'The Beano's' Lord Snooty (Part 1 of 4) by Dave Miller

The children’s classic comic character has evolved into a modern day insult.

Lord Snooty by Dudley Watkins

The Dandy & The Beano

DC Thomson Ltd of Dundee, Scotland, was established by David Coupar Thomson in 1905, and has been a major publisher of magazines, newspapers and comics in Britain ever since. The company is best known as the publisher of the Dandy comic (launched on 4th December 1937, and for decades one of the longest running comic titles in the world), and its younger sister, The Beano, launched on 30th July 1938 and still published today. .

The Beano #1 (1938)

According to Roger Sabin, the Dandy and the Beano, more than any others, have defined modern perceptions of a comic in Britain. And thanks to DC Thomson, Dundee is often referred to as the comics capital of Britain. 

The Beano is the longest running British children’s comic magazine, and one of the best-selling comics, along with The Dandy. Its most famous characters and stories include Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, The Bash Street Kids, The Numskulls, Roger the Dodger, Billy Whizz, and The Legend of Lord Snooty and His Pals. To this day the Beano is still popular; in 2018 it was selling more than 37,500 copies a week, or 1.86 million copies a year. 

Happy 80th birthday to The Beano

What was so special about these comics? According to Anita O’Brien, director curator at London’s Cartoon Museum, when comics like the Beano and Dandy first emerged in the 1930s, they were almost the only entertainment available to children.  

In Sabin’s account, the early children’s comics produced by the Amalgamated Press (AP) were popular, but staid and old fashioned. Text captions ran underneath each cartoon panel, and often the images merely illustrated the descriptions given in the text. But the text captions were AP’s way of countering critics who complained at that time that comics were a threat to literacy.

Happy Days - October 1938 (Amalgamated Press)

When DC Thomson moved into the production of comics it was already a well-established publisher, with a monopoly of Dundee's newspapers. The Dandy and The Beano appeared in the late 1930s, and were immediately popular, as Chris Murray argues.

Why were these comics so popular? The Beano and Dandy looked similar to comics that already existed (especially the AP comics) in that they were printed on cheap paper, with color covers and black/ white inside pages (as in the ‘Happy Days’ comic above). But Sabin maintains that the Beano and Dandy were years ahead of their time, and that they redefined the genre. Placing dialogue within word-balloons seemed to make a big difference; the drawings seemed more dynamic, and were no longer not tied to the rigid AP panel format, which allowed more fluent joke-telling. Murray points out the word balloon idea came from the format of American comics at that time. This new style in British comics revolutionized the comics industry, and made the Dandy and Beano household names. 

But the DC Thomson titles were also unusual and interesting in how they approached the storytelling. Murray argues that from the beginning DC Thomson drew on the tradition of political comics and social commentary, particularly Hogarth and Gillray, and their satirical prints of working class life. 

DC Thomson's comics were calculated to appeal to children rather than parents, so seemed much more unruly and anarchic than their competition at AP. AP comics were quite well mannered, while DC Thomson's were brash and featured working class characters. They appealed to children growing up in hard times, which was Dundee in middle of the 1930’s Great Depression, and were a distraction from the grim realities of the Depression and rationing.

Dundee poverty in 1930’s (Tweedie, 2019)

Dundee during the 1930’s Great Depression was a world where everyone was hungry all the time, where social inequalities were pronounced. Sabin believes this explains why there were so many comic strips about relationships between ‘toffs’ and the working class (e.g. the Lord Snooty comic), typically ending with a reward of ‘grub’, such as a plate of bangers (sausages) and mash, or massive pies - seen as a desirable reward. Curiously, this comic formula hasn’t changed much over the years.

Lord Snooty & grub - March 25th 1939 (‘The Legend of Lord Snooty & his Pals,’ 1998, p.14)

Interestingly, there are certain story/ stereotype combinations or themes which seem to be repeated in different comic strips within the Beano and Dandy. Readers in the “I love Comics forum” have identified three of the most common, namely: (1) the cheerful poor vs up-themselves nouveau riche (class difference/ social inequality); (2) hooligan idiots vs teachers pets; (3) ‘oikish’ lower orders vs lovable aristos (nostalgic idealised dream of feudalism, "all England loves a lord" etc.)

Murray believes the comics represent a kind of social history of Scotland, reflecting the character of the times, with humor and crafty japes keeping spirits high during hard times. The comic strips appealed to Scottish readers because it represented a world they recognized; though the comics also appealed, and made sense, to readers nationwide. The Dandy and Beano introduced a sharper, more knockabout type of fun and jokes, and a range of eccentric, strange but lovable characters. These included Desperate Dan and Lord Snooty by Dudley D. Watkins, Korky the Cat by James Critchton, Dennis the Menace by David Law, Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids by Leo Baxendale. The subject matter and the anarchic approach made these comics special, along with the simple, appealing drawing style.

Characters from the Dandy are joined by Paul McCartney in the last ever print edition of the Dandy (published in 2012)

The Beano and Dandy were radically different in that they allowed transgression against adults, challenge adult authority and celebrate a world of anarchy and mischief-making. This probably explains the enormous popularity and extraordinary longevity, as James Chapman emphasizes. There is often a strong sense of morality at play in the comic strips, but the Beano's strength is its sense of mischief and rough-and-tumble approach to life, which is surprising as DC Thomson had a reputation for staunch conservatism. Thompson himself openly discriminated against Catholic employees, and categorized job applications by religious affiliation. He also strongly opposed trade unions. Yet DC Thomson’s family business gave us characters such as the proto-punk Dennis the Menace and riot grrl forerunner Minnie the Minx, two children whose entire lives are geared towards taking on the adult world (and therefore the establishment). As The Guardian’s Ben Myers writes: “Teachers, parents and policemen - no one is safe from their catapults, pranks and stink bombs.”

Dave Miller is a designer and artist who makes mostly satirical works through combinations of comics, graphic novels, interactive and non-linear storytelling, especially in the context of computation, the Internet and emerging media. He has taught courses in both Design and Interactive Media at London South Bank University and Bournemouth University. He currently works at the Cartoon Museum in London, and is writing a political graphic novel. This is his first writing about comics.

The ‘Remembering UK Comics’ series is curated and edited by Dr William Proctor and Dr Julia Round, both of whom are Principal Academics at Bournemouth University, Dorset, UK.