UK Summer Specials

BEANO and DANDY, for all their quirky creativity during the 'glory years' of the 50s/60s decades, were printed on poor-quality newsprint up until around 1988, when glossier paper stock entered the fold. Presumably the use of lower-grade paper kept the costs down during the mass-production of the 1950s, when copies of BEANO hit the almighty 2 million-mark: however, readers were treated to glossier delights --at least within the BEANO/DANDY releases, in 1963, which saw the release of the first-ever SUMMER SPECIAL, basically assembled from existing summer-themed artwork from the two comic titles......this amalgamation of the two comics in a one-off 'special' was put together by future SPARKY editor Ian Chissolm.