BeanoMAX

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The BeanoMAX is a monthly British comic published by D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd It is a spin-off of the UK comic, The Beano. Each issue has 44 pages and costs £2.50. The first issue was published on February 15, 2007 and was a Comic Relief special.

Issues

The issues of BeanoMAX were originally released with separate themes, although these have faded in recent issues:
1. Comic Relief
2. Spies
3. Bugs and creepy crawlies
4. Tricks and wind-ups
5. At the movies
6. Summer holidays
7. Football and sports
8. Horrible Histories
9. Hallowe'en
10. Christmas
11. Wild and wicked
12. Gadgets
13. Sport Relief
14. Thrills
15. Creatures
16. Football Superstars
17. Summer
18. Olympics
19. No special issue
20. Gross
21. Hallowe'en
22. No special issue
23. No special issue (but some Christmas strips featured)
24. No special issue
25. Comic Relief
26. No special issue
27. TBA

Strips

Most of the strips in BeanoMAX also star in the weekly Beano. However, some of these started in the weekly, and also starred in BeanoMAX, but ended up being removed from the weekly (still showing sometimes, but only once every few months) and carrying on in the 'MAX, for example, the Neds. There are now only two original strips in the monthly comic which has never appeared in the Beano.
A list of strips:

Fixed cast

• The Bash Street Kids, usually two or more strips appear. Drawn by Nigel Parkinson and David Sutherland
• Billy Whizz, normally David Parkins reprints from 1991-1993.
• Dennis the Menace.
• Max, the first strip never to have made an appearance in the Beano.
• Wallace and Gromit, by permission of Aardman Animations. After a few months, this replaced their own comic.
• Kick-Ass Koalas, the second strip to never have featured in the Beano. Appeared in Issue 32

Occasional appearances

• Baby Face Finlayson
• Ball Boy
• Calamity James
• Derek the Sheep
• Ivy the Terrible
• The Neds
• The Numskulls
• Classics, (Featuring past stars like ISpy and Send for Kelly in new strips)
• Minnie the Minx, sometimes as a reprint.
• Roger the Dodger, a special photo strip appeared in December 2008.

Reprints

BeanoMAX also uses quite a few reprints. Issues that contain no reprints at all are rarely published. Some might say that Issue One had no reprints, as all the Beano character strips were new, but a Mr. Bean comic strip was present, as part of Comic Relief to boost the new movie, reprinted (under licence, as D.C. Thomson do not own it) from the Mr. Bean Magazine.

Features

Regular features in the comic include:

• The Lowdown - entrance feature. Also includes a contents bar at the side.
• Fashion Victims - A humorous "joke" about certain people and what they dress like, e.g. Goths, Nature lovers. Drawn by Duncan Scott, who also draws The Neds.
• The Arcade - Game reviews, apparently by 9 boys: Angus, Arfan, Daryn, Jack, Jonah, Lee, Mark, Ryan and Saul. Moved from weekly Beano.
• Game Gurus - An extended "Arcade" feature that gives game cheats and hints, also apparently by two boys - Jamie and Josh.
• A pull-out poster (occasionally)
• Puzzle pages, with a theme and name having something to do with the issue, for example the "Wild Creatures" puzzle page is full of animal puzzles, and entitled "Creature Conundrums".
• MAX-imum - 2 pages worth of free prizes, won by telephone calls.
• Subscription offers and Beano Club forms.

Logos

The logo has always been a combination of the old Beano logo (from 1977-1998), slightly updated with the help of computer technology, and a blue, graffito style MAX alongside it. The original logo had the Beano logo as it was on the weekly comic, with the MAX overlapping it slightly at the right. In late 2007, the MAX part of the logo started to grow in size. It was almost twice the height as the Beano logo at one point. In 2008, for 3 issues in the summer, the logo changed so that the MAX was predominant to the Beano logo. Instead of the Beano logo running horizontal, it was now vertical, alongside the MAX which was by now on a diagonal bar. After these 3 issues, the BeanoMAX logo changed back to the style it had gained in late 2007. In 2009, the logo changed again, with the Beano logo directly above the MAX logo.