The Beano  

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The Beano is a long running British children's comic, published by DC Thomson.

The comic first appeared on 30 July 1938, and was published weekly. In September 2009, The Beano's 3,500th issue was published. The Beano is currently edited by Craig Graham. Each issue is published on a Thursday, with the issue date being that of the following Saturday.

Its characters include Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, The Bash Street Kids, The Numskulls, Roger the Dodger, Billy Whizz and Ball Boy. Earlier characters who have been phased out include Ivy the Terrible, Calamity James, The Three Bears and Pansy Potter. Some old characters, like Biffo the Bear, Lord Snooty, Baby Face Finlayson and Little Plum, have more recently made a return as "funsize" quarter-page strips.

The style of Beano humour has shifted noticeably over the years, though the longstanding tradition of anarchic humour has remained. For decades strips have appeared to glorify immoral behaviour, e.g. bullying (Dennis the Menace), dishonesty (Roger the Dodger) and even robbery (Baby Face Finlayson and The Three Bears). Although the readers' sympathies are assumed to be with the miscreants, the latter are very often shown punished for their actions. Recent years have seen a rise in humour involving gross bodily functions, especially flatulence (which would have been taboo in children's comics prior to the 1990s), while depictions of corporal punishment have declined. For example, the literal slipper (Dennis the Menace's father's instrument of chastisement) has become the name of the local chief of police (Sergeant Slipper).

In the days of the British Empire, the comics were also distributed in some colonies. As they were sent by sea mail, they would go on sale some weeks after the date shown on the cover. They can still be found post-independence in these former territories.

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The Beano" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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