...the Ritual. )

*Smudge: A boy who enjoys getting dirty. His mother gives him a tin whistle in hopes that playing it will be good clean fun. Smudge finds a way to avoid the "clean" part.

*Grandpa: A senior citizen who lives with his father. Pops falls asleep, so Grandpa thinks he can run wild in the house. But he didn't reckon on the mice in his father's beard.

*Pup Parade: A group of dogs, each with their one particular personality trait. Wiggy boasts of his white coat, so Bones and Sniffy attempt to dirty him. At the end, they all wind up having to take a bath.

*Biffo the Bear: Talking bear, whose antiquated character design suggest he's been running since the very first Beanos. He doesn't actually talk for most of this installment, searching his house. Turns out he'd lost his voice.

( And now for a crossover! )

*The 3 Bears: A very hungry family of bears. This time, they attempt to make cash for food by giving tours of their "old relics." Sadly, the things they picked up at the Greizzly Gulch Dump aren't the sort of relics people are interested in seeing. And "borrowing" relics from Hank the Storekeeper turns out painful. So they're through with old relics...except Granny Bear, who always brings plenty of grub when she visits. Amusingly in retrospective, one of the items in her basket is "American Pie", emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes, no less. Just don't ask her what the secret ingredient is.


Could I prevail on one of our UK correspondents to pick up a current Beano and scan some pages for comparison?


Your thoughts and comments, everyone?