For those of a certain age, The Dandy is as much a part of most of our childhoods as penny sweets and doing wheelies. It's an instrumental part of British life and along with its counterparts like The Beano, chances are it affected most of us in those early days. Comics are essential to childhood and the food for imagination, they're wide open spaces for children to explore the most crazy ideas and the most ridiculous characters. A place to escape to when the real world isn't so attractive.

Comics are where we first learned about pea shooters, mud pies and building forts in trees. They're one of the most exciting mediums around, and unrestrained by common sense or manners. Inside the pages of the best comics you will find pure, unbridled anarchy, running rampant through the world, telling hilarious stories with the naughtiest, silliest characters.

The Dandy took on this idea with gusto, and since it began in 1937 (making it the longest-running UK comic) it has been delighting generations of children with its fantastic array of characters. A family, if you will, which included Bananaman, Desperate Dan, Korky The Cat, Cuddles And Dimples to name but a few. All names people probably recognise, household names, fondly recalled for the japes and the scrapes they got into.

These days, The Dandy has been keeping up with fierce competition, in the form of licensed magazines and comics coming off the back of TV shows or toy ranges. People will often mention technology and other modern-day distractions being a threat to traditional comics too, but I've never agreed with this. A challenge is just that, a challenge, to be embraced and overcome, and comics need to adapt and meet the needs of every successive generation. What made audiences laugh 20 years ago isn't necessarily the same as now, which is why any competition is just another reason to keep things fresh.

I've been producing comics for The Dandy pretty much constantly for nearly 10 years (drawing Desperate Dan among others), and I've been so very honoured to do so. You won't find a more dedicated, passionate bunch of artists, working hard to keep children entertained week after week. This is, after all, why we draw comics. With a simple brushstroke, or a funny dialogue, you can raise a smile in a child. That's not an opportunity we, as artists, take lightly.

Quintessentially British though this humour may appear at its core, it is in fact universal, and neither age nor location can stifle the belly laughs from reading a good comic.

Which is why it's essential to keep children reading comics, so they might find the delight in them we did, and grow up to create the comics of the future.

• Jamie Smart is a comic book artist and children's author, who has worked for The Dandy for nearly 10 years, creating comic strips including Desperate Dan, Pre-Skool Prime Minister, My Own Genie and Arena Of Awesome.