Race complaint over Dandy reprint

The comic strip was included in a reprint of the 1939 Dandy annual

Publishing giant DC Thomson has been criticised after it reprinted a 1939 annual which contained racist references to black people.

A reader condemned the inclusion of a comic strip from the original 1939 Dandy annual which included a term deemed unacceptable in modern society.

The issue has led to calls for the withdrawal of the "facsimile" publication from sale.

Dundee-based DC Thomson said it would be unfair to tamper with the reprint.

The row blew up after Winston Walker, who lives in the city, said he was left disgusted after buying the publication for a friend.

He was left feeling upset by one story strip which featured blacked-up minstrels and the liberal use of a word considered highly offensive in modern day multicultural society.

Mr Walker said: "I found the material very offensive, the wording and the amount of times the word 'nigger' was used.

It is a true facsimile copy and we don't feel it is something we should edit DC Thomson spokesman

"When you're trying to promote in Scotland that there's no place for racism, putting out literature like this is total hypocrisy."

The Glasgow Anti-Racist Alliance (Gara) called for the annual, which has been distributed to shops ahead of Christmas, to be removed from bookstores.

"This kind of thing cannot be permitted with ease at this point in our development as a society," said Gara spokeswoman Anita Shelton.

"It is an outrage and is terribly disturbing."

Facsimile copy'

However, DC Thomson said the annual was "of its time" and it would not have published the word in the Dandy of today.

"It is a true facsimile copy and we don't feel it is something we should edit," a spokesman said.

The view was echoed by Dundee-based comic expert Douglas Hill, who said it was not right to apply 21st Century values to work from the 1930s.

He said: "The people who want to buy these annuals probably had them at the time."

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) said it had not received any complaints about the annual.

"We should celebrate the fact that we live in a time where such ideas around race are no longer seen as appropriate and our society does not condone this kind of language," said a spokeswoman.