A Beano Christmas

Perforation type: 13x13

Subject:

EU - non-denominated stamp, ready for postage of correspondence up to 20 grams in Europe.

Additional:

On the stamp - Santa and his reindeers find flying conditions difficult as Dennis turns the world's largest waterwheel at Laxey into a snowball chucking machine!

Perforation type: 13x13

Subject:

In addition to sheets of 20 stamps, the entire series was published in a sheet decorated in the form of a comic book magazine.

The stamps in the sheet completely repeat the plots of the main issue.

On one of the fragment of the sheet is Dennis, writing postcards for Christmas. Postcards in the comic repeat a set of postcards, actually released by the Isle of Man Post.

Size (of sheet, booklet) mm: 266x210

Subject:

52 pence.

Stamps issued on self-adhesive paper, in a series of 8 pieces and 3 series per sheet.

Additional:

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 will reach 4,000 issues in the summer of 2019.

In 1921, D. C. Thomson had first entered the field of boys' story papers with Adventure. The success of this paper led to five further publications, The Rover and The Wizard in 1922, The Vanguard in 1924, The Skipper in 1930 and The Hotspur in 1933. Although The Vanguard folded in 1926, the others were a great triumph and became known as "The Big Five"; they ended Amalgamated Press's near-monopoly of the British comic industry.

Another success was the Fun Section of D. C. Thomson's Scottish weekly newspaper The Sunday Post, which included the two strips Oor Wullie and The Broons by lead artist Dudley Watkins, as well as other funnies and various puzzles and adventure stories. This gave R. D. Low, the head of children's publications at D. C. Thomson at the time, the idea to create another Big Five, this time of comics intended for both boys and girls and consisting mainly of 'funnies' and more lighthearted adventure and text stories. With the creation of The Dandy in 1937, he placed an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph to find new artists to create weekly comic strips for his second book, and Reg Carter (who had originally published Mickey Mouse comics throughout the 1930s) responded in January 1938 with a few ideas and sketches. Carter and Low's eventual idea would be an ostrich that misplaced his eggs, which would later become Big Eggo, the first cover star of the eventually-named The Beano on 26 July 1938; the comic takes its name from the English word beano, a short form of bean-feast, a term for a festive meal, or loosely "a good time". The third paper, The Magic Comic, aimed at a slightly younger audience, followed in July 1939, but ceased publication in early 1941, due to paper rationing. Wartime shortages also prevented the New Big Five project from being completed.

The first edition of The Beano was dated 30 July 1938, and sold at two pence. It was full of comic strips (such as Lord Snooty, Wee Peem, Dead-Eyed Dick, Tin-Can Tommy) and prose stories (Ping the Elastic Man, My Dog Sandy, The Wishing Tree, etc.) and was an instant success, selling 443,000 copies that week. A facsimile of the first issue's cover was printed on the back of issue No. 2,000. Before Law's "new big five" plan, comic strips were printed in newspapers and/or a tabloid format, but the styles The Beano and The Dandy compacted their stories as well as extended them to fit 28 pages, despite selling at the same price as the traditionally-styled Amalgamated Press comics (Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips), and also began the boys' adventure newspaper books genre decline. Issue 272 (December 1945) was the first issue to sell over a million copies. During the Second World War, The Beano and The Dandy were published on alternating weeks because of paper and ink rationing. D. C. Thomson's other publications also suffered, with the Oor Wullie and The Broons annuals falling victim to paper and ink shortages. Paper and ink supplies were fully restored shortly after the end of hostilities and weekly publication of The Beano and The Dandy resumed in 1949. The 3,000th issue of The Beano was published in January 2000. The Beano is now the longest-running weekly comic, since The Dandy became a fortnightly comic in 2007, and later stopped publishing in 2013. The Beano's weekly circulation in April 1950 was 1,974,072; it currently sells slightly over 31,000 copies per week.

There were several milestone releases for the 80th anniversary in 2018. As well as the 80th Year boxset full of prizes, issue 3945 was guest edited by actor-turned children's author David Walliams and had a large crossover story about Bash Street School opening the Beanotown's 1938 time capsule and discovering a map, which leads to robots and a giant tentacle monster breaking out to attack the residents. There was also a flashback panel of the time capsule being sealed which featured a handful of comic strip characters from the first issue, later helping the present day characters discover how to defeat the tentacle monster, named Simon. The Beano was also the face of the 2018 Summer Reading Challenge, called Mischief Makers, which included a special Dennis the Menace novel tie-in called Dennis the Menace and the Chamber of Mischief by Beano artist Nigel Auchterlounie. The Dennis the Menace Fan Club was re-launched as a phone app, rebranded as The Dennis and Gnasher Fan Club, and allowed readers free membership, printable badges, and pranks. On television, the Sky Kids show SO Beano! aired; a TV show with special guests, children presenters, and fun and games, in a similar style to Friday Download and Scrambled! Classic comics also returned in a three-panel format in issues, mostly starring Big Eggo, Biffo the Bear and two special holiday books were published: a summer special and a Christmas special. Meanwhile, the 2019 annual included a double-page inner front and back cover full of 255 characters that have appeared over the comic's publications.

To celebrate Beano's 80th Birthday, we are honoured that Beano artist Nigel Parkinson and writer Craig Graham have created an exclusive comic strip which tells the funny story of  Dennis and Gnasher causing chaos on the Isle of Man.