Comic Transitions - the Dandy

Stand by for a mega cow-pie sized helping of strips as we go to part two of our look into the transition from traditional newsprint to the colour comics of the Dandy.
Today’s post will show all four Desperate Dan strips, and as such, I’ll have textual links to these strips, so as it wont crash less powerful systems.

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As I mentioned in part one, IPC/Fleetway had made the transition from traditional newsprint to their final transition to “all colour”. However, D. C. Thomson started to make the transition in early 1988, but unlike Buster or Whizzer and Chips, there was no fanfare for the Dandy’s first stage changeover. In the issue dated 13/2/1988, there was news of a special stiicker album that was coming in the 20/2/1988 issue of both the Dandy and the Beano.

What readers of the Dandy didn’t know was next weeks’ issue would have a new look, with half the pages in black and white and half in colour.

We start our look at the Dan strip from this issue. Beware of Aunt Aggie when she’s on the warpath. here is page one, and page two.

one of the last pages to appear in spot colour magenta red was the revival of John Geering’s Mutt and Moggy (which we all know is Puss an’ Boots from Sparky (and later the Topper)).
Here is their last spot colour page.

The following week saw the first new look issue, and outside of the promotion of the sticker album, there was little fanfare for the new look. the only reference to the new look appeared in the Jocks and the Geordies strip, where one of the Jocks mentioned that the Dandy had a new look!

In this issue, Dan seems to be in love (well, it was St. Valentines day when this issue went on sale, but Dan’s courting didn’t go to plan). Here is part one and part two.

Making their full colour debut this week were the Dandy’s terrible toddlers, Cuddles and Dimples. (I'm not so sure if this was the first.  I'll dig into my collection to confirm whether they did appear in full colour on the first transitional issue, and I'll make the corrections down the track. (Update, it isn't, but the terrible toddlers first colour appearance will appear in my look at Cuddles and Dimples once the old blog has been transferred over here.  In the meantime, here is their appearance in the first full colour issue.)

What was happening at the Beano? they would make the change later on in the year. More on this in part three in thirty minutes.
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We come now to 1993, and Buster had enjoyed nearly four years in their then new “all colour” format, but that was about to change. In September 1993, D. C. Thomson made the announcement that the Dandy would be going FULL COLOUR from the issue dated 18/9/1993. The image at right is the previous weeks’ issue, which made the announcement here, and here is the Dan story for this issue here and here.

Dan gets an extra appearance this week, on Beryl the Peril’s page, and things don’t look good for Dan. I wonder what would have happened if Beryl had visited Dan’s page? It would have been a whole lot different ;)

The issue dated 18/9/1993 would be a spectacular with the first full colour issue, and Dan is on the loose with some tubes of paint. See the full story here for page one, here for page two and here for page three (Yep, Dan started his first three page strip from this issue)

We conclude our look with a Bananaman strip. what’s this? Santa Claus in September? (although the way things are going if the advertisers have their way, we will see Santa in September!  ;)
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This concludes our look at the Dandy.In thirty minutes, my final look at the transitions will concentrate on the Beano.  Standby for plenty of menacing from you-know-who. ;)