The Dandy

The Dandy
Front page of first issue
Publication information
Publisher	D. C. Thomson & Co.
Schedule	Weekly* (some issues were out longer than a week)
Format	Comics anthology
Genre	Children's, humour
Publication date	4 December 1937 –4 December 2012 (physical), 4 December 2012 -26 June 2013 (online)
Creative team
Artist(s)	Nigel Parkinson Lew Stringer Wayne Thompson Stu Munro Paul Palmer Wilbur Dawbarn Nigel Auchterlounie Jamie Smart Karl Dixon Nik Holmes Phil Corbett Alexander Matthews Duncan Scott Stephen Waller Andy Fanton
Editor(s)	Albert Barnes Dave Torrie Morris Heggie Craig Graham Craig Ferguson

The Dandy was a long-running British children's comic published by DC Thomson. The first issue was printed in December 1937, making it the world's third-longest running comic, after Detective Comics (cover dated March 1937) and Il Giornalino (cover dated 1 October 1924). From August 2007 until October 2010, it was rebranded as Dandy Xtreme.

One of the best selling comics in British popular culture, along with The Beano, sales of The Dandy reached two million a week in the 1950s. The final printed edition was issued on 4 December 2012, the comic's 75th anniversary, after sales slumped to 8,000 a week. On the same day, The Dandy relaunched as an online comic, The Digital Dandy, appearing on the Dandy website and in the Dandy App. The digital relaunch was not successful and the comic ended just six months later.

The first issue, under the name The Dandy Comic, was published on 4 December 1937. The most notable difference between this and other comics of the day was the use of speech balloons instead of captions under the . It was published weekly until 6 September 1941, when wartime paper shortages forced it to change to fortnightly, alternating with The Beano. It returned to weekly publication on 30 July 1949. From 17 July 1950 the magazine changed its name to The Dandy.

In 1938, less than a year after the comic's debut, the first Dandy Annual was released. Originally called The Dandy Monster comic, this was an annual bumper edition of the comic and has been released annually since then. In 1954 the first Desperate Dan Book was released, mostly consisting of reprints. Another was released in 1978, and it was released yearly between 1990 and 1992. Bananaman and Black Bob also had their own annuals.

Although later issues were all comic strips, early issues had many text strips, with some illustrations. In 1940, this meant 12 pages of comic strips and 8 pages of text stories. Text stories at two pages each were "Jimmy's Pocket Grandpa", "British Boys and Girls Go West", "There's a Curse on the King" and "Swallowed by a Whale!"