Rebrand, Closure and Reprints
In the late 1980s and 1990s, with the expansion of children's television and videogames taking a greater share of children's time, sales of comics began to fall, and so D. C. Thomson decided to modernise the Topper, relaunching it as Topper '89 from February 1989.
In September 1990, it was decided to merge the Topper with another of D. C. Thomson's long-running comics, The Beezer and the two comics combined as Beezer and Topper. This continued in publication until 1993; it subsequently closed, with a small amount of content from the combined comic subsequently relocating into other D. C. Thomson publications The Beano and The Dandy.
Despite the closure of the Topper as a standalone title, The Topper Book continued as an annual, separate from The Beezer Book, until the 1994 annual (published 1993, the year new issues of Beezer and Topper ceased).
Vintage stories from the Topper appeared alongside stories from other D. C. Thomson publications in Classics from the Comics, a compilation magazine series which ran from 1996 to 2010.
On March 19 The Royal Mail launched a special stamp collection to celebrate Britain's rich comic book history. The collection featured The Beano, The Dandy, Eagle, The Topper, Roy of the Rovers, Bunty, Buster, Valiant, Twinkle and 2000 AD.
Read more about this topic: The Topper (comics)