COMIC ANNUAL

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a Broons Annual under the tree and this reproduction of the very first annual from 1939 finds Dundee’s favourite family getting caught in the same situations they have been re-living over and over for the past 67-odd years.

Like some weird Groundhog Day set in Dundee, Paw, with his walrus-esque moustache, is destined to be forever sitting on newly painted park benches and lanky Hen will always be getting caught in the rain wearing new suits that shrink past his knees allowing hunky Joe to steal his prospective girlfriends. Horace will always be the swot, just as the twins will always be loveable proto-neds, constantly in trouble (nothing serious though, no ASBOs needed here).The Bairn and Grandpa will always be sucking joob-joos and, in 1939, a particularly unattractive Daphne is destined to spend the rest of her life as the ugly sister to Maggie - the tastiest thing to come out of Dundee since the ‘ingin pie’.

It’s these familiar tales where nothing bad ever happens except maybe a goat eating the picnic or Paw sticking a nail through a pipe that have been the template for all subsequent Broons books, and that’s their enduring appeal. We know what’s going to happen and that at the end all will be well in Glebe Street. It’s this perfect, unchanging Dundonian world that makes it the perfect Christmas annual for all the family. As it says on the cover, ‘Scotland’s happy family that makes every family happy.’