Review: Classic Beano Annual facsimiles

As I mentioned several days ago, D.C. Thomson are now offering readers a chance to obtain facsimile reprints of every Beano annual from the very first one (1940) up to 2013. A dream come true for collectors, and as an incentive for the general reader, each book comes inscribed with a message of your choice. 

I'd ordered the 1957 annual, not out of nostalgia (it's from a couple of years before I was born) but out of curiosity. It contains some very early work by Leo Baxendale, along with pages by Ken Reid, Dudley Watkins, and many more. What's not to like?

Classic early Leo Baxendale.

The book arrived today, and I'm very impressed with the quality. All of these facsimile books are scanned from the old annuals, so may contain images of any flaws (such as rips or smudges) picked up from the scan, but the 1957 one doesn't appear to have any. Reproduction is very good indeed, and as close to an accurate reprint as you're likely to get. 

Nitpickers might complain that the books aren't 100% faithful to the originals because they feature a new spine. I think that's fine, and should prevent any dodgy sellers from passing them off as originals. The paper texture is different too; smoother and a bit thinner than the original stock, but still top quality. The binding is glued, rather than stitched, but it still seems sturdy. There are new endpapers too, in addition to the original endpapers, and of course the dedication page is new. Apart from those small irrelevant differences, it's a very nice facsimile indeed. 

One thing I wish they'd done is to have used one of the additional pages to credit all the artists and writers. Every contributor was anonymous back then so it would have been a chance to rectify that. 

I'll definitely be ordering a couple more from different years. I missed out on the 1965 book when I was a kid, so I might rectify that, - and having a reproduction of the first Beano Book from 1940 is tempting too. 

You'll have your own favourites no doubt. The books are produced under license by Signature Book Publishing. I don't know how long they have the licence so if you're interested, here's the place to order your books:
https://shop.beano.com/gift-ideas/classic-beano/personalised-beano-annual-from-your-year.html

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