When DC Thomson, the Aberdeen-based publisher, warned this week that a 75th anniversary issue in December of The Dandy would be the last appearance in print of Britain’s longest-running comic, eulogists went into mourning for a title that formed a gleefully anarchic part of many of their childhoods.
“Seventy-five years after Desperate Dan ate his first cow pie, the modern world has unpleasantly intervened,” wrote Simon Heffer in the Daily Mail, while #SaveTheDandy started trending on Twitter.
From a 1950s peak of 2m copies a week, The Dandy’s circulation has fallen below 7,500 even as US comic book superheroes of the same era dominate global cinema box offices.