Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Save The Dandy

The Dandy is dying and it needs help. The Dandy is the best children's comic since Oink! in the mid-eighties. Sure it's a bit patchy at times, but it has the best writing, genuinely funny strips, excellent artists and it's all made with love by underpaid and supremely under-appreciated guys and girls who just love doing comics. If it dies what else is there to read? The Beano is still stuck as it always was, great traditional comic art applied to average writing by committee (for the most part). Toxic has very few comics and the word is that it will have less soon.  (Still, you can get a poster and some sweets and a bit of plastic tat for your £3.99). TV show tie-ins (some of these do have some great original comics in them) and magazines for children that I imagine they throw away in disgust when they find out that they are almost entirely content free.

Here's my advice-go and buy it! It only costs £1.99 and Mums, it's the best two quid you could spend if you want your 6-12 year old to pipe down for a bit. Can't find it? It's been available on Newsstand on the app store for ages, and you can download a whole load of comics if you happen to want to keep your kids occupied for a journey to Calais. And then give them some pens and paper and get them to draw their own comics. That's how I learned to draw-in the back of the car on driving holidays to the continent.

This is the death of great comics for kids. It really is. Stop it happening. Tweet #SaveTheDandy

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