In October 1986, the fifth annual Smash Hits yearbook was published. A slight departure from the sort of thing this blog usually covers, you might think.
But on page 49 there's a photo of The Cure's Robert Smith, as part of a feature entitled Books, Batteries and the Beano. Now things might fall into place. That particular feature has been scanned in here, so you don't have to suffer with my low-quality photography for a change, but amongst Robert's possessions is an issue of the Beano:
We worked out which issue of the Beezer is in One Foot in the Algarve. We worked out which issue of the Beano is in The Comic Relief Revue Book. Can we work out which issue of the Beano this is?
Amazingly enough, there is something that significantly narrows the field at first glance. That yellow Dennis the Menace logo had only been in use since issue #2254, dated September 28th, 1985, and it took a couple more months to gain the little "fight lines" (for want of a better term) around it, which were added in issue #2266, dated December 21st. It then took two more issues for the logo to reach its final form, with a change to a transparent background at the start of 1986; it would remain in use until the end of 1993. So we're dealing with an issue published in the same year as the book.
Specifically, it's that one -- issue #2289, dated May 31st, 1986. Not quite as close in proximity to the book's publication date as it was for the Comic Relief Revue Book, but pretty close nonetheless, and it seems quite likely that was the current issue (or at least a very recent one) when the photo was taken. (The photo in question is credited to Paul Cox, if you're curious.)
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