THE end, it appears, really is nigh.

I refer, of course, to the grim news that the Dandy is in life's departure lounge and that its owner, DC Thomson, will shortly switch off its support machine and allow it to go the way of so many other much-loved comics. It was perhaps inevitable that it would take something of such gravity to kick the Olympics back to the sports pages where they belong. I am told, reliably or not, that when it was announced the Dandy may soon cease publication there was weeping and wailing among weans of all ages. What can I say, other than that I share their chagrin.

The reason given for the infliction of so much heartache is that circulation has apparently plummeted to an unsustainable level. Time was when the Dandy could claim to sell two million copies a week, of which I was the eager and regular purchaser of one. Now, alas, it is lucky if it sells 8000 copies. As ever, the usual suspects were dragged in to explain why this has occurred, prime among them being television, which turns children into the intellectual equivalent of chicken nuggets, and the internet, about which I will not hear a good word.

As if offering an aspirin to the victim of a bomb blast, a spokesman for DC Thomson attempted to reassure Dandy readers that this is not the end of the road for Desperate Dan, who may be despatched to cyberspace or transferred to the Beano, possibly for a record- breaking signing-on fee. Not since Mo Johnston went from Celtic to Rangers (via Nantes) have I heard such an insensitive suggestion. What next? Oor Wullie and the Broons are snapped up by a red-top tabloid?

I, needless to say, was a Dandy boy through and through. In the days when the world was – literally – black and white, you always had to be one thing or the other. There were no shades of grey back then, and certainly not 50 of them. For example, you were either for Cliff or Elvis, Blue Peter or Magpie. To its aficionados, the Dandy was a cut above other comics, and several cuts above the Beano, which was full of characters like Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids who, had they not been afforded the full protection of DC Thomson's ferocious lawyers, would have been served with ASBOs.

The Dandy, on the other hand, offered a portrait of the world that seemed appealing and aspirational. Its presiding spirit was the aforementioned Desperate Dan, who always reminded me of Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza. DD epitomised everything a runty Scottish boy was not. Famously, he was the world's strongest man, capable of throwing a lead-lined caber from Skye to Lochaber. His pillow was filled not with feathers but with building rubble and he needed a blowtorch to shave his beard. Best of all, his favourite meal was cowpie, which made chip shop steak pies look no bigger than Smarties. Controversially, DC Thomson stopped him eating them during the Mad Cow Disease debacle.

How he came about and who inspired him, I know not. Perhaps there were many men like him in dour Dundee, though I rather doubt it. I had a friend who used to draw cartoons for these comics. His signature symbol was a smelly sock, which he hid in his drawings. Kids loved trying to find it, stinking out a drawer or the fridge or tucked down the back of a sofa. It was the kind of humour Roald Dahl understood so well. Subtle it was not but it never failed to produce squeals of delight.

Occasionally my friend used to visit his editors. He described them as serious-minded men who, when they could be prised from the pub, spent their office hours poring over the Financial Times in a quest for novel storylines. Their inventiveness was boundless and it was always fun to read about anarchy in a comic knowing it had its source in such a conservative company.

Lately, it seems, they attempted to revive the Dandy's fortunes by importing celebrities into it, which saddens me no end. For what was the Dandy but filled with its own, inimitable, indelible celebrities?