I’m only mildly familiar with the British tradition known as The Beano. I know there’s a British version of Dennis the Menace who bears no resemblance to Hank Ketcham’s creation beyond the idea that they’re both right little stinkers. And I know that the weekly Beano has been published for decades. So I was really looking forward to grabbing a couple of issues.

First of all, it was hard to find a copy. On the newsstand, especially the independent corner ones that are just outside the Tube stops, I couldn’t find a copy and the vendors just shook their heads when I asked. It took a trip to Border’s, yes that Border’s, to grab them. I picked up The Beano #3490 (July 4, 2009) and The Beano #3491 (July 11, 2009). Both issues have all the regular features. Dennis is there (along with an effeminate gang of rivals called The Softies), Minnie The Minx (the world’s wildest Tomboy), Bea & Ivy (a sort of Muppet Babies version of Dennis and his friends), The Bash Street Kids (the perennial favorite created long ago by the great Leo Baxendale), Ball Boy (he’s football crazy), Rasher (Dennis’ pet pig), The Numskulls, Freddie Fear (the son of a witch), Billy The Whiz (the fastest boy in the world) and several others.

And the best I can do to sum them up is: I don’t get it. These issues feel as if they were published back in the 1960s or even earlier. Despite some attempts at a contemporary feel – including references to A-listers and Pirates of the Caribbean (courtesy of a Fred’s Bed story by the great Hunt Emerson) the material feels and even looks dated. All phones are still wall-mounted units with chords, the host of a TV show is wearing a turtleneck with a purple leisure-style suit, there’s a hand-cranked pencil sharpener on the teacher’s desk, and a boy who shows any kind of decent behavior is called “a softie,” the worst insult one boy can call another. Worse, in issue #3490, Dennis’ pet pig gets dressed up as a cop – in a uniform straight out of the 1960s - and some passing hippies – that’s right, hippies - make a “cops as pigs” reference, man. That may give a level of comic book comfort-food appeal to an older audience that grew up with The Beano, but I can’t see the material here capturing and holding onto the attention of today’s kids. None of the kids in these stories are doing anything remotely similar to the kids of today. There are no references to cellphones, the internet, computers, video games (although Emerson manages to sneak in a Nintendo DS in a corner of his strip) or anything that helps the stories feel contemporary and relevant to the audience.

The artists all do a nice job – there are some great cartooning chops on display in both issues - and The Beano looks and feels like it should be a terrifically funny comic book, even with the limitations of a specific house style that most of the artists follow. But it’s not. It’s clear that the folks at publisher D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd., are happy and content with the product as it is. That’s too bad. The Beano could be and should be so much more. It could be the British comic for the kids of today. Without a strong creator allowed to take charge and update the property with a new, modern vision, The Beano follows the same basic model as Archie Comics in the U.S.: the characters are just familiar four-color chess pieces to be moved around in the service of familiar jokes that lead to groans instead of laughs.

I’m not suggesting that someone go in and make “Dark Beano” or “The Beano Simpsons,” but someone should look around at kids’ entertainment circa 2009 and see what’s keeping them on the edge of their seats. The short-lived and much loved DFC had the right idea – great cartoonists with independent voices and varying styles creating material that was funny and current. All they lacked was the money and the distribution. Which is, sadly, a lot for a comic book company to lack.

One thing that’s different from the States is that the newsstand doesn’t care about collectibility of its comic books. Issue #3491 features a special gift – two Splat Balls – that are packaged and taped to the front cover. There’s no way to rack that issue on the newsstand without “damaging” the cover in accordance to Overstreet standards.

[Artwork: Cover to The Beano #3490, ©2009 D.C. Thomson]