Allen Ross-migration

I found this newspaper article tucked inside a copy of Dennis the Menace Happy Half-Pint (Random House, 1961 Hardback) that I purchased on Sunday (at Second Story Books in Rockville; Joe probably knows where that is). It likely was published in the Washington Post, probably in July 1969 (on the back it mentions that the Hornet aircraft carrier is going to pick up the astronaunts from Apollo 11 and will be there on Tuesday, two days before Apollo 11 arrives there). The text sounds somewhat familiar, like it was published in one of those "letters" that Dennis would write in the comics. But I don't have time to search it out. The front cover of this book is wrinkled a little (like water got on it), but the pages are nice. The inside cover and first page are somewhat stained from the newspaper article. I also got a copy of Dennis The Menace... Who, Me? (Random House, 1962 hardback). Its cover is pretty good, just some wear on the edges and a circle where a price sticker must have ben. Definitely not bad for $3.20 each (normally $5 but they are having a sale on all books this month).

Thanks, Joe. It looks like you got Giant #44 uploaded now, too. Over the holidays, I got the rest of my Bonus Magazine Series uploaded, and all of my Pocket Full of Fun issues. That just leaves 5 digests (Friends Series #43 and Pocket Full of Fun #7, 26-28), none of which I have. Also needed is and Joey #1 (1961), which (as I mentioned earlier) I do have, but it's a poor copy (a chunk out of the cover), so if anyone wants to upload their copy, do it before Monday (if nobody has by then, I'll go ahead and upload my scan). There's also a couple of paperbacks that are listed that need covers (I haven't found my box of paperbacks recently). Then we have to wait until they fix the Bonus Magazine Series two #95s problem listing, and list the promos (I've got scans ready for all of that). That would be everything!

I got a chance to compare this to the original issues (Giant #9 and Giant #39). The caption for the photos says "These pictures show what the camp was like then", which may be true, but they are not reprinted from the original photos; they are new to this printing. The stories are all the Dennis stories from #9. Missing are the activity pages, the Mark Trail feature, and Dennis' letter from camp (not a story per se), and the very last page of the last story. There was one other change made to the last story; the words to the song that everyone sings in the circle were changed to be specific to Kennolyn; "You all belong to Kennolyn and Kennolyn belongs to you...". The cover is from Giant #39, although the Comics Code Authority stamp was shrunk. Reading through this again, I'm amazed at how much reality was shown in the stories in the original printing. Not only was Kennolyn mentioned by name several places (including the first page and on the side of the van crammed full of kids), but Uncle Max Caldwell and Aunt Marion are specifically named. The flyer that the camp also sent to me says that those two founded the camp in 1946, and has a picture of them in that year that resembles Al Wiseman's drawings. For all we know, Jerry Banks (Dennis' counsellor) was a real person too. It's nice to look through a brand new printing of a Dennis comic book; no yellowing pages, modern printing, etc. Is this the first printing of a Dennis comic since the Marvel series ended in 1982?

I received my copy yesterday. It's 52 pages, and "Copyright 2005 used by permission of Hank Ketcham Enterprises, Inc." I haven't compared it to the original yet, but the only new content appears to be new captions for the photos on the inside covers, plus a new crossword puzzle on the back cover. The cover is from a later 1966 reprint (I haven't looked up the number). I thank Andrew for making this available to us (gee, they spent $1.52 in postage to mail it to me)! For those of us who probably have little chance of making use of Kennolyn Camp, I strongly suggest making a donation to their "Send a kid to camp" foundation: http://www.caldwellfoundation.org/ .

The GCD has several levels of authority to add information. Only a handful of people are authorized to create new series. A few more people can edit existing entries and approve pending indexes. Indexers (of which I am one) can reserve and index any book that isn't already indexed or reserved by anyone else (final approval by an editor is required). And anyone with Internet access can submit a missing cover scan. The entire GCD is a volunteer effort. Anyone can apply to be an indexer by following the directions on this page: http://www.comics.org/docs/reserved.html . Note that it could take a while to be approved (they actually lost my first attempt). If you want to follow discussions about comics indexing at the GCD, you can join the "main" list from this URL: http://lists.comics.org/mailman/listinfo/cdbl . There, you can read the archives and follow all the recent discussions we've had on Dennis comics, including the publishers of them. Most of the Dennis paperbacks are not yet on GCD, probably just due to the sheer volume of them. Ray, who is at least an editor, obviously has the details already, as he showed above. The cartoon compilations are allowed, per the definition of "comic book" that the site has. Most of the Dennis books currently are reserved to be indexed; the only ones that aren't at the moment are Complete DTM and Very Best of DTM (Hallden/CBS).

