14 Aug
2011

Posted in: Pictures, Vault, Words
By Fanton    6 Comments

From Ye Fanton Vaults, Part Two

AH, who can forget their later teenage years? Learning to drive and getting your own car, then taking your girl to Make Out Point where you knock back cans of beer you got from the local off-licence using your fake ID, before enjoying an awkward fumble in the back seat…happy, crazy times, eh?

Unless you were me, in which case you were a terribly awkward, shy and nerdy teen, who sat in his room drawing for hours upon end, and sending them into The Beano hoping to win their star prize. Oh, me!

Happily, in The Beano no. 2873, published on the 9th August, 1997 (six weeks or so from my eighteenth birthday), my dream came true, and the above joke snagged me that much desired star prize. Woo-hoo!

I sent it in as a drawing originally, hoping they’d print it as some fan-art, but in the end it was re-drawn by one of their own artists (and very well, too, of course!)  However, the main thing was that I’d made it into The Beano, AND won the star-prize (a striped Dennis the Menace jersey – which still fits me!, a Dennis t-shirt AND a poster!) Ha! In your FACES, ten-year-olds! VICTORY WAS MINE!

And since then, I’ve had my own actual artwork appear in the comic, as episodes of both Boo and Harry and his Hippo have been reprinted in The Beano to promote The Dandy. But, alas, I didn’t get another t-shirt or poster on either occasion. BAH!

- Fanton.