1956 Beano Annual

Check out some of the colour inconsistencies on this cover! Without full-colour printing, there was no standard colour scheme for many characters, and it was left to the discretion of the artist.

Table of Contents

From this index, it looks like this annual contains more comic strips than pictures and adventure stories. However, a majority of the pages are made up of multi-page prose. It wasn’t for another few years until the comic was most just strips.

Meet Minnie!

This is the first Annual appearance of Minnie the Minx, as she goes ballooning (sort of!). Minnie was already a very popular character within a few years of being published, along with…

Roger the Dodger

Roger takes one for the team and his strip ends with a whack of the cane. Beano always reflected the life and imagination of its real-life readers, who just might have been naughty in the real world too!

When the Bell Rings…

These characters should look familiar – before the Bash Street Kids got their name in 1956, the strip had a different name. Illustrator Leo Baxendale was known for large and detailed panels where lots happened, which you can see here.

Check out the rest of the 1950’s annuals!