Sixty 60 Years of the Beano and the Dandy: Focus on the Fifties

The Beano Book/Annual #66.5

by D.C. Thomson & Company Limited

Book by D C Thomson Co

Genres: Humor, Comics

144 pages, Hardcover

First published September 8, 1999

About the author

D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, is a publishing company based in Dundee, Scotland, best known for producing The Dundee Courier, The Evening Telegraph, The Sunday Post, Oor Wullie, The Broons, The Beano, The Dandy and Commando comics. It also owns Friends Reunited, Parragon, and the Aberdeen Journals Group which publishes the Press and Journal, the Evening Express, the Aberdeen Citizen and the North Scotland edition of ScotAds.

The company began as a branch of the Thomson family business when William Thomson became the sole proprietor of Charles Alexander & Co., publishers of Dundee Courier and Daily Argus. In 1884, David Coupar Thomson took over the publishing business, and established it as DC Thomson in 1905. The firm flourished, and took its place as the third J in the "Three Js", the traditional summary of Dundee industry ('jam, jute and journalism'). Thomson was notable for his conservatism, vigorously opposing the introduction of trade unions into his workforce, and for refusing to employ Catholics.

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting for me as I was born in 1960 so it was good to see how familiar characters (to me) like Rodger the Dodger, Minnie the Minx, Little Plum and The Bash Street Kids developed. Pleasing to see old favourites like Dennis, Biffo, Lord Snooty and Desperate Dan. Cartoon strips that were defunct before I was born and I had forgotten all about Smasher.

Ray Smillie

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a nice compilation of some of the old Beano and Dandy stories from the 1950s.