The 2023 Annuals are arriving in shops

They've been available to buy from online sellers since August but now the Annuals for 2023 are finally turning up in bookshops. My local Smiths and supermarkets still haven't put them out but other people are reporting seeing them in their branches.

I found a few in WH Smiths in Birmingham last Thursday and took the photo shown above. As you can see, the space they've allocated to them is very small considering the size of the city, with the books all bunched up at the end of a shelving display. A big difference from the 1960s/70s when huge stacks of every annual would take up a big display in the shops. 

As mentioned before, I have work in both The Dandy Annual and Beano Annual this time. As most readers will have them as Christmas presents I couldn't resist doing a festive episode for each of my strips. Expect to see Keyhole Kate, Postman Prat, and Biffo the Bear in snowy surroundings!

If you have any difficulty finding those annuals in shops, you can buy them directly from D.C. Thomson at this link...

https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/books/annuals/double-trouble-pack 

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The 2023 Annuals are out now!

My order for the Dandy and Beano 2023 Annuals arrived today and once again they're great books for young and old. Each hardback annual has 112 full colour pages packed with brand new strips including many of the usual favourites with art by Laura Howell, Nigel Parkinson, Hunt Emerson, Nigel Aucterlounie, Steve Bright and many more...

...including a few strips by me. For Beano Annual 2023 I've written/drawn 8 Biffo the Bear mini-strips and really enjoyed working on that classic character. Yes, I made sure to put his best pal Buster in there too, meaning that I've now drawn both the D.C. Thomson 'Buster' and the Rebellion (IPC) 'Buster' characters in an official capacity. 

For The Dandy Annual 2023 I've written/drawn 4 full page Keyhole Kate strips, plus 8 Postman Prat mini-strips. Kate is one of the oldest characters in comics, originating from The Dandy No.1 back in 1937. Prat is more modern, and first appeared in the new-look Dandy in 2010. Both are back in all-new stories.

I know a lot of people think annuals weren't published until December years ago but, nope, they've always been published this time of year. Most of the books are given as Christmas presents though so I've made sure to do Christmas episodes of all my strips in these editions.

Each book has a R.R.P. of £9.99. If your local bookshops haven't displayed the annuals yet you can order them directly from the publisher as I did. Here's the link...

https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/books/annuals

Annuals for 2023 available soon!

One of eight Biffo strips I've drawn for Beano Annual 2023.

 

The 2023 Annuals should be out any day now. In past years annuals have been published in July (even though most people buy them as Christmas presents) but this year's Dandy and Beano Annuals were announced to be launched in August.

I have work in both and pre-ordered them ages ago. I'll post previews here as soon as they arrive. 

Dandy and Beano Annuals ready for pre-order

A reminder that the 2023 annuals will be published this August but you can pre-order them now directly from D.C. Thomson at this link:

https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/books/annuals 

As I've mentioned before, I did work for both The Dandy Annual 2023 and Beano Annual 2023. Specifically Keyhole Kate and Postman Prat for the Dandy, and Biffo the Bear for the Beano book. All characters that I enjoyed working on and hope that one day I will again. Here are some preview images...

 

Dandy and Beano Annuals revealed for 2023

Over on his comics news blog, Down the Tubes, John Freeman has shown the cover images for the 2023 dated annual that D.C. Thomson will be publishing. As always, the books are dated a year ahead but they'll be out in late summer; usually August. (For example the 2022 annuals were published on August 1st last year.)

Here are the covers of The Dandy Annual 2023 and Beano Annual 2023 to look out for later this year:

Both books will contain all new content as usual. For The Dandy Annual I've written and drawn 4 full page Keyhole Kate stories, and 8 Postman Prat mini-strips. For Beano Annual I've written and drawn 8 Biffo the Bear mini-strips. 

It's a bit too early to show any proper samples but I thought I'd post some photos of close ups of my original art before it was completed. These are the pencil/ink stages before I scanned them into Photoshop to fill in the solid blacks, made corrections, and coloured them.  

The publisher's own online shop will have the books listed for pre-order soon so bookmark this link for quick access:

https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/ 

See the Down The Tubes news item at this link for more annual covers: 

https://downthetubes.net/beano-dandy-2023-annual-covers-revealed/

A Peek Into The Future

I can't really show you much yet but here's a very small teaser of The Dandy Annual 2023! It's part of a panel from one of my Postman Prat strips when it was in the pencil and ink stage.

All of the strips were completed last year because we work way in advance on the annuals! You'll be able to see the finished version when The Dandy Annual 2023 goes on sale around August 2022!