Dandy The Dandy The Dandy is a long running children's comic published in the United Kingdom by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. The first issue was printed in 1937 and it is the world's third longest running comic, after Detective Comics and Il Giornalino...  strip
Desperate Dan
First artist	Dudley D. Watkins Dudley D. Watkins Dudley Dexter Watkins was a British cartoonist and illustrator. He is best known for his characters Oor Wullie and The Broons; comic strips featuring them have appeared in Scottish newspaper The Sunday Post since 1936, along with annual compilations...
Current/last artist	Jamie Smart Jamie Smart Jamie Smart is a British comic artist and writer, most famous for his ten-issue comic series, Bear. He has also had his comic My Own Genie published in the popular children's magazine The Dandy....
First appearance	Issue 1 (4 December 1937)
Last appearance	Ongoing
Regular characters	Desperate Dan, Aunt Aggie, Dawg, Little Bear, Danny, Katey, Sheriff, The Mayor, Zeke, Hoss, Dangerous Dan

Desperate Dan is a wild west

American Old West

The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...

 character

Fictional character

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

 in the British comic

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 The Dandy

The Dandy

The Dandy is a long running children's comic published in the United Kingdom by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. The first issue was printed in 1937 and it is the world's third longest running comic, after Detective Comics and Il Giornalino...

. He first appeared in its first issue, dated 4 December 1937. He is apparently the world's strongest man, able to lift a cow with one hand. Even his beard is so tough he has to shave with a blowtorch.

History

The strip was drawn by Dudley D. Watkins

Dudley D. Watkins

Dudley Dexter Watkins was a British cartoonist and illustrator. He is best known for his characters Oor Wullie and The Broons; comic strips featuring them have appeared in Scottish newspaper The Sunday Post since 1936, along with annual compilations...

 until his death in 1969. Although The Dandy Annual

The Dandy Annual

The Dandy Annual is the current name of the book that has been published every year since 1938, to tie in with the children's comic The Dandy. there have been 74 editions, with another presumably to follow in 2012. The annuals are traditionally published in August, in time for Christmas, and...

s featured new strips from other artists from then on, the comic continued reprinting Watkins strips until 1983 (though the then Korky the Cat

Korky the Cat

Korky the Cat is a fictional character in a comic strip in the UK comic The Dandy. It first appeared in issue 1, dated 4 December 1937, and was The Dandy's original cover star. He was on the front cover of Dandy for several decades only missing out one issue, No. 294 when Keyhole Kate was on the...

 artist Charles Grigg

Charles Grigg

Charles Grigg is a former comic artist for DC Thomson. He was the artist of The Dandy cover strip Korky The Cat. He also did Desperate Dan after the original artist, Dudley Watkins, died. In The Topper comic he drew Splodge! and Willy Nilly....

 drew new strips for annuals and summer specials), when it was decided to start running new strips. These were initially drawn by Peter Davidson, but Ken H. Harrison

Ken H. Harrison

Ken H. Harrison is an artist at DC Thomson, who drew Robbie Rebel, Big Brad Wolf and Lord Snooty for The Beano, The Hoot Squad for Hoot , The Broons and Oor Wullie for the Sunday Post, Skookum Skool, Spookum Skool and The Snookums for Buzz and Cracker comics.He drew Desperate Dan for The Dandy...

 soon took over as regular artist. The following year Dan was promoted to the front cover of The Dandy, replacing Korky who had been there since issue 1. Starting from issue 2985, dated 6 February 1999, Cuddles and Dimples

Cuddles and Dimples

Cuddles and Dimples are fictional characters in the UK comic The Dandy. The stories are based around two toddler brothers who like to cause double the trouble whether they go, much to the dismay of their parents, who in the earlier strips, were referred to as Daddums and Mumsie...

 replaced Dan on the front cover. This didn't last long, however, as after a readers' poll in 2000, Dan returned to the cover. Although Ken Harrison was the main artist from 1983 to 2007, other artists have also occasionally filled in for Harrison, including David Parkins

David Parkins

David Parkins is a British cartoonist and illustrator who has worked for D.C. Thomson, publisher of The Beano and The Dandy. Now based in Canada, he illustrates children's picture books....

