BillyBatson4360

All right, here's what I feel are the key issues:

Dennis the Menace # 1

Dennis the Menace # 8 – Last pre-code issue

Dennis the Menace # 22 – 1st appearance of Margaret

Dennis the Menace # 30 - Wiseman draws a story (“The Inside Story”) featuring “Al Wiseman and Fred Toole”

Dennis the Menace # 31 – 1st appearance of Joey - as a back-up strip

Dennis the Menace # 34 – 1st time Joey appears in a story with Dennis

Dennis the Menace # 37 – “Cookie Jar” newsletter replaces strip reprints on inside covers

Dennis the Menace # 39 – 1st appearance of Gina

Dennis the Menace # 46 – Last consecutive issue with Wiseman art

Dennis the Menace # 56 – Last 10 cent issue

Dennis the Menace # 69 – Last issue of the regular series to feature original Wiseman art

Dennis the Menace Vacation Special (no number) – 1st Dennis Giant

Dennis the Menace Christmas Special (no number) – 1st Dennis Christmas Special

Dennis the Menace in Hawaii (Giant # 6) – Possibly the best-selling comic of all time and the 1st of the classic “on-location” vacation specials

Dennis the Menace Goes to Camp (Giant # 9) – First Dennis comic with non-Wiseman art

I really be interested on what everybody else thinks ar the key issues.

First of all, to anyone with the Bible Kids Series, the link Flying-D posted seemed to indicate that Al Wiseman worked on that series. I thought he left Kethcum's employ long before those. Can anyone of you with access to those books let us know whether or not Wiseman did the art? If you're not sure, just post some scans, I'm pretty sure I can spot Wiseman's style.

Secondly, there was a request for "key" issues of Dennis. I've assembled such a list. A word of warning, tho', this is just my opinion. Another Dennis fan may come up with a different list. And as I'm an unabashed fan of Al Wiseman, I can't really speak to the highlights of the book after he stopped drawing it.

First, a little publishing history:

Publishers:

Standard

Regular Series # 1-14

Vacation Special (nn)

Christmas Special (nn)

Pines

Regular Series # 15-31

Giants # 2-6 (Hawaii)

Hallden/Fawcett

(I’ve always thought “Hallden” was a holding company put together by Hank Ketchum and the Hall Syndicate for the express purpose of publishing Dennis the Menace comic books. The name, of course, came from “Hall” Syndicate and “Den”nis the Menace. I know of no other titles published by Hallden. It also looks like Hallden then subcontracted the actual printing/publishing to Fawcett.

Regular Series #32-76

Giants # 6 (Christmas)-75

Best of Dennis the Menace # 1-5

Television Special #1-2

Dennis the Menace & Joey # 1

Dennis the Menace & Ruff # 1

Dennis the Menace Fun Book # 1

Fawcett

(I, too, find it ironic that Captain Marvel’s publisher’s last venture in the comic book arena would be Dennis)

Regular Series #77-166

Bonus Series # 76-194

Dennis the Menace & Friends # 1-42 (two # 1’s, two #2’s, no #3 or 4)

Pocket Full of Fun (Digest) #1-49

Marvel

Regular Series # 1-13

Very Best of Dennis the Menace (Digest) # 1-3

This is just one of my favorite Dennis covers. It comes from "The Best of Dennis the Menace" #3. This was a Giant series that featured reprints from the regular series. I love the cover because it demonstrates that Dennis was one of the first comic collectors (although I don't think he could read being about 4 1/2 years old). It also is a subtle way of letting readers know the book contained reprints. And it is slightly surreal as Dennis exists in a world that publishes "Dennis the Menace" comics, even though he appears to be just an average kid.

And here's "Dennis and Ruff" #1:

The cover is unusual in one sense. Dennis wears blue coveralls and a red-striped shirt - the reverse of his normal colors. (Go back through the scans of regular issues. You'll find this happens every once in awhile.) Here I'm sure it was because of the choice of red as a background color. I'm not sure why the change was made on some of the other issues.

These books looked like they were going to be one-shots as future "Joey" & "Ruff" editions became part of the Giant/Bonus Magazine series. However 8 years later (1969), both these books got second issues, followed by first issues of "Dennis & Mr. Wilson" and "Dennis & Margaret."

Then Fawcett rethought the whole furshlugginer mess and brought them all under the umbrella title of "Dennis the Menace and His Friends" beginning that numbering with # 5. Again, totally confusing as there would be 6 issues (counting the "Joey" and "Ruff" #1's from 1961) before the change in numbering. The "Friends" series ran through #12 as regular-sized comics, were Giants from #12-21, back to regular size # 22-37, and finally digest-sized from #38-46.

Before CBG resumes his run of theregular Dennis series. I thought I'd post a couple more "special" issues. These first two are from the summer of 1961 and feature the first attempts to widen the Dennis brand beyond the regular seies and the Giants. I'm not sure which book came first because they both hit the racks that summer. They are both 100% Wiseman-Toole projects. The first is "Dennis and Joey # 1":

I'm sure such a cover would be impossible today both because the fake death gag would be deemed to strong for today's "delicate" youth and because it shows the kids playing with toy guns.

Well, at the risk of being tar and feathered or, at least burned in effigy - I've noticed no problem with scanning interiors. There are a couple of guide lines I use:

1.) Obviously if I have a lower grade copy, I'll use that one.

2.) If it's a giant, I either won't scan it or I'll settle for a scan where the comic isn't laying completely flat.

