{"id":4217,"date":"2016-05-16T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T09:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2016-05-16T09:00:53","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T09:00:53","slug":"bravo-for-the-beano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=4217","title":{"rendered":"Bravo for The Beano"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Reading<\/a>

Reading matter\/Sally Crossthwaite\/flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

For me The<\/em> Beano<\/em> has always had something about it <\/span>of forbidden fruit \u2013 no, make that forbidden and utterly delicious cake stuffed full of E numbers. I was brought up on an earnest diet of edifying comics like Playhour<\/em>, with its high-minded series about a travelling guinea pig called Gulliver (geddit?), and Look and Learn<\/em>, with its \u2013 well, need I say more? It was all a bit \u2018My parents kept me from children who were rough.\u2019<\/p>\n

Even its spongy paper and washed-out printing were alluring, signalling all the insouciance and anarchy to be found within its pages (which was more than you could say of Bunty<\/em>, all of whose denizens seemed to go to private school).<\/p>\n

The Beano<\/em> set out its credentials right from the start: issue one had a whoopee mask giveaway (it looked like an ordinary eye mask, to be honest), and the front cover featured a small black boy in patched dungarees eating a slice of watermelon. Issue two came with a free packet of Sugar Button sweets.<\/p>\n

Looking at the contents of some of the early editions, you can see evidence of a peculiarly British \u2013 or even English \u2013 obsession: bottoms. On the cover of the first issue an ostrich gets bitten on the bum because it hatched a crocodile egg. Two years later, Helpful Henry gets caned by teacher for helpfully wiping the board clean of a meticulously set out maths lesson. Shockingly, Keyhole Kate gets thrashed with an umbrella by a complete stranger because of her intrusive exploits.<\/p>\n

Part of The Beano<\/em>‘s appeal\u00a0lies in its attention to detail.\u00a0In the corners of the frames there is often an exuberant sideshow of commentary or ludicrous set-dressing. In the latest edition Calamity James heads off to the barber\u2019s, where there is a poster advertising the No. 3 cut: yes, just three hairs standing up on the top of your head. One that has passed into our family\u2019s sayings came from a strip in which the Bash Street Kids were struggling to take tea respectably, with a labelled arrow drawing our attention to one of the main ways of achieving this: \u2018Note swanky little finger\u2019.<\/p>\n

It may now be printed in bright colours on glossy paper, and contain a World Wildlife Fund leaflet inviting readers to adopt a snow leopard, but there is still much that is un-PC in the modern Beano<\/em>. Fatty is fat because he is greedy, Walter the Softy is still with us, and the football seniors in the Ball Boy strip all have walking sticks and not a tooth between them. Would we really want it any other way?<\/p>\n

Like everyone else, The Beano <\/em>has diversified into radio programmes, an online presence, and merchandising. (Their mugs are advertised against a backdrop of mayhem in famous cut-price supermarket Widl as Beano<\/em> characters joust with baguettes, heads protected with colanders)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve realised I have a very soft spot for The Beano<\/em>. Parking wars are raging in our street at the moment, with a large and ancient camper van being plonked outside various houses for months at a time. It is tatty, rusty and lichen-covered, and looks like the lair of a serial killer, or (I am told) something out of Breaking Bad<\/em>. With my \u2018disgusted of Tunbridge Wells\u2019 hat on, I\u2019d even go so far as to describe it as an eyesore. But it came back from a half-term trip with a copy of The Beano<\/em> on the dashboard, and \u2013 briefly \u2013 all was forgiven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bottoms: a peculiarly British obsession<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55,53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4217"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4249,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions\/4249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}