the beano

This week we're celebrating kids comics, and how comics inspire and influence people from an early age. Comics are often a gateway into fiction as a whole, and for many, the characters we met as kids remain some of our personal heroes to this day, whether they wear a cape or not. The question we put to our contributors this week is: Who was your childhood comics hero?

For decades, The Beano has taught British children three incredibly important lessons: that adults are all out to get you, that schools are all designed to break your spirit, and that the only way to get ahead is through your own cunning. First appearing this week in 1938, The Beano has since published over 3500 issues, making it by far the longest-running comic book in the world.

In what can only be classed as a calamitous piece of news for wimps worldwide, DC Thompson, publishers of The Beano, The Dandy, and other classic long-running UK weeklies, has announced that it's bringing its back-catalog to ComiXology over the next few months.