Classics from the Comics was a British comics magazine, published from March 1996 until October 2010. Published monthly, it was D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd's third all-reprint comic. It replaced The Best of Topper and The Best of Beezer, which had reprinted old strips for some years.
The comic had 64 pages, which were prefaced with a contents page ("Classic Contents") and until 2007 were followed by an advert for the next month's issue, with the back cover showing original strips starring Roger the Dodger, Little Plum, Plug, Beryl the Peril amongst others, drawn by Gordon Bell or Keith Reynolds.
In 2006, the cover was redesigned to show "Classics from the Comics" with a roundel containing Korky the Cat's head and the words Classics Collection, and a large illustration by Ken H. Harrison. The new editor started penning a letter to the readers on the contents page, and the advert and original strip on the inside and back covers were replaced by further reprinted strips, which are always Korky the Cat and Biffo the Bear.
A small notice was published on all the pages, identifying which comic the strip comes from (Classic Beano, Classic Dandy, etc.). Near the end of each issue, a "Readers Requests" postal address was displayed, so readers could write to DC Thomson and request other archive strips to go in a future issue.
Free gifts in the form of The Fun Size Beanos or The Fun Size Dandys were featured in early issues, plus free gifts originally given away with The Beano or The Dandy. In July 2004 Classics from the Comics celebrated its 100th issue, revamping the front cover at the same time, changing the logo from a plain serif font to a sans-serif one with a 3-D effect.
The August 2008 issue was a Beano special, featuring only characters from that 70-year-old comic. It featured the oldest (Ping the Elastic Man and Deep Down Daddy Neptune, 1938), and most recent stories (specifically the picture of Dennis, Gnasher, Wallace & Gromit from the Beano printed only the previous day; the most recent actual story was "Crazy for Daisy" from 2003) ever used. For this issue, the usual Korky roundel was replaced with the logo from the 70 Years of Fun collector's edition.
'D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd's Golden Years/60 Years/70 Years books, which are brought out each Christmas, are effectively Classic From the Comics' annual, although they started in 1988, eight years before Classics launched.
Despite a further 'retro' relaunch in the spring of 2010, Classics from the Comics ended that October, the final issue being number 175.
The Beano is the longest running British children's comic magazine, published by DC Thomson in Dundee, Scotland. The comic first appeared on 30 July 1938, and was published weekly. In September 2009, The Beano's 3,500th issue was published. One of the best selling comics in the UK, along with The Dandy, the weekly circulation of The Beano in April 1950 was 1,974,072. The Beano is currently edited by John Anderson. Each issue is published on a Wednesday, with the issue date being that of the following Saturday. The Beano reached its 4,000th issue on 28 August 2019.
The Beezer was a British comic that ran from 21 January 1956 to 21 August 1993.
The Topper was a UK comic published by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd that ran from 7 February 1953 to 15 September 1990, when it merged with The Beezer.
The Dandy was a British children's comic magazine published by the Dundee based publisher DC Thomson. The first issue was printed in December 1937, making it the world's third-longest running comic, after Il Giornalino and Detective Comics. From August 2007 until October 2010, it was rebranded as Dandy Xtreme.
Biffo the Bear is a British comic strip from The Beano about the eponymous bear which was created in 1948 by Dudley D. Watkins.
Big Eggo was a British comic strip series about an eponymous ostrich, published in the British comic magazine The Beano. He first appeared in issue 1, dated 30 July 1938, and was the first ever cover star. His first words in the strip were "Somebody's taken my egg again!" It was drawn throughout by Reg Carter.
A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper.
Beryl the Peril is a fictional character created by David Law, the creator of Dennis the Menace, for issue 1 of The Topper comic published by DC Thomson & Co. Limited. Like Dennis, she had black and red apparel, and devilishly tormented her parents and other members of her community. Despite not having quite as many appearances as other DC Thomson characters such as Dennis the Menace or Desperate Dan, Beryl is still considered one of the classic characters which define the popularity of British comics.
Nick Brennan is a British cartoonist who works mainly for D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. He started drawing for the company in 1993, drawing a revival of Peter Piper from The Dandy, revived from The Magic Comic, but looking nothing like Watkins' creation, instead sporting an Elvis-like hairdo and purple jumper.
Dudley Dexter Watkins was an English cartoonist and illustrator. He is best known for his characters Oor Wullie and The Broons; comic strips featuring them have appeared in Scottish newspaper The Sunday Post since 1936, along with annual compilations. Watkins also illustrated for comics such as The Beano, The Dandy, The Beezer and Topper, and provided illustrations for Christian stories.
Korky the Cat is a fictional character in a comic strip in the UK comic The Dandy. It first appeared in issue 1, dated 4 December 1937, except for one issue, No. 294 when Keyhole Kate was on the cover. In 1984, after 47 virtually continuous years, Korky was replaced on the front cover by Desperate Dan.
David Sutherland is an artist with DC Thomson, responsible for The Bash Street Kids (1962–present), Dennis the Menace, Fred's Bed (2008-2012) for The Beano, and the second version of Jak for The Dandy in the early 2000s. He started out as an adventure strip artist, drawing strips such as The Beano's The Great Flood of London in 1960-61 and Billy the Cat, before replacing Leo Baxendale as the artist for The Bash Street Kids, who were given the two pages in the centre of the comic at the same time. He has been the strip's main artist since then, during which time he has drawn more than 2000 individual strips for the weekly comic. He also replaced Dudley D. Watkins on Biffo the Bear after his death in 1969, and continued to draw the character through the 1970s, after his strip relinquished that cover of the comic to Dennis in 1974.
Paddy Brennan is an Irish comics artist who worked mainly in the UK, drawing adventure strips for D. C. Thomson & Co. titles. He was a freelancer, working six months of the year in Dublin and six months in London.
The Fun Size Beano and Fun Size Dandy were small-format, full-colour children's comics, originally published four times monthly by DC Thomson and Co. Ltd between 1997 and 2010. They replaced the Beano and Dandy Comic Libraries, originally printed in red, white and black and published from 1982 to 1997. The Beano Comic Libraries lasted for 368 issues and their Dandy counterparts lasted for 344 issues. There were also comic library specials, The Beano Comic Library Specials being puzzle books and lasting for 87 issues (1988–1994) and the Dandy Comic Library Specials being cartoon books, featuring a number of single page comic strips and these lasted for 88 issues (1987–1994).
Adrian the Barbarian was a comic strip in the comic The Beezer, and later the merged Beezer and Topper, first introduced in 1989. It featured a boy who dressed as a barbarian with a magical sword. He lived in a very strange world where almost anything could happen, whether it be good or bad. Many inanimate objects gained life in the strip, for example a pile of coal for the fire turned into a man called Old King Coal. He appeared in The Beezer annual until the last one dated 2003.
Charles Grigg was a British comic artist for DC Thomson. He was the artist of The Dandy cover strip Korky the Cat. He also did Desperate Dan after the original artist, Dudley Watkins, died. In The Topper comic he drew Splodge, Willy Nilly, Foxy and Shorty Shambles.
Vic Neill was a British cartoonist who drew for D.C. Thomson and I.P.C.'s comics. His first notable comic work was on Sparky strip Peter Piper. In 1969, he replaced Dudley Dexter Watkins on Topper cover star Mickey the Monkey after Watkins' sudden death. Neill was a big admirer of Watkins' artwork. He made his debut in the Beano with The McTickles in 1971. In 1974, this was replaced by another Scottish-themed strip, Wee Ben Nevis.
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