The Dandy Annual name changed to The Dandy Book in 1952 and continued, the year changing for each subsequent annual, until the release of the 2003 book in 2002 when it was renamed "The Dandy Annual". Despite the comic's relaunch as Dandy Xtreme in 2007, the annual was still known as "The Dandy Annual". This is likely because the annuals of the time were mostly made up of "Dandy Comix", due to the topical nature of the magazine's "Xtreme" content. In unison with the comic at the time, the front cover usually featured Korky the Cat. After Desperate Dan took over the front
Bill the Cat can speak English, but have advanced vocabularies. The former is a result of his regularly choking on hairballs, the latter sound an approximation of the "raspberry". Bill the Cat is commonly seen as a parody of Jim Davis' Garfield (Milo Bloom appears to fear a visit from United Feature Syndicate's copyright lawyers over Bill's similarities to Garfield). In the December 22, 2015 Facebook version of the comic, it was revealed that Bill the Cat is actually Garfield's son. Breathed has also described Bill as his attempt to create a character so repulsive that it would have absolutely no merchandising potential.