One of the best selling comics in the UK, along with The Beano, The Dandy reached sales of two million a week in the 1950s. The first issue, under the name The Dandy Comic, was published on 4 December 1937. The most notable difference between this and other comics of the day was the use of speech balloons instead of captions under the frame. It was published weekly until 6 September 1941, when wartime paper shortages forced it to change to fortnightly, alternating with The Beano. It returned to weekly publication on 30 July 1949. From 17 July 1950 the magazine changed its name to The Dandy.
Although it followed the customary format of British comics of the day, combining humor strips, adventure strips and prose stories, The Dandy abandoned the customary, and usually redundant, text narration that accompanied most British comic strips at that time, and told stories largely in pictures and dialogue. Overseen by managing editor R. D. Low, The Dandy was edited from its launch by Albert Barnes, who held the position until his retirement in 1982.
In 1938, less than a year after the comic's debut, the first Dandy annual (The Dandy Book) was released. Originally called The Dandy Monster comic, this was an annual bumper edition of the comic and was released annually thereafter.