Another day, another blow to the dwindling Scottish printing industry. News that DC Thomson plans to cease printing (with the notable exception of newspapers) in Dundee comes hot on the heels of the demise of Woods of Perth.

The DC Thomson situation is a fairly unique one - I'm wondering if it could be described as the last of the great inplants? Having started my printing career at the then Boots Print - a similarly giant inplant operation of its day - I've always taken something of a special interest in the fate of other such facilities.

It seems to me that DC Thomson has been in a no-win situation for years. Upon being asked the question "how many gravure printers are there in the UK?" the most immediate response would be "two", as it was so easy to overlook the Dundee factory. With the heydays of massive Beano and Dandy circulations of millions of copies a week well behind the firm, how could it possibly justify the overhead of such a facility?

It was always hard to see it being able to win sufficient commercial work to keep things viable, especially in the face of competition from two giant gravure sites set up by Polestar and Prinovis. Book printing is hardly a rolling in gold sector, either.

Closure appears inevitable. I wonder if homage will be paid to the printers in cartoon strip form.