Dundee will be 'renamed' next summer to celebrate Beano favourites like Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx and the city's heritage as Scotland's home of comics.
The Dundee Summer (Bash) Street Festival will celebrate the city's characters, stories, history and upcoming talent.
As part of the 2022 Year of Stories - the latest theme in VisitScotland's series of annual celebrations - Dundee will be 'renamed' Beanotown, with a pop-up comic museum, workshops, talks, film screenings, street fun and world record attempts.
Dennis the Menace and trusty pet pup Gnasher helped to launch the Year of Stories with a photoshoot down at Falkirk's Kelpies on Tuesday, accompanied by Mary Queen of Scots and travelling scribes from The Story Wagon.
Across Scotland book festivals, musical journeys, favourite cartoon characters and fresh takes on Scots culture and heritage will celebrate the Year of Stories.
The programme is being launched with a dramatic promotional video voiced by Game of Thrones and Trainspotting star James Cosmo.
Scottish culture minister Jenny Gilruth said: “Storytelling and celebrating our unique oral history tradition has never been more important as we continue to respond to the impacts of the pandemic."
The Summer Bash Street Festival is the latest in a long line of Beano-themed events to have celebrated Dundee's heritage as a city of comic creativity.
In 2018, the McManus Art Gallery and Museum was renamed the McMenace for a Beano takeover, which saw signs 'graffitied' by legendary urchins the Bash Street Kids and a huge collection of comic memorabilia put on display.
And the Beano set a Guinness World Record at the opening of the V&A Dundee in September that year when it officially hosted the world's biggest Finish the Comic Strip competition.
Kids (and big kids) were asked to complete the final panel in a special one-off comic book by doodling what they would like to put on display in the new design museum.
Next year's event is also a welcome return for the Summer Streets festival, which last took place in 2019 and saw a huge indoor inflatable "luminarium" erected in City Square.
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