Looks Like The Dandy Will Shut It Down In December

This is one of those stories that was iconic enough -- people know the name The Dandy even if they don't buy the comics -- that it had a lot of juice as a potential news story as opposed to just being a news story. It's being confirmed this morning via people tweeting news from I believe the UK mainstream press that the long-running kids' publication will shut it down by the end of the year.

I think there are two facets to this story. One is that I always wonder about becoming attached to specific titles and publications in such an unreasonable way that what seems like an astounding lifespan seems like a reversal of fortune rather than the natural way of things. I developed this point of view back when Fantagraphics was teetering and I read this dumbass on a message board somewhere talking about how they were looking forward to the company being deemed a failure. It struck me how stupid it was to think that a quarter century of doing mostly what you want, something that a lot of people found valuable, can ever be seen as a failure. I felt the same way about Kitchen Sink Press. How was that endeavor not a smashing success? I wondered at the time -- still do -- if the conditioning we receive as comics fans of a certain age that comics are something that are awesome because they've always been around like Superman is something that we apply to publishing endeavors that have a much more natural lifespan, including an eventual moving-on.

So in that light, I can't imagine how The Dandy is anything other than a massive, all-time publishing success and wonder that we shouldn't feel great about it fading from view because most things do and more things should.

On the other hand, this is more immediately people out of work, and this is kids -- several thousand, anyway -- losing something they like to read. That's bad. The bigger issues involved come into play at a certain point, too, the formulation that something like The Dandy represents a specific kind of cultural experience that runs the risk of being more significantly absent from the market altogether now. I do wonder at times after specific cultural experiences and our rush to abandon them as the way we're set up to only favor the most profitable manner of doing things becomes a more ingrained part of how we function. My own childhood had big, dopey, mainstream things in it that I shared with millions of kids, but also strange, oddball, slightly-out-of-favor things I shared with a few thousand. I think I'm a better person with a richer inner life for having had both. I hope that the experience The Dandy came to represent isn't lost because of spreadsheet issues even if this specific iteration of it might be over. I think life is made better for as many artistic experiences being available as possible.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives