When I was a little thing, and my Auntie Gillian was still a steady presence in my life, at some point she introduced me to Beano Magazines. But that may be Britons in general, not just Beano.
For those of you in a America, you may not be familiar. Beano is the home of the UK Dennis The Menace. Dennis is older, tougher, scrappier, snottier and a lot less innocent.
I–lover of Marmalade Atkins–and already dubbed the ‘naughtiest girl at [my] school’, loved Beano mag.
The closest American equivalent I can come up with is Mad Magazine. Same sort of insouciance, but almost entirely different sense of humours.
Auntie Gillian would travel to the UK once a year, and bring us back oodles of goodies. She was a fantastic auntie, honestly. I loved her to death… not just cause she was generous with the loot. I loved her because she really shaped my life in so many ways, and her additions to my life are very evident in my tastes in everything from food and music to reading material and off-colour, dry, dark humour.
In those piles of goodies, for a long stretch of years, she included Beano magazines.
My brother and I consumed them, and re-read them to tatters.
I lost touch with Beano as I got older, but stumbled across an online reference a few weeks back, and posted a shortened version of what you’ve just read to the “what’s on your mind” part of posting links to facebook.
A friend in England, commented and said, “Want me to pick a few copies for you so you can see if Beano is still cool?” (I am paraphrasing.)
“Sure!” I replied.
Today I got three Beano mags in the post, and what a hoot they were. Included in package, a freebie attached to one of the mags, was a Beano phone sock, which I am totally having mad giggles over. It’s black and red (Esu) and fits my phone perfectly.
So to Mishka E. in Essex, a big Thank You and shout out with mad love goes out to you. You made my day!
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