Summer is very much before us as I heard a familar thud through the letter box as the pre-ordered Summer Specials arrived.
See the thing is we're off into Summer not that on Friday you'd of know it with the heavy rain we had in this part of the midlands and for some of us it means only one thing.
This week is an important week in that it is the one which D C Thomson publish what was for many of us a highlight of the year.
As regulars know we no longer have the Dandy as a regular 52 week comic since the end of the print run in 2012 and the demise of the digital edition in 2013 so we have an annual in time for Christmas and interestingly enough, a Summer Special each year.
What that amounts to is unlike its stablemate, the Beano, it inhabits the same world we remember, more or less as any comic does with those characters we grew up with and a few newer ones and to a larger extent, it keeps the feel and theme.
This years cover pays homage to a classic 1957 beano book cover by James Crighton as they were called back then and not annuals like today by design drawn by Steve Bright and runs with a football focused theme throughout that makes for a refreshing change from the "at the beach" covers we usually see.
Like last years edition this carefully treads a path of reprints from summer specials of the past, in this years instance mainly football based ones, and new carefully drawn and conceived new stories featuring our favourites with Lew Stringer doing some new Keyhole Kate, that gives an idea of how a regular Dandy might of been by the top comic artists of our time.
Equally we have a new Dreadlock Holmes story by Wayne Thompson while amongst the reprints is the very first Brassneck story, very much an iconic series in the Dandy from 1964.
This is this years Beano Summer Special looking very much like a regular edition but themed as a " Summer Activity Special" so it will have quizzes, find the missing words and things to colour alongside the totally themed storyline that features all the current inhabitants of Beanotown in one great summer time travel adventure that runs seamlessly through separate comic strips per page.
Unlike The Dandy this is very much in the present recognizable to today's ten year old readers very much in the style of the regular weekly comic
It has within it the ever popular stickers and jokes too which usually have me in stitches whenever I read them as a regular reader of the normal weekly edition.
This should be available from the middle of this week in the usual outlets although you can order via D C Thomson's own online shop
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