*Humour Comics: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. In 1963, D.C. Thomson of Dundee, publishers of the successful Dandy and Beano humour weeklies, put together an oversized ‘combo’ of the two titles for the lucrative Summer Holiday market. A huge success, this groundbreaking edition started a tradition of separate Summer Specials for each title the following year, and was widely emulated, becoming the industry’s standard practice for a plethora of series from Thomson and their competitors in the following decades. This is one of the rarest and most sought-after items ever through our hands, certainly on the UK side, and the first copy in any condition we have seen in our close to 25 years of trading. This copy has a triangular tear in the upper front cover staple area, wear at the centre spine where, owing to its size, it has been stored horizontally folded for a long period, a 1″ tear at lower mid back cover, and slight grubbiness lower mid-spine and mid-edge on the front cover. Offsetting that, however, is the clean, unmarred condition of the interiors, firm staples at centrefold, and, as previously noted, the extreme rarity of this item in any condition.
PICTURED: DANDY-BEANO SUMMER SPECIAL 1963 GD £475