Happy 87th birthday, BEANO!

By John Freeman on July 26, 2025

Beano Comic No 1 (1938) with free gift Whoopee Mask

Beano Comic No 1 (1938). Introducing Big Eggo, Lord Snooty and His Pals, Morgyn the Mighty and Tin-Can Tommy. Reprints have removed the controversial contemporary stereotype character featured in the masthead. Cover by by Reg Carter

Happy 87th birthday to the BEANO, whose first issue was cover dated 30th July 1938, but was in newsagents on 26th July.

“Enter Big Eggo and Lord Snooty, as two of the original comic strip characters, alongside a host of other comic and adventure strips, plus prose stories,” auctioneer and BEANO archivist Phil Shrimpton has previously noted.

The staple of household names we know today – including Dennis the Menace, The Bash Street Kids, Minnie the Minx, Roger The Dodger etc – didn’t appear until the comics 1950s heyday, when the comic eventually was made up of entirely comic strips, the format by which it remains to this day.

Rival titles on the newsagent shelves in 1938, vying for kids pocket money, included Mickey Mouse Weekly (a Whitsun 1938 issue featured here on Lew Stringer’s Blimey! blog), Butterfly, Film Fun, and many, many others, no longer publishing today.

Featured here are the covers for Numbers 1, 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000, to show its journey along the way, evolving with the times to stay current, exciting and relevant to its target audience. It’s still going strong as a weekly comic, and, as Phil, and many others say, long may it continue!

• BEANO is online at BEANO.com

Head downthetubes for…

• BEANO: How to Spot a Beano No. 1

Ever wondered if you might have a copy of the very first Beano EVER? Check our handy guide to see if you’ve got the real deal!

• How British comic cover dates have (largely) lied to you for decades

Why are we celebrating the launch of The Beano today, you’re asking… the date on the cover is 30th July! Well…

British comics publishers – and, indeed, any publisher – love a good anniversary. Who doesn’t want to celebrate milestone dates for a long-running title? It gives many readers a feel good buzz, you can hang a promotion around it. News sites can give your celebration an extra boost, with “On This Day” styled reports.

Sounds great, right?

Except, in many cases, unless it’s a milestone issue number that’s being marked, all those celebrations and anniversary posts are appearing a week later than they actually need to. Lew Stringer explains…

• Oink!! blog: Beano No. 1: The First One

Phil Boyce revisits facsimile edition of Beano No. 1, as included in the the special 80th anniversary box set, put together by DC Thomson in 2018 – without its now controversial masthead character…

• The Myth of the Speech Balloon

Lew Stringer explains The Beano and The Dandy weren’t the first comics to use speech balloons

*A rare copy of The Beano No. 1, with the promotional flyer released a week ahead of the comic’s publication in 1938, sold by Comic Book Auctions in 2015 for a whopping £17,300*

• downthetubes First issue of The Beano, with only known surviving Free Gift, offered at auction (9th August 2024)

• downthetubes: Beano Number One sells for over £4000, 2000AD Prog 2 With Free Gift for over £1000 (3rd December 2024)

• History of The Beano – The Story so Far by Morris Heggie (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)

Published back in 2008, written by DC Thomson insider and ex-Dandy editor Morris Heggie, this is a huge coffee table book “that needs a coffee table with sturdy legs to support it,” Lew Stringer commented at the time. “At 350 pages, covering the 70 year history of the comic plus an index to all the stories and the issues they appeared in, this really is the definitive book on The Beano. … Morris Heggie… has been able to access the company’s vaults for some long-unseen gems.”

• The Dandy and The Beano 1937 – 1969 Classic Christmas Comic Covers, published by Phil-Comics in 2013, is available to buy on eBay and Amazon

Savour fifty years of wonderful comic covers from the classic British comics Beano and The Dandy

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.