19 The Beano (1938–present)

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In the world of British postwar children’s comics, two titles stood apart from the crowd—The Beano and The Dandy. Though they were both published by the same company, Dundee, Scotland–based D. C. Thomson, The Beano had the edge. It was goofier and zanier. More anarchic. And it had had a good war, mocking the Nazis so viciously that its editor was on Hitler’s “murder list” of figures the führer wanted arrested after his planned invasion of Britain in 1940.

The Beano’s illustrators, like Leo Baxendale and David Law, were almost as famous as their creations—Biffo the Bear, Lord Snooty, the Bash Street Kids. The early 1950s, when David Jones first got his hands on The Beano, coincided with the comic’s commercial apogee (weekly sales of two million) and the introduction of its best-loved characters Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger, and of course Dennis the Menace, with his electric-shock hair and distinctive black-and-red jumper. For baby boomers more than anyone, The Beano stood for defiance in the face of adult authority. This is why Eric Clapton is holding a copy on the cover of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers’ 1966 album Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton. Clapton hated photo shoots and decided to annoy everybody by buying The Beano and reading it while his bandmates posed obligingly.

Bowie’s lifelong love of comics and graphic novels started with The Beano. So it was fitting and somehow beautiful that on the day of the singer’s death the comic honored him by sharing an image of Dennis with an Aladdin Sane stripe on his face.