The Dandy goes digital: Forward-thinking or the sad death of the comic?

After 75 years in print, children’s comic The Dandy has now gone from real life paper to a digital edition today on its anniversary. But should we all be getting excited about its bang up-to-date online transformation or sad that this really does mean the death of the comic?

Developed by Leeds-based Dubit, the new digital Dandy will be a fully interactive motion comic, complete with games and digital pets, which still follows the adventures of characters like Desperate Dan and Keyhole Kate in a panel-by-panel format to stay close to its roots.

Craig Ferguson, Editor of the new Dandy said:

“We all know how popular digital devices have become with children so we’re drawing on our traditional heritage and updating our product to make it relevant for today’s children.

“With this weekly digital edition, The Dandy is once again blazing a trail by launching a unique, interactive, motion comic. We’re giving The Dandy a whole new dimension and bringing a new lease of life to our characters.”

Low sales figures and rising costs of printing the paper version of the comic forced publisher DC Thomson to make the move online. However, many have been commenting today that they can’t help but feel kids of the future will miss out on the fun of buying and collecting the printed versions they all grew up with. Of course most of them have just been sat in a box under the stairs and haven’t been opened since the day they were first purchased, so maybe it’s really not really a tragedy we should all be getting worked up about.

Let us know what you think in the comments below, will you miss the comic or feel happy about a future without wasted paper and inky fingers?

Visit www.dandy.com to to check out the new-look comic. Today’s “Issue Zero” is available free. Each issue going forward will cost £1.99 with an extra £1.49 needed to access the weeky standard content package update for the full experience. Subscriptions cost £85 a year, with a year’s worth of content packages costing £29.99.

Check out: www.Dandy.com