Will Desperate Dan ride into the sunset at British comic The Dandy?

Desperate Dan

[This post has been updated] It's ironic that just as the British comic The Dandy is celebrating 75 years of publication and London's Cartoon Museum is holding an exhibition about this, the longest-running comic, in October, its owners DC Thomson seem to be reluctantly concluding that it has had its day.
[Update: it was announced that the comic would be going wholly online.]

Desperate Dan and Korky the Cat may have to find a new home, convert to digital or retire. 

The Dandy sold more than 2 million copies a week in the 1950s and is reduced to below 8.000 now, according to a Reuters story. Stiff competition for children's attention from TV and video games seems to have done it in.

"The Dandy wasn't as able to develop existing characters into characters kids could identify with," said Anita O'Brien, curator of London's Cartoon Museum.

"But most of all, comics had a challenge competing with television and computer games for kids' attention," she said.

According to latest circulation figures, since The Dandy was revamped last October, it has lost 48% of its circulation, reports comics blog Blimey!Apparently readers weren't enamoured of new characters the comic introduced.