Desperate Dan

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Statue of Desperate Dan in Dundee, Scotland city centre

Desperate Dan is a wild west character in the British comic The Dandy. He first appeared in the comic in its first issue, dated 4 December 1937. He is apparently the world's strongest man, able to lift a cow with one hand. Even his beard is so tough he has to shave with a blowtorch.

[edit] History

The strip was drawn by Dudley D. Watkins until his death in 1969. Although The Dandy Annuals featured new strips from other artists from then on, the comic continued reprinting Watkins strips until 1983 (though the then Korky the Cat artist Charles Grigg drew new strips for annuals and summer specials), when Ken H. Harrison took over. The following year Dan was promoted to the front cover of The Dandy, replacing Korky who had been there since issue 1. Starting from issue 2985, dated 6 February 1999, Cuddles and Dimples replaced Dan on the front cover. This didn't last long, however, as after a readers' poll in 2000, Dan returned to the cover. Although Ken Harrison was the main artist from 1983 to 2007, other artists have also occasionally filled in for Harrison, including Bill Ritchie and Trevor Metcalfe in the early 1990s. John Geering took over the strip between 1995 and 1997, after which Harrison returned as full-time artist (though Steve Bright occasionally acted as a ghost artist as well). When the Dandy was redesigned and renamed to Dandy Xtreme, the writers used reprints of the old comic strips, until Jamie Smart took over drawing and writing the Desperate Dan comic strips in April 2008.

[edit] Characteristics

Desperate Dan's favourite food was cow pie - a type of enormous meat pie with the horns sticking out, although the term "cow pie" in the American West actually refers to the product of the rear end of the cow, often inconveniently left behind on the trail. Dan ate cow pies until 2005 when they had their last appearance in the Dandy Annual 2005. It was thought at the time that because of mad cow disease and the increase in vegetarianism that the cow pie had become an anachronism but this argument has been questioned.^[1]

Initially Dan was a desperado on the wrong side of the law, hence the name Desperate Dan. Later on, however, he switched sides and become a friendlier character, helping the underdog. The first member of his family to appear in the strip was Aunt Aggie (issue 107, dated 16 December 1939) followed by his nephew, Danny (issue 304, dated 27 October 1945) and niece, Katey in 1957. In 2001, Desperate Dan's girlfriend Little Bear appeared; she was a native American squaw but disappeared with the 2004 Dandy relaunch, when Dan's artwork style changed.

The most famous storyline occurred in 1997, when Dan struck oil and became a millionaire. A few issues later, to the shock of his fellow-residents of Cactusville, he left The Dandy, running off with the Spice Girls. After a few weeks of trying to find characters to replace him, The Dandy had no choice but to close down. The following week, however, in the special 60th birthday edition (2924, dated 6 December 1997) Dan heard of the news and returned to the comic.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Modernisation

With the revamp of The Dandy (from issue 3282, 16 October 2004) Dan, though still drawn by Ken Harrison, was redesigned slightly. His eyes and chin have become much bigger and exaggerated. He is also back inside the comic, as there is no longer a comic strip on the front cover. Dan's personality was changed to that of a bumbling fool, a change to which many fans objected. He was originally going to be left out of the revamped issues, but focus group tests objected to his absence.[1]

But, as of the "re-revamp" in August 2007, the strips are classic reprints on the back cover of Dandy Comix in The Dandy Xtreme. While the first few issues ran them in the original monochrome, they have since been run in coloured form, all reprints so far have been adopted from the 1997 Legend of Desperate Dan book which was released to celebrate his 60th anniversary.

Later, in early April 2008, Jamie Smart took over writing and illustrating the Desperate Dan comic strips.

A number of spin-off strips have appeared in The Dandy over the years, including Desperate Dawg in the 1970s and 80s and Danny and Katey in the late 1980s. A statue of him (and his dog Dawg) can be found in his "birthplace", Dundee, Scotland. He has also been spoofed in the adult comic strip Viz as Desperately Unfunny Dan.

[edit] References

As with many well-known characters, the name and image of Desperate Dan have been borrowed in many contexts. A limited selection is mentioned here.

1. A 1972 single by Lieutenant Pigeon which reached 17 in the charts
2. A well-known winning racehorse[2]
3. A nursery rhyme of unknown origin[3]
4. An episode of the BBC Television sitcom "Happiness"[4]
5. A British pub-rock band[5]
6. A nickname for Daniel Levy, chairman of Tottenham Hotspur[6]
7. A reference in the BBC Two drama series Boys from the Blackstuff (Yosser's Story)
8. A parody in Viz magazine as "Desperately Unfunny Dan", lampooning the comic strip's predictable and unchallenging humour.
9. A reference in Ray Davies' song Village Green Preservation Society on the 1968 The Kinks album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.^[2]

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• Desperate Dan Annual
• Guinness Book of Records
• Some History