 and Trevor Metcalfe

Trevor Metcalfe

Trevor Metcalfe born May 1939 in Brotton, Yorkshire is a British illustrator and comic book artist. Known for his comic strips in IPC Magazines comics such as Sweet Tooth and Junior Rotter in Whizzer and Chips....

 in the early 1990s. John Geering

John Geering

John Keith Geering was a British cartoonist with a distinctive, occasionally flamboyant style, most famous for his work for DC Thomson comics including Sparky, The Topper, Cracker, Plug, Nutty, The Beano and The Dandy....

 took over the strip between 1994 and 1997, after which Harrison returned as full-time artist (though Steve Bright occasionally acted as a ghost artist as well). When the Dandy was redesigned and renamed to Dandy Xtreme, the writers used reprints of the old comic strips, until Jamie Smart

Jamie Smart

Jamie Smart is a British comic artist and writer, most famous for his ten-issue comic series, Bear. He has also had his comic My Own Genie published in the popular children's magazine The Dandy....

 took over drawing and writing the Desperate Dan comic strips in April 2008.

Characteristics

Desperate Dan's favourite food is cow pie – a type of enormous meat pie with the horns sticking out, although the term "cow pie

Cow dung

Cow dung is the waste product of bovine animal species. These species include domestic cattle , bison , yak and water buffalo. Cow dung is the undigested residue of plant matter which has passed through the animal's gut. The resultant faecal matter is rich in minerals...

" has a different meaning in the American West.

Initially Dan was a desperado

Outlaw

In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...

 on the wrong side of the law, hence the name Desperate Dan. Later on, however, he switched sides and become a friendlier character, helping the underdog

Underdog (competition)

An underdog is a person or group in a competition, frequently in electoral politics, sports and creative works, who is popularly expected to lose. The party, team or individual expected to win is called the favorite or top dog. In the rare case where an underdog wins, the outcome is an upset. These...

. The first member of his family to appear in the strip was Aunt Aggie (issue 107, dated 16 December 1939) followed by his nephew, Danny (issue 304, dated 27 October 1945) and niece, Katey in 1957. In 2001, Desperate Dan's girlfriend Little Bear appeared; she was a native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 squaw

Squaw

Squaw is an English language loan-word, used as a noun or adjective, whose present meaning is an indigenous woman of North America. It is derived from the eastern Algonquian morpheme meaning 'woman' that appears in numerous Algonquian languages variously spelled squa, skwa, esqua, sqeh, skwe, que,...

 but disappeared with the 2007 Dandy relaunch, when Dan's artwork style changed.

Modernisation

With the first revamp of The Dandy (from issue 3282, 16 October 2004) Dan, though still drawn by Ken Harrison, was redesigned slightly. His eyes and chin became much bigger and exaggerated. Dan's personality was changed to that of a bumbling fool, a change to which many fans objected. He was originally going to be left out of the revamped issues, but focus group tests objected to his absence.

But, as of the "re-revamp" in August 2007, the strips became classic reprints on the back cover of Dandy Comix in The Dandy Xtreme. While the first few issues ran them in the original monochrome, they have since been run in coloured form, all reprints were adopted from the 1997 Legend of Desperate Dan book which was released to celebrate his 60th anniversary. For the "MegaComix Special" in February 2008, there were two Desperate Dan strips. One was the usual Dudley Watkins reprint, the other was a brand new one by Jamie Smart, who later became Dan's artist and writer for 12 issues in April 2008. The MegaComix Special also featured a guide to drawing, by Jamie Smart, which showed how he drew the Desperate Dan strip (which was over the page). This didn't actually feature, nor did the comic strip, inside the Comix pullout.

Later, in early April 2008, Jamie Smart

Jamie Smart

Jamie Smart is a British comic artist and writer, most famous for his ten-issue comic series, Bear. He has also had his comic My Own Genie published in the popular children's magazine The Dandy....

 took over writing and illustrating the Desperate Dan comic strips.

A number of spin-off

Spin-off (media)

In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...

 strips have appeared in The Dandy over the years, including Desperate Dawg in the 1970s and 80s, Danny and Katey in the late 1980s and Aunt Aggie in the 2000s (before the 2004 relaunch). A statue of him (and his dog Dawg) can be found in Dundee

Dundee

Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...

, Scotland – The Dandy is published by D. C. Thomson & Co. who are based in Dundee.

See also

• Desperate Dan Annual
• Guinness Book of Records
• Some History