50 Fun Facts About The Beano

Which grunge frontman wore the striped jumper of The Beano's Dennis the Menace on stage in the early 1990s?

Kurt Cobain got the pullover through Courtney Love, who bought it from a Nirvana fan in Northern Ireland in 1992.

A second, unrelated Dennis the Menace strip debuted on the Beano character's launch day in 1951 in which country?

The United States got Hank Ketcham's newspaper strip of the same name by pure coincidence, which is why the British one is usually sold abroad as Dennis and Gnasher.

Which guitarist is pictured reading The Beano on the cover of a 1966 album by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers?

Eric Clapton said he read the comic during the photo shoot because he felt like being uncooperative, and fans have called the record The Beano Album ever since.

Which Star Wars actor was a card-carrying member of The Beano's Dennis the Menace Fan Club?

Mark Hamill joined a club that was signing up more than 2,000 new members a week; Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott and sprinter Linford Christie carried its badges too.

The Beano, with over two billion copies sold, is called the best-selling comic magazine outside which country?

Japan, home of the manga weeklies, is the one exception; The Beano has appeared since 1938 and reached its 4,000th issue in August 2019.

In The Beano, Dennis the Menace's dog Gnasher is described as an Abyssinian wire-haired what?

Tripe hound is the comic's invented breed for Gnasher; Dennis found him as a stray in 1968, after being told that owners end up looking like their dogs.

Which Scottish city, known for jute, jam and journalism, has been home to The Beano since 1938?

Dundee gave a previously nameless lane the name Bash Street in 2014, to celebrate 60 years of the comic's unruly school strip.

Which change did wartime paper rationing force on The Beano, one that lasted until July 1949?

Going fortnightly meant the comic took turns with its sister title, each appearing every other week, for years after the fighting had ended.

Which sister comic of The Beano, launched in December 1937, printed its final weekly issue on its 75th birthday?

The Dandy bowed out in December 2012 with sales down to about 8,000 a week, having sold two million copies a week in the 1950s.

Which bow-tied boy, long nicknamed 'the Softy', is the favourite target of The Beano's Dennis the Menace?

Walter was eventually rewritten as a snobbish rival with a girlfriend, and the nickname was dropped after complaints that the strip encouraged playground bullying.

Which Beano tomboy, launched in 1953 as a female counterpart to Dennis the Menace, has her own statue in Scotland?

Minnie the Minx is really called Hermione Makepeace, and her statue went up in 2001 alongside one of the cowboy Desperate Dan.

Which black-and-white character took over The Beano's front cover in 1948 and kept it for 26 years?

Biffo the Bear was brought in amid rumours that readers no longer related to the bird on the cover, and he held the front page until Dennis the Menace took it in 1974.

Big Eggo, the cover star of The Beano's first issue in 1938, was what kind of bird?

An ostrich forever hunting for his missing egg, Big Eggo was meant to be called Oswald until editor George Moonie suggested the change.

Which two colours stripe the jumper worn by Dennis the Menace in The Beano since 1951?

Red and black stripes arrived two months into the strip, and a 2001 anniversary story had Dennis swiping the jersey from a boy called Tufty.

Which household item did Dad traditionally use to punish Dennis the Menace at the end of early Beano strips?

A slipper was the standard punishment until the comic gave up corporal punishment, and the strip's policeman kept the name Sergeant Slipper.

Which Beano boy, created by Malcolm Judge in 1964, moves so quickly that he leaves a trail of chaos?

Billy Whizz first lived in a town of his own, Whizztown, and Judge drew his speed with dust trails, motion blur and several Billys in one panel.

Which Beano boy in a chequered jumper, first drawn by Ken Reid, keeps a library of books on avoiding chores?

Roger the Dodger was trailed a week early with a teaser panel in which he trips his dad's wire while sneaking out of the house.

Which stop-motion animator guest-edited The Beano's 70th birthday issue in 2008?

Nick Park, creator of Wallace and Gromit, said his dream job had always been to work on the comic, and called guest-editing it an honour.

Which comedian turned children's author guest-edited The Beano's 80th anniversary issue in 2018?

David Walliams oversaw a crossover in which a 1938 time capsule is opened at Bash Street School, unleashing a giant tentacle monster named Simon.

Which England footballer guest-edited The Beano in 2022 after publishing his book You Can Do It?

Marcus Rashford had already appeared in the comic in 2020, in an eight-page pullout for grown-ups called BeanOLD.

Which spoof superhero, created for the comic Nutty in 1980, made his Beano debut in January 2012?

Bananaman began as a send-up of Superman and Batman on Nutty's back page, and his first Beano appearances were reprints of John Geering's older strips.

Which Beano strip, inherited from The Beezer, follows tiny technicians who run a boy called Edd from inside his head?

The Numskulls first worked inside a nameless man's head; he was swapped for a boy in 1990, who gained the name Edd when the strip moved comics in 1993.

Which Beano boy wears a jumper numbered 13 and keeps a pet named Alexander Lemming?

Calamity James is a pun on Calamity Jane, and his strips are littered with gold bars and winning lottery tickets that he never notices.

Lord Snooty, a Beano star from the first issue in 1938, was a pupil at which English public school?

Eton was school for Marmaduke, Earl of Bunkerton, who slipped out of his castle in disguise to play with the working-class children across town.

Which lanky, jug-eared Bash Street Kid was given his own spin-off comic by The Beano's publisher in 1977?

