The Beano is currently edited by Michael Stirling.

Dennis the Menace's famous ' red and black ' jersey had formed the colours of a few of the Beano characters ' clothes ( Minnie the Minx has the same, although the placement of the stripes is a bit different ; Ball Boy's was a vertical red and black ; Roger the Dodger has a chessboard design top, and Danny ( from the Bash Street Kids ) has a similar cap ), but they have changed for Minnie and Ball Boy ( Minnie at one point had a red and yellow top and Ball Boy's strip is now black and blue ).

In the strips, it is expressed that the two towns are rivals with each other and before The Dandy did a drastic format change they had an embassy in Beanotown which many of the town's citizens attempted to overrun, but failed ( the embassy had no existence in The Beano ).

The Beano is now the longest-running weekly comic, since The Dandy became a fortnightly comic in 2007.

The Beano is so popular that it had its own section of the Chessington World of Adventures theme park, " Beanoland ".

The only difference between these paper styles is the front cover, which was thicker on the Dandy Xtreme and BeanoMAX, but the same as the pages throughout in the weekly Beano.

As of late 2010, The Beano is printed by BGP and the comic is now in an A4 format.

There is also a special 64-page book available, The Beano Special Collectors Edition: 70 Years of Fun, giving a brief history of the comic.

Roger the Dodger is a fictional character featured regularly in the UK comic The Beano.

Roger is often shown in other Beano characters ' stories offering " help ", which he took to a new level in Beano issue 2648 from April 1993.

Roger is currently the second longest-running character in the Beano, behind only Dennis the Menace.

In one strip in the Beano Book from 1957, his dad's name is revealed to be Bill, and he has occasionally shown to have been a dodger in his youth and on occasion asks Roger for dodging help.

* His rival is a bully named Cruncher Kerr named after the Beano editor at the time Euan Kerr.

The Bash Street Kids is an ongoing comic strip featuring in the British comic The Beano.

He is one of the central characters in The Beano Interactive DVD alongside Dennis, Gnasher, Minnie the Minx and Roger the Dodger.

His short sightedness is renowned amongst other Beano stars, most evident in a strip in The Beano Annual 2000 where the stars had taken a cruise to Australia only to find out they had somehow ended up in Scotland.

This name is only occasionally referred to in the Beano, most recently in Singled Out, when he was addressed by his full name by Teacher.

* The Bash Street Kids make yet another appearance in The Beano Video-Stars, however, their only segment is one based from their controversial make over in 1994.

One theory on the origin of the name is that one of his players made bingo history when he was so excited to have won that he yelled out “ Bingo ” instead of “ Beano.

* Dennis the Menace ( UK comics ), the original title of a British comic strip which first appeared in " The Beano ", dated March 17, 1951 ; now published as Dennis and Gnasher

The comic's style parodies British comics of the post-war period, notably The Beano and The Dandy, but with incongruous language, crude toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and either sexual or violent storylines.

Coincidentally, another cartoon strip titled Dennis the Menace was published in the British comic The Beano ( dated March 17-the " off sale " date ) in 1951.

Gnasher is the pet dog of Dennis the Menace in the British comic strip Dennis the Menace from The Beano.

Leo Baxendale ( born 27 October 1930 in Preston, Lancashire ) is a British cartoonist, who was the creator of the classic Beano strips Little Plum ( 1953 ), Minnie the Minx ( 1953 ), The Bash Street Kids ( created October 1953, began publication February 1954 ) and The Three Bears ( 1959 ).

Minnie the Minx is a fictional character in the British comic The Beano.

Biffo the Bear was a fictional character who had his own comic strip in the British comic The Beano.

Billy Whizz is a fictional character featured in the British comic The Beano, first appearing in issue 1139, dated 16 May 1964, when it replaced The Country Cuzzins.

Ken Reid ( 1919 – 1987 ) was a British comic artist and writer, best known as the co-creator of Roger the Dodger and Jonah for The Beano and Faceache for Jet ( later appeared in Buster ).

* Pie Face, friend to British comics character Dennis the Menace in The Beano

Like most of the Malaysian children in the 1950s, Lat watched Hanna-Barbera cartoons ( The Flintstones and The Jetsons ) on television and read imported British comics, such as The Dandy and The Beano.

* Baby Face Finlayson, a character in the British comic The Beano

* The Three Bears ( comic strip ), a long-running British comic strip from The Beano

In 1952 he began freelance work for the children's comic The Beano, drawing series like Little Plum, Minnie the Minx ( started in 1953, taken over by Jim Petrie in 1961 ), The Three Bears and The Bash Street Kids ( initially called When the Bell Rings ).

The Beano Annual is the current name of the book that has been published every year since 1939, to tie in with the children's comic The Beano.

The Bash Street Kids Annual was a book published from 1979 to 2010 to tie-in with the children's comic The Beano, specifically The Bash Street Kids comic strip.

The Dennis and Gnasher Annual is the current name of the book that has been published since 1955 to tie in with the children's comic The Beano, specifically the Dennis the Menace comic strip. Since they are traditionally published in the northern autumn and in time for Christmas, since 1965 ( with the release of Dennis the Menace 1966 ) they have had the date of the following year on the cover.

Beanotown is a fictional town somewhere in the United Kingdom which is the setting for the majority of the strips in the popular children's comic, The Beano as well as the hometown of most of its characters.

The top five longest running Beano comic strips are, in descending order, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, Bash Street Kids, Roger the Dodger, then the last holder of the title before Dennis, Lord Snooty.

During the 1980s, The Beano ran a ' Readers ' Request ' feature where readers could request for a particular comic strip to feature in the Beano.

On a number of occasions the Beano has allowed its readers to vote for which new strips they want to appear in the comic.

This usually consists of three new comic strips being run for a number of weeks and the readers can vote on which strips they prefer and the one that receives the most votes stays in the Beano.

The Beano comic takes its name from the English word beano which can be loosely interpreted as a good time.

The comic also ran A4-sized Beano Specials in 1987 with full coloured pages, which later were replaced by Beano Superstars which ran for 121 issues from 1992-2002.

The venture was unsuccessful, in part because the comic cost 9p, with the Beano at the time only costing 4p and most of its rivals priced similarly.

At the start of 2011, the Beano VIP pages were dropped from the comic, but the online features remain.

* List of Beano comic strips

* List of Beano comic strips by annual

*** Dennis the Menace ( 1996 TV series ), an animated television series based on the Beano comic strip, known internationally as Dennis and Gnasher.

*** Dennis and Gnasher ( 2009 TV series ), the latest series based on the Beano comic, released on September 7, 2009.

By 2000, The Bash Street Kids had reached such a heightened popularity they were all featured in feature length strips taking up a whole Beano comic.

He appeared in his own comic, called simply Plug ( 1977 – 1979 ), which starred him and his two pets, Pug from Pup Parade and Chunkee the Monkey, making him the Beano first character to achieve a spin-off.