Just to keep you up-to-date on our progress of getting the GCD updated with all the Dennis comics: Several "new" titles have been added in the past couple weeks. I think all the regular series are now in (even Complete DTM), leaving only the promos to be added (and they have been passed on to the editors), plus the rest of the paperbacks (that Ray and Joe listed above). Cover scans have been added for many issues. I'm still working on scaning the rest of my Bonus Magazine Series and all of the Pocket Full of Fun covers; I'll hopefully finish scanning them over Christmas. There are other corrections that have been submitted but not updated yet (like needing two #95s and no #96 for Bonus Magazine Series). Check out here: http://www.comics.org/search.lasso?type=...p;Submit=Search

Hey, Al Wiseman fans! This week's CBR Oddball Comics column has an overview of a comic book premium for Top Value stamps called "The Adventures Of Toppie The Top Value Elephant", with art by Al. It includes several images from that book. Check it out! Here's the cover:

Yeah! Complete Dennis the Menace vol 2 has been scheduled; see Fantagraphics March List The following is the cover, although it's a tif image (we'll see if it comes up or not; you might need Quicktime plugin to see it).

Apparently, at least one other book was published by Hallden. Another poster mentions this book: Mark Trail On Safari #5 is Hallden, 10c cover, dated Summer 1959. Has Hallden logo, with Dennis, plus small "F" underneath. This is not in the GCD. The poster mentions that two other issues with different titles were published by Pines.

In reponse to Steven's comments, Ray came back with this list of Dennis paperback publishers: "Avon did the first Dennis pb in 1952 Pocket picked up August 1956 (last month for Avon too) Fawcett picked it up under its Crest imprint on June 1959 (last Pocket known printing was August 1961) Fawcett began to move Dennis to its Gold Medal imprint starting June 1968 (last known Crest July 1970) First known CBS owned Fawcett Dennis book August 1977 (last original Fawcett owners--August 1975 (most pbs during this time period were not dated, so there were later ones, since CBS took over the Fawcett lines in 1976, but August 1975 is the latest dated one)) First Ballantine owned Fawcett Dennis book dated September 1982. Last known Dennis CBS printing--February 1982. Last known dated Ballantine Dennis book October 1987, though printings probably run into 1992." ------------- I mentioned this forum as part of my comments, so we'll see if we get any new visitors here!

Thanks, Billy. That makes sense. I passed my info with your comments on to the GCD internal boards. It's being discussed more there. One comment I want to pass on from there is this, by Steven Rowe: "The problem with making Hallden (or as it was originaly known "Hall-Den") a pure division of Fawcett - is that their name is also in some of the Pines books! (although happily not as the publisher) Heres what happen - some of the below is factual, some is speculative. The Dennis comics were always packaged by Dennis the Menace Enterprises (in California); when the Dennis comics were selling above a million copies, DTME opted to avoid the middle man, Ned Pines, and with the clout of moneyman and synidcate head Robert Hall - began self-publishing. I'm not sure if Fawcett was the first distributor or not -- -- at some point (and I guess Ray would know which came first), Fawcett begain publishing the Dennis paperbacks - and then took over the grunt work on the comic books. of course, like most packaged comics, Fawcett (and if we insist of calling Hallden a division of Fawcett, then Hallden) never saw the material untill it was ready to be printed. oddly enough Pines was bought by CBS around 1972 as well, so Hallden and Pines were back together in a corporate sense!"

I'm trying to figure out the publisher history of the Dennis comics for the GCD, and have looked at the four main titles during the Hallden/Fawcett/CBS era to try to get consistent logic behind them. I did an analysis of the logos and indicias of those titles, and came up with this: ANALYSIS SUMMARY: The current publisher list as listed in GCD [which lists some titles as Fawcett, some as Hallden, and some as Hallden; Fawcett] makes little sense, as all these series except Ruff and the TV Specials cross strict publisher lines, as defined in the indicia. There is even overlap between the logos and the indicias within a series, with "conflicting" info. Going just by cover logos, most books started as Hallden, then went to Hallden/Fawcett, then Fawcett, and then NOTHING. Going by indicias, they started as Hallden, then Hallden Division of Fawcett, then Fawcett only, then BACK to Hallden Division of Fawcett, then finally Hallden Unit of CBS. Messy, to say the least. SPECULATION (I could be wrong about any and all of this): Hallden probably was a small publisher when it picked up the Dennis the Menace license from Pines in late 1958. It was likely bought out/merged with Fawcett Publications in late 1959 or early 1960, and apparently became a "division" of them. I do find it odd that all mention of Hallden disappears for a while in the mid sixties, but then it reappears around 1969. Then in late 1977, CBS must have acquired at least the Hallden Division (if not all?) of Fawcett, and made them a "unit" of CBS. But throughout this time, the company seemed to be located in Connecticut (mostly at 1 Fawcett Place, even after becoming part of CBS), so I think the Hallden people were doing the work under all the umbrellas. Does anyone know the history of Hallden Publications, Inc.? Is any of my speculation true? What should I recommend to the GCD to list as publisher for these titles? Currently I'm thinking "Hallden; Fawcett" for all of them, or maybe "Hallden; Fawcett; CBS Consumer Publishing", but not trying to split up runs of the book across those two or three publishers (like they did for Standard and Pines, not to mention Marvel).

