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The Beano of today is pure comic strip, back in 1938
it was very different indeed. The original 28 page issue had seven full text stories. These took up 10 of those 28
pages. There were also six stories in the traditional, narrative under picture format, with the remaining pages experiencing
the radical speech balloons only format. In fact, even some of these stories had narrative under the picture
The Dandy and Beano had a success because this was
due to its radical new approach to comics. It's physical size was small and practical when compared to Illustrated Chips,
Funny Wonder and Jester. The traditional comics were steeped in history, but their format was becoming staid. The stories
had a picture above some text narrative. The idea of this was to give children some literacy experience. Back in late
Victorian times and early 20th century, illiteracy was rife. However, as the years passed, and education standards improved,
D.C.Thomson realised that children were quite capable of looking at a picture and working out what was going on. lines and
lines of text was not needed when a couple of speech balloons would be acceptable.A gamble which paid off handsomely
for David Couper Thomson!
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