The Beano at 85

This week marks the 85th anniversary of the launch of the Beano, an iconic comic that in many respects is the last old school comic standing of the classics many of us had as children.

Today there are newer more "inclusive" characters and Teacher is now a supportive sort rather than a fearsome disciplinian but let's be honest here, that comic is intended for today's children and the world they inhabit which is in various ways different to what we experienced as we read the Beano at age nine or whatever age you were back then where the World of Dennis The Menace, Minnie and Roger The Dodger we read was like our home and school life.

In that way todays readers and us have the same connection with the comic which results in those sales to young readers that has kept it in weekly publication unlike the Dandy which we lost in late 2012.

To tie in with this a new edition of the Beantown Guide is being published setting out all the places and faces of the modern Beano for young fans.

School's Out edition

 Yes in  this district school is indeed out, blazers take a break and for some the last trip from the dorm takes place today until Autumn Term commences in September so I'll be away for a few days after next Friday, not sure about the soaking up the sun bit but certainly a break.

A break is something to be honest I badly need with every that's happened this year.

Thoughts do go back about to my earliest days at school and some of the things I had then that stayed with me across official childhood.

This was one I don't think I was the original first owner of, most likely to have been my older brother but passed down as he was getting around the age of transition to high school was on the card so he had other things like science books and what today we'd call part works that built into a encyclopedia.

Published in 1968 and like most yearbooks for the next year, this was one I read cover to cover often when I was unwell while in time I got the then current books from the seventies.

 

Although I have a feeling I had seen this before I certainly had not any recollection of having it here in forty odd years so recently I was able to pick up the 1968 yearbook published in 1967 when is when the start of the now deemed classic line up of John Noakes with Valerie Singleton got together to be joined the next year by Peter Purves that last to around 1972.

Most copies suffer from damaged spines as the bindings were not very good which when coupled by many super eager reads soon break off, further exposing the binding to wear and tear.

Fortunately this copy had a repair done to it which appeared to have done the trick.

Now 12" 80's: 1980 and 1981

Those people at Now What You Call Music must be getting busy as after resuming the Now Yearbook series with the 1992 volume and  regiving us Now15 they've decided to start a new 80's series.

Compilations of 12" mixes aren't exactly new and Now have given us three 80's sets in the recent past but what makes this series of value is that each set has the hit 12" mixes of one year which as with the Yearbook series I find helps get you into a year and its memories better than a random all 80's set.

Thus this fits well with your Now Yearbooks for giving you the longer more extended side of the hits of the year and in this sets case adds such unforgettable hits as D.I.S.C.O by Ottowan in it's extended for that the 1980 Yearbook left off, the delectable Taste Of Bitter Love by Gladys Knight & The Pips, Blondie's pounding Call Me and the S.O.S. band's Take Your Time (and do it right) among many others.

Overall musically speaking this draws mainly from soul, funk and disco which remained big in this year at least in the UK but brings in those early New Wave synthesizer sounds from the likes of OMD and Spandau Ballet.

 

1981 was one of the best years for pop music in the UK mixing, soul, funk, synth pop  and reggae and that is well represented in the 1981 set from the delights of Japan's Quiet Life, the mixture of new wave and rap in Wordy Rappinghood by the Talking Heads  spin off Tom Tom Club, Ottowan's Hands Up showing that in the UK at least disc wasn't dead, quality soul from the Jones Girls with Nights Over Egypt and Physical by Olivia Newton-John.

 

My only criticism is they've reverted to a folded card sleeve with panels packaging with no write up  where this would of been better served up in the Yearbook style with a short write up on each song with pictures but overall these are a great set and series to collect if like me you did buy those 12" singles back in the day.

Uncovered edition

 I was away last weekend and arrived as the great garden works were about to unfold with the arrival of the "large" skip in the afternoon after a nightmarish journey involving a good half an hour delay and super rapid platform alterations just minutes before the train was due out and indeed had been on time.

Much progress is being made uncovering the garden from its overgrown state at the side, like you can now see grass and a pathway plus strewn about stuff has gone from by it and the sheds.

Further exploration of the house is uncovering things such as scarcely read books, old school photographs of Nativity Plays, old newspaper and the like.

It's no secret I read comics on this blog as much as we keep the other bits of my life elsewhere shall we say but in with all of this stuff was inexplicably the September 13 2014 issue of The Beano which reading Wednesday afternoon has lots of connection to the children's culture of the 2010's even if some of the more recent changes such as more ethnically and disability inclusive added characters were not to be seen nor the Spotty becoming Scotty name changes.

That wasn't something children seemed really into back then and I suspect adult involvement drove it although I agree the overall idea of bringing broader representation of more diverse society from that of 1950's Britain never mind that of the 1970's and 80's.

Adults can argue over it -and they do- but the world children are growing up in is different and so needs to be one they themselves recognize as much as is this is fiction.