The Chase designs British comic stamps for Royal Mail

The Chase has designed a range of British comic stamps for the Royal Mail, featuring The Dandy’s Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace from The Beano, football strip Roy of the Rovers, 2000AD and the Four Marys from Bunty.

Beano
Beano

The range of ten first-class stamps are issued to mark the 75th birthday of The Dandy, Britain’s longest running comic.

Richard Scholey, creative director at The Chase, has worked on a number of stamps for the Royal Mail through The Chase and Elmwood, and the consultancy was appointed to the project in September 2010 without a pitch.

Scholey says, ‘When we first met to talk about the brief there was obviously a bit of discussion about which comics we were going to feature, but it was surprising how easily it all fitted into place. Classics like The Dandy and The Beano were chosen straight away but we also wanted more girl-oriented ones like Bunty and more recent publications like 2000AD.’

The stamps each show the cover of the featured comic, along with a larger image of the main character. Many of these are covers from the first issues of the comic.

Scholey adds, ‘We retained the first issue covers on quite a few, but some of the others, when you’re producing them at such a small scale, were so busy they didn’t fit. Others just showed pictures of the free gift, so they didn’t feel like a classic cover. We pored through for ages to get images of the characters from quite a lot of different eras – none were commissioned, they were all lifted directly from the comics.’

Philip Parker, Royal Mail Stamps spokesperson, says, ‘The Dandy, celebrating its 75th birthday this year, and The Beano, which will do likewise next year, are almost British institutions and it feels appropriate to celebrate these comics and their characters on a set of very special stamps.’

The stamps will go on sale tomorrow.

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  • Graham November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Nice

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