Advent #2

I love an annual. They used to be a lot bigger when I was a kid (so did Mars bars) but the sight of them in shops at this time of year still gives me a Christmassy tingle.

The first annual I ever saw was my brother’s Beano 1975, and the first one I ever bought myself was the 1978 Monster Fun annual, and all these years later I’m afraid I can only recall the cover art – Dennis the Menace sledging downhill on a rocking horse on the former (which, in hindsight, makes very little sense); and a gorilla disguised as a giant talking banana on the latter (which makes even less). More memorably, I first got the 2000AD annual in 1979, and then proceeded to get it every Christmas for the next decade. In other words, it became (wait for it) an annual tradition. (Sorry.)

Anyway, I love an annual. Maybe it’s the association with Christmas, a time when it seems anything is allowed. There’s certainly, in a ‘get out of jail free card’ kind of way, a licence to give annuals to adults at Christmas – so, for example, my mother-in-law always used to get me the Doctor Who annual even though it’s really aimed at persons forty years younger and thirty centimetres shorter than me.

Similarly, although I’d think it weird to discover my just-turned-fifty brother still buys the Beano every week I wouldn’t see anything wrong with getting him the Beano Annual for Christmas.  (Spoiler alert, we haven’t bought him the Beano Annual for Christmas. (Or have we…? (No, we haven’t.))) 

So, and stop me if you’ve heard this, I love an annual. (And hopefully my brother does too, as we may have got him the Beano one for Christmas (although we may not have)).