Plug starred with his pet monkey Chunkee, but at 9p the comic cost about twice as much as its stablemates and lasted only 75 issues.

Which scatterbrained Bash Street Kid in The Beano acquired a pet pebble called Kevin in 2008?

Smiffy is so vague that he often cannot remember what colour the sky is, yet the pebble earned a feature of its own, Where's Kevin?

On which night of the year can The Beano's Dennis the Menace understand what his dog Gnasher is saying?

Halloween is the one exception; the rest of the year only readers can follow Gnasher, whose thought bubbles put a silent G before words starting with N.

Which Scottish publisher, also behind Oor Wullie and The Broons, has produced The Beano since its first issue?

DC Thomson planned five new comics in the late 1930s, but paper rationing killed the scheme after three, and one of those folded in 1941.

Which free gift, the first of many, came with issue 1 of The Beano in July 1938?

A whoopee mask helped the twopenny first issue sell about 443,000 copies; the gifts stopped with issue 90, when rationing bit.

'Beano', the slang word that gave The Beano its title, traditionally means what kind of occasion?

A noisy party is a beano, short for beanfeast, and the comic took the word from a staff social club that liked golf and dining out.

Which Conservative minister called it publicity-seeking when The Beano renamed Fatty of the Bash Street Kids in 2021?

Jacob Rees-Mogg objected, but the editors said children had been writing in to ask why the boy, whose real name is Freddy, had that nickname.

The Bash Street Kids of The Beano, taught by a man known only as Teacher, belong to which class?

Class 2B was inspired by a real playground: the comic's staff could watch a high school's pupils from their office windows.

Under which title did The Beano's Bash Street Kids make their debut in February 1954?

When the Bell Rings showed the pupils running riot outside the gates; the name changed in 1956 as the stories moved into the classroom.

Which Lancashire cartoonist created Little Plum and the Bash Street Kids for The Beano in 1953 and 1954?

Leo Baxendale walked out in 1962, overloaded with work, saying he had simply blown up like an old boiler.

Which Edinburgh-born artist drew The Beano's Dennis the Menace from the character's first strip in 1951?

David Law worked from a doodle that sub-editor Ian Chisholm scribbled on a cigarette packet after rejecting every earlier sketch.

Which artist, famous for Oor Wullie and Desperate Dan, drew Lord Snooty for The Beano's first issue?

Dudley Watkins was drawing Snooty as late as 1968, and the strip outlived him, running until 1991 as the last survivor of the first issue.

Which of Gnasher's puppies, introduced to The Beano in 1986, went on to share a strip with Dennis the Menace's dog?

Gnipper arrived at the end of a seven-week stunt in which Gnasher went missing and Dennis asked readers to help find him.

What is the name of Dennis the Menace's baby sister, who was born in The Beano in September 1998?

Bea dresses in bumblebee stripes, a joke on her name, and proved every bit as much trouble as her brother.

What did Beano editor George Moonie hear that gave him the name Dennis the Menace in 1951?

A music hall song supplied the rhyming name, and sales of the comic soared once the character took off.

Which BBC channel first aired the CGI series Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed!, based on The Beano, in 2017?

CBBC viewers got the first Dennis cartoon made in CGI, with actor Freddie Fox as the voice of Dennis, and its first series earned an International Emmy nomination.

Which boy joined Curly as a best friend of The Beano's Dennis the Menace and a member of his band, the Dinmakers?

Pie Face is named for his favourite food, later gained a pet potato called Paul, and stayed on when Curly was dropped in a 2017 revamp.

Which Beano strip, launched in 1985 and drawn by Robert Nixon, stars a tantrum-prone four-year-old girl in dungarees?

Ivy the Terrible set out in her first strip to become the toughest character in the comic, only to fall asleep before she could take on Dennis.

In a wartime Beano strip, strongman's daughter Pansy Potter earned a medal for capturing what single-handedly?

A U-boat was no match for her inherited strength, and other strips of the time showed characters outwitting Axis leaders and recycling paper.

Which London 2012 gold medallist was drawn into a Dennis the Menace strip in The Beano that Olympic summer?

Jessica Ennis joined a long line of real people drawn into the strip, from Ant and Dec and Simon Cowell to Daniel Radcliffe.

Which English attraction once had a Beanoland area, with dodgems and a live show in Dennis the Menace's treehouse?

Chessington World of Adventures gave Dennis a giant figure on top of the shop, and the area was later rethemed as Wild Asia.

Which fashion designer made a sustainable children's range featuring The Beano, a comic from her own childhood?

Stella McCartney said the comic was a huge part of her childhood and that the clothes were for the next generation of fans.

In a 1994 hoax, The Beano announced that the Bash Street Kids' Teacher would be replaced by what?

A robot was part of a promised politically correct makeover that drew petitions and protests; the editor said the comic even received death threats.

Which Scottish artist drew The Beano's Bash Street Kids for six decades, from 1962 until his death in 2023?

David Sutherland drew more than 3,000 Bash Street strips and, from the early 1970s to 1998, the Dennis the Menace page as well.

Which British tennis player guest-edited a Wimbledon special of The Beano in June 2014?

Andy Murray had already been drawn into the comic a year earlier, facing its best-known tomboy in a tennis battle for the 75th anniversary.

Jonah, the gormless Beano sailor drawn by Ken Reid from 1958, was notorious for doing what to every ship he boarded?

Sinking it was never deliberate, yet other mariners dreaded him, and his clumsiness once wiped out two nations' fleets at a stroke.