Beano Annual 2017


By many and various (DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.)
ISBN: 978-1-84535-603-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: No Christmas Complete Without One… 9/10

For many British fans Christmas means The Beano Book and/or its companion tome The Dandy – although Scots worldwide have a pretty fair claim that the season belongs to them with collections of The Broons and Oor Wullie making every Yule truly cool. Happily in these parlous times of uncertainty both are available this year to maintain a magnificent Seasonal tradition and a smidgen of comforting stability.

Unmissable treats for generations of kids and grandparents, this year both great big (285 x 215 mm) full-colour hardback Annual offerings are packed with a wealth of talent and as great as ever…

Beano Annual 2017 takes us through key points of the year and offers a wildly anarchic gathering of stars, opening and closing with chaotically star-stuffed double page spreads by Nigel Parkinson.

The panoply of perilous perishing kids unleashes Dennis the Menace and Gnasher, David Sutherland’s Bash Street Kids, Roger the Dodger, Gnasher and Gnipper!, Calamity James, Minnie the Minx and Bananaman in daily doses of crime and punishments – and the cartoon attractions do so on a regular basis throughout the book as they track through a year in the life of the characters…

However, colossal themed team-ups are all the rage these days, so we have some of those too, as Beanotown Adventures offers a shocking mash-up of little horrors amusing in unison.

Nigel Parkinson delineates the Valentine’s Day calamity after Minnie gets hold of Cupid’s machine gun and starts dispensing love-bullets to all and sundry, providing unspeakable horror and embarrassment to the other characters all over town…

Shorter strips that follow include Nigel Aucterlounie’s The Numskulls, more Bash Street Kids, Wilbur Dawbarn’s Billy Whizz and return engagements for Roger, Dennis, Gnasher, and Minnie, whose time-travel caper takes us from January to St. George’s Day. Then Ball Boy and Bananaman endure inclement weather and the hay fever rites of Spring…

Easter with the Bash Street Kids leads to another multi-star Beanotown Adventure set on a flatulence-filled May Fourth – yes! Star Wars Day…

The recurring cast pop up thick and fast in quick solo japes or extended excursions such as Bananaman’s clash with the book’s recurring masked villain “Boy Genius”

Amongst the storm of madcap mayhem, Laura Howell’s know-it-all Angel Face puts her foot down and The Numskulls endure even more allergy aggro in Edd’s Head before the Bash Streeters have their own brush with Boy Genius.

More solo strips from old pals then carry us into high summer as ‘Beach Bother’ sees the entire unsavoury cast hit the seaside for another aggregated Beanotown Adventure…

Diverse hands take all those sullen kids ‘Back to School’ and all too soon Halloween rears its misshapen, badly carved orange heads; but even doughty Bananaman can’t stop the little louts sneaking out to a stone age monument for a mass Beanotown party only to encounter ‘The Creature from the Big Rocks Henge!’…

All too soon it’s Yule time again and after a silly streak of solo stories, the cast all reunite for the big closer as the esteemed Mr. Dickens gets a hilarious kicking in ‘A Christmas Beano Carol’…

Fast, irreverent and timelessly exuberant, The Beano Annual is a cornerstone of British culture and national celebration at this time of year. Have you got yours yet?
© DC Thomson & Co., Ltd 2016.