Saturday 30 July 2022

Enjoy the summer... and summer specials!

Not much new stuff to report on of late. Due to the effects of Covid and other health issues I haven't even drawn anything for three weeks apart from the quick sketch I showed last week. However I am determined to get back on that horse, or in this case the stool by my drawing board and crack on with work today.

In the meantime, don't forget that The Dandy Summer Special is still available in shops (if you're lucky). I did a full page Keyhole Kate strip for it plus a half page illustration. There's a photo above of the illustration when it was on my drawing board back in early February.

You can order The Dandy Summer Special from the DC Thomson Shop at this link:

https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/the-dandy-summer-special-2022 

As we're fast approaching August now that means that the annuals will be out soon! Hopefully those of us who pre-ordered them will receive them over the coming days.

 

11 comments:

Darren said...

So Pup Parade will be back in the Beano next week now your better?

Lew Stringer said...

I'm afraid not. We work several weeks ahead of publication date and Pup Parade was dropped weeks before I was ill. I've no idea when or if it'll be returning, sorry.

James Spiring said...

Darren, that entire mini-strip page (Pup Parade, Stevie Star, Mahira of the Match and Sketch Khad) seems to have been replaced by the full page strip The Secret Life of Teachers for the summer holidays, it isn't just Pup Parade that was dropped. I would guess a different selection of mini-strips will be back in September.

Lew Stringer said...

No idea, James, sorry. I've drawn one of the Teachers pages but that was weeks ago. They'll be working on the October issues now and I haven't heard anything so it doesn't look like Pup Parade will be back yet.

Lew Stringer said...

I've just checked and the Teachers page I drew (written by Nigel Auchterlounie) will be in the issue on sale 17th August.

Tony Howson said...

Hi Lew, glad to hear you're back at work and I hope today's drawing went well. I'm in one of the "at risk" groups so I avoided Covid as long as I could but finally fell victim to it back in January. It wasn't as bad as I feared but it seems to have a long tail and I've definitely been changed by the experience.

As for Pup Parade, everybody loves dogs and the Bash Street Kids are iconic so it seems a no brainer that you should get a page of them every week. But what do I know ? Anyway, roll on Aug 17th and your Teachers strip.

On a marginally related note, I found my Combat Colins while I was having a post Covid sort-out so I've enjoyed getting re-aquintated with those.



Lew Stringer said...

Thanks Tony. Hope you'll be fully recovered soon. It certainly does take it out of you.

I did a series of Pup Parade full pagers years ago but unfortunately it's since been reduced with every series. They do have one unused full pager with an Autumn theme so hopefully that'll be used one day. It would be nice to have a weekly page again, if only to help pay the bills if nothing else, but nine characters work better as a page I think. However these days the Beano prioritises the main characters and new characters, so as Pup Parade, Big Eggo, Rasher etc are neither they don't appear very often, sadly.

Manic Man said...

I don't love dogs.. they are okay but I'm more of a cat person and haven't seen much of the Bash street cats for years.. i might be wrong, but I think Gordon Bell was the only one to draw them and that was back in the 70s..

Anyway.. I'm sure the Beano will be knocking at your door with more work within the year ^_^

Lew Stringer said...

Gordon Bell was the original artist from the 1960s onwards yes. Sorry you don't like dogs. I like them and cats equally.

Tony Howson said...

I vaguely remember the Bash Street Cats but I haven't thought about them in years, so I had to resort to Google. Their version of Danny / Bones looks pretty scary, but in a good way. I had a great cat like that in the 1980's. Still miss him, despite what he did to my X-Men and Green Lanterns.

My subscription copy of Beano went astray this week. First time that's ever happened. I can only conclude it was a silent protest by my mailman against the dropping of Pup Parade.

Solidarity!

Lew Stringer said...

My subscription Beano is always late now, but the problem is with Royal Mail. I didn't even receive last week's 2000AD and other post is always late too.