3.) I have my scanner positioned so that I can lay a comic on its bed without the rest of the comic being constricted by anything.

The interior scans you see above were completed with no significant changes happening to the grades of either issue. Now, if it was a key issue (#1) and in VF or better condition, I might not want to risk putting it on a scanner bed. But a comic on Fine or Good condition already has some bumps or bruises, and - as I said - I have yet to damage a book by using my scanner.

Keep in mind when reading all of the above, that I am a collector who would never "slab" a book. I believe comics are for reading and comics are valuable for the stories. To seal them up so no one can ever see the stories inside just strikes me as a road I don't want to go down.

Finally, this is a page from my favorite Dennis story: "Clothes Call" from Dennis the Menace # 28. The premise was sheer genuis. Dennis' mother gets tired of him always look disheviled. She gives him a bath, combs his hair and sends him outside in a suit instead of his trademark red overalls. Nobody, not even his father, recognizes him.

As a kid, I absolutely loved this story. As an adult, it still remains my favorite. Here's a sample page - this time with red-headed Margaret:

Love that balanced page composition. Anybody else want to post a page from their favorite Dennis story?

Now just a quick post of some Wiseman art. This is the first page of the first story to feature Margaret in the comic book. What's interesting is that her hair was colored blond. I have no idea if this was a printer's error or if they later decided to make her a redhead (leaving Dennis the only blond kid in the strip).

By the way, this is from Dennis the Menace # 22.

And # 20:

#19:

This one has an arrival date marked in pen above the Comics Code.

These last 3 are the last from that spectaular find. Again, I bought these comics through a want ad I placed in the Comic Buyers Guide in the early 90's. The seller never gave me too much information about the books, whether they were copies he had collected himself or came from a collection he had purchased. I do know that he was a private collector and not a dealer and I'm fairly certain that these had to have been collected by a single indivdual as the condition on all of them is almost identical.

All right, # 18:

And now, to # 17. This one, also from that great collection, along with #4, is in absolutely perfect condition. It looks like it came off a newsstand just this week. (and those of us who remember when comic were delivered to drug stores bound by wires that cut the books can attest - some newsstand comics NEVER looked this good):

My # 15 is a little rougher than the one posted by CBG, so we'll skip to # 16 (also from that large collection of super-conditioned Dennis the Menaces):

Moving on to #14 - This came from the same collection as my # 4, 5, 6 & 10:

This time the cover is off-center the other way. By the way, do any of you who have Dennis collections find the same high number of off-center covers among the early issues (1st 20)?

Loved the tribute cartoons, Joe. Nice.

If y'all aren't sick of them, I thought I'd give you a few more scans from my collection. We pick up with issue # 13:

This was an eBay addition to the collection, but still in great shape.

Did a little research today on the Dennis Giveaway's. "Dennis the Menace and Dirt" is a simple reprint of the lead story from Dennis the Menace # 36 with a new cover, crossword puzzle and photo/text feature about Hank Ketchum's ranch. It was published in1958 and re-released in 1968 (my copy is the reprint). By the way, the coloring in the original story and the reprint is identical.

The "Takes a Poke at Poison" giveaway has a more interesting history. It was reprinted many times, but judging from the scans we've seen here, at least the cover was redrawn. I'm curious if Jeffreykli could post a scan of the interior of his copy so was can see if the interior was redrawn as well (whch would, in effect, give us two different giveaways).

I've been busy making scans, so I'll have plenty to post here very soon. But my daughter is in her high schol musical this evening and I've got to drive her there.

More later.

I know there was also a "Dennis in California" fairly early on. In later years they added "Dennis at Marriott's Great America" and I believe "Dennis at Knott's Berry Farm" as well.

I presume some promotional money changed hands over those.

My favorite has always been "Dennis in Hawaii" - maybe because it was the first. But I probably read that single comic more than any other in my collection.

That's all until this weekend, when I'll unpack the other box the rest of my Dennis collection is stored in. But I also thought I'd post this final scan. One of my favorite things about the early Dennis books is that they would occasionally run ads for Dennis merchandise on the back covers (the books carried no internal ads). Here's one of the first - from the back of # 12:

Until I can get more scans, I'd like to hear some opinions on what your favorite Dennis stories are or what you think was the single best Dennis Giant.

And finally # 12 - also from eBay:

# 11 was purchased off eBay. Still not a bad issue:

And Here's # 10:

Both # 9 & 10 came from the same collection as # 4, 5 & 6.

My copy of # 8 is not in as good a shape as Comic Book Guy's, so let's move on to # 9:

Just the slightest band of discoloration on the right edge and bottom - makes you wish these had been stacked just a little more neatly!

Here's # 7. One of the only ones in the bunch to show some fading. Obviously, however these issues were stored, the right edge of this one stuck out and got sun/light faded over time. Still, overall, it's in great shape:

Here's # 6 - notice again, the 0ff-center cover. So off-center it runs out of art before it gets to the right border:

But you'll notice these issues have no chipping on the edges or little folded corners. Whoever owned these way back when REALLY took care of them.

Okay, did my research and came up with the same number of panels you did, Joe - 123 cartoons in "Rides Again."

Ironically, I read that Hemback page right before I stumbled on this thread (they both came up in my Google search for "Al Wiseman Dennis the Menace"). Excellent stuff.

And now...on with the show...these next three are from the same collection that my Dennis #4 came from. This (obviously) is # 5...