I've finished uploading my cover scans for Dennis the Menace and His Friends Series to the GCD (painful with the site down much of last week). Here's the gallery of them: Friends Series covers I don't have issues #24 and #43 (digest), so if anyone can contribute those, it would complete all covers.

Since Billy knows the guy, I'll be nice and post a link to his Merchant of Dennis review: Permanent Damage at Pulse Scroll down a little to see it.

Two (unrelated) questions: 1. I'm gathering info to update the GCD's series information on "Dennis the Menace and His Friends Series". It changes formats several times, going from 36 pages to 52 pages back to 36 pages, then 148 page digest, and finally to 132 page digest. That last transition occurred between issues 42 and 44, but the problem is I don't have issue 43. How many pages does issue 43 have? 2. Did anybody get the new Fantagraphics version of "The Merchant of Dennis"? I have the original hardcover from several years ago. Are there any changes from that version? It's apparently out now, as Steven Grant's Permanent Damage column at CBR has a mini-review of it (but given he couldn't even take the time to spell Ketcham's name correctly, I'm not going to link to it).

We had a discussion on "Dennis the Menace and the Bible Kids" earlier in this thread (back around the week of March 20th). Now that I've got a scanner, I finally dug out my issues, and added the covers to the GCD. Check out the entire cover gallery here: GCD DTM Bible Kids covers . Those are all my copies. Here's a larger view of #10, that Joe mentioned is (apparently) hard to find, never mind in nice condition: (I've also added scans for the digest issues of DTM Friends Series, #38-42 and 44-46 (I'm missing 43).)

Yeah, it looks like I'll be there on Sunday afternoon. I'll send you a private message.

I finished reading The Complete Dennis the Menace on Sunday. Definitely a good book with lots of funny cartoons. I did find it interesting how much of it I had read before, presumably in the old Avon paperbacks Dennis the Menace and More Dennis the Menace (MDTM). I thought I'd do an analysis to see what was reprinted. Unfortunately my copy of Dennis the Menace is buried somewhere in the basement right now, and I won't have a chance to unearth it for a while (got to get ready to attend the Baltimore convention this weekend). But I did have a copy of MDTM handy. This copy is the 7th printing, May 1955. The 1st printing is listed as August 1954, and the book is copyright 1953. The first interesting fact I found was the cartoons in MDTM are not printed in chronological order; each page jumps around. So here's what I found: Starting with the first cartoon in the book (page 7), here is the date for each page (all from 1952): 6/24, 7/26, 8/5, 8/6, 8/20, 8/13, 8/25, 8/18, 9/4, ?, 6/18, 6/13, 6/11, 10/8, 10/2, 10/3, 9/16, 9/22, 10/20, 10/17, 10/29, 10/23, 11/15, 11/6, 6/6. Then there's a gap from pages 32-47 where I don't recognize the cartoons as being in the first volume of Complete Dennis; I'm guessing they are from 1953 (same with anything indicated with a ?). But, starting again on page 48: 12/31, 12/29, 12/8, ?, 11/26, 11/14, 11/19, 12/12, 12/20, 12/19, 12/25, 12/27, ?, ?, ?, 7/16. Then the rest of the book (pages 64-127) I don't recognize either (again, likely from 1953). The back cover is from 11/14. What does this show? I don't know, but I still found it interesting. I'm assuming the Dennis the Menace book contains reprints in the range of 1951 to around 6/1/52. I'll verify that (much) later. What I would like to see is a separate Complete Dennis the Menace Sundays book. I don't think I've EVER read any of the Sundays from the 1950s.

And one last sample, just another one I found to be funny:

Here's that first Christmas panel (sorry for the fuzziness on the edge; this book is hard to scan because of the thickness):

There are a fair number of topical references in these that seem less common today. Such as the beany in that last cartoon, and here's a reference to Hopalong Cassidy:

Here's one of the panels from the book that made me laugh:

I still haven't finished reading it; I'm about 3/4 the way through. But I do like what I've seen so far. Several quite funny ones. I finally got a scanner recently, so I'll have to show a couple of samples when I get some time. One thing I did find interesting: There is a recurring panel of Dennis on Christmas morning surrounded by a mountain of toys around a Christmas tree, saying "IS THIS ALL?". It turns out that tradition goes all the way back; yep 1951-12-25 started that gag. I have seen a couple of reviews so far, both positive: Newsarama ComicBookResources (near the end).

And the same record (I'd guess) reissued in 1961 as a 45 rpm:

And another one from 1960: