The Ultimate Dennis the Menace Thread 4 4

[BillyBatson4360]

This site continues to amaze!

 

Thanks, Jim, for sharing the story about Ruff.

 

(A quick aside - it's not just childhood pets we get very attached to. We currently have two dachshunds at our home - Oscar & Mayer. Like your mom with Ruff, I was very opposed to adding Mayer to this household. He's a miniature long-hair with a piebald (black and white spotted) coat. He was also very sick when we adopted him.

 

Of course you know, I am now strongly bonded with this little guy. He frequently is sitting comfortably by my feet as I type these posts. He has become my all-time favorite pet. End of aside.)

 

We have been discussing comic book circulation here off and on, especially as it relates to Dennis. On the DC Archives Message Board, I found a link to another comic book site called "The Nostalgia Zone." There is an absolutely fascinating article by Mike Carlson about comic book circulation - comparing sales figures from the 1940's through to the 60's. While Mr. Carlson doesn't tell us his source, the figures look very credible - based on other information I've read.

 

You can find the comic book circulation article here.

 

As we thought, Dennis was one of the very best sellers of his era. Here is the list posted on that site for the early 1960's:

 

Mad Magazine: 1,048,550

Uncle Scrooge: 1,040,543

Walt Disney Comics and Stories: 1,004,901

Donald Duck: 930,613

Superman: 810,000

Dennis the Menace: 800,000

Bugs Bunny: 615,552

Mickey Mouse: 568,803

Woody Woodpecker: 537,773

Batman: 502,000

Lone Ranger: 408,711

Casper the Friendly Ghost: 399,985

Blackhawk: 316,000

 

As you can see, Dennis outstrips all but 5 titles - doing far better than some now "hot" books like Richie Rich, Archie & Little Lulu and outstripping all super-heroes save Superman.

 

The regular circulation figure of 800,000 also bolsters my argument that "Dennis in Hawaii" is the all-time best-selling comic. If you calculate 6 or 7 printings at 600,000 each (and I think that's waaaay conservative), that pushes "Hawaii" past 3 million. Acording to Carlson's research, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories peaked at 2.8 million in the 50's. No other regular title from the 40's to the 60's even cracked 2 million. By the end of the 60's, comic circulation had fallen off dramatically.

 

So, once again, you have to wonder why there is so little collector interest or attention paid to what is one of the best-selling and longest running titles in comic book history!

[ComicBookGuy]

So, once again, you have to wonder why there is so little collector interest or attention paid to what is one of the best-selling and longest running titles in comic book history!

 

Kudos to you, Bill C.! I've been looking and looking for information on Dennis circulation and hadn't found anything. In my indexing of the giants, I did find circulation numbers from the early 1970s three times in the comics that stated figures in the 300K range, so circulation did drop. There are 9 printings of Hawaii up to #130 in the series, so even multiplying that number by 500K gives us a large number. I believe MAD had circulation close to 2 million on a regular basis for a while, so I've heard, and I think the Jim Lee X-Men #1 and MacFarlane Spider-man #1 are higher than that. I'm sure we can find that info easily to compare and then estimate. But whereas those comics sit in boxes in the backs of stores and in warehouses, the Dennis books were read over and over and enjoyed, so that should count for something!

By the way, I miss Bill Alger and Bill Wray. I hope they return soon! Nobody knows this Dennis art better than these guys.

Joe

[BillyBatson4360]

The sales figures on the MacFarlane Spider-Man and Lee X-Men were artificially inflated due to Marvel flooding the market with variant covers. How many comic fans made multiple purchases of those issues? (And you are quite correct. At the present time, you can't GIVE AWAY copies of those books.)

 

Back "in the day," comics had a "pass-along" circulation. I know that as kids we would always read another kid's comics when we were playing at their house (and vice versa) so the readership was higher than the circulation.

 

Today's comics, the exact opposite is true. Thanks to collectors purchasing variants and "reading copies," the circulation is higher than the readership.

 

And in any event, I don't believe either MacFarlane's Spider-Man or Lee's X-Men ever got much past 2 million copies - which means they still would trail Disney's Comics & Stories and probably Mad Magazine as well. Neither could come close to "Dennis in Hawaii."

[jedijim-migration]

Hi All,

 

Given what we know from previous posts, who was drawing the Sunday strip from '52 - '58 when Holley took it over??

 

Thanks for your help.

 

J

[ComicBookGuy]

You're making a strong case, Bill C., and I hope you're right! I am rooting for Dennis to be the best-seller ever.

 

Here is what I turned up on the Spider-man and X-Men #1's:

 

July 1990: Spider-Man #1 by Todd McFarlane set what was the highest recorded paid circulation for a comic book to that point. The first printing had sales of 2,350,000. When all editions were added, the total paid circulation was approximately 2,650,000 copies.

 

June 1991: X-Force #1 by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld beat the record set by Spider-Man #1. Thanks in part to a marketing gimmick in which collector’s cards were bagged with the issue, the paid circulation came to approximately 3,900,000.

 

July 1991: X-Men #1 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, and Scott Williams beat the paid circulation record set by X-Force #1. Marvel released the issue in five editions with variant covers. Estimated paid circulation was approximately 7,500,000.

 

Here is the link, and it seems a legitimate site, though I do want to research all this further:

 

Circulation Numbers Link

 

And I agree with your points about "how" comics were read and reread in the 1950s and 1960s, as opposed to those obscene amounts of X-Men #1 packed away unopened in warehouses across the country. It is an excellent point that forces a critical look at the statistics here.

 

On another note, that excellent article you linked us to above by Mark Carlson mentioned a Peter Pan comic in the mid-1950s with a circulation of 3.5 million. That's pretty impressive as well.

 

A final word about circulation numbers for now: As I am indexing the Dennis Giants, only three issues have circulation statements in them up to #130. They are all late numbers (1970s), and all are in the 300K range, so the Dennis in Hawaii #114 is somewhere in that range when we try to calculate the total that nine printings up to that point included.

 

Another piece of Dennis news: I heard back from long-time Dennis artist Frank Hill today. He was a Dennis artist in the 1970s and one who worked quite closely with Fred Toole. He is also credited on the inside cover of Dennis the Menace in London (Bonus Magazine #88) as being the artist along with Fred Toole being the writer. I am waiting to hear back from him before posting more as I would like his permission to share his emails publicly simply as a courtesy to him. I will post info as I get it, and I have also invited him to visit us here and to post.

 

Joe

[ComicBookGuy]

Hi All,

 

Given what we know from previous posts, who was drawing the Sunday strip from '52 - '58 when Holley took it over??

 

Thanks for your help.

 

J

 

Welcome back, JJ! I wish I knew the answer, but I don't. Certainly Ketcham was doing it at first. (Sorry to state the obvious! ) When he stopped, I don't know.

Soon I will pull out some old 1950s Sundays I have. I have a lot. Maybe we can guess at it. Board member Mark (lansdown) stated earlier that these strips were seldom or never reprinted, and he's right. The only Sunday reprints I ever see are in the old Pocket Full of Funs, and those don't nearly cover all those years and years of Sunday strips.

Joe

[ttw-migration]

 

Here's a picture of Al drawing Dennis while in Hawaii.

 

And an article from the Honolulu paper at the time....

 

 

 

[BillyBatson4360]

Couple of quick points and then a scan:

 

Joe -

 

I'm frankly skeptical of Marvel's sales claims for X-Men # 1.

Even with a number of variants there would have to have been

massive multiple purchases to push the numbers to 7 million.

When the average book is doing 100,000 these days, it's hard

to imagine that many comics fans buying 70 comics each.

(I mean I never bought a single issue of that book).

 

The circulation figures for Spider-Man # 1 may be a bit more

realistic, but Marvel's claim to the "best-selling" title of all-time

was viewed with skepticism even back then. The article I

read on comic book circulation pegged Disney's Comics &

Stories as peaking at an AVERAGE of 2.8 million

copies. Obviously, the issues in the peak summer months

had to have performed better than that.

 

As to the identity of the Sunday strip ghost, I thought I read on

this thread not too far back that Bill A. had a Wiseman letter

where Wiseman said he was ghosting the Sundays early on.

Maybe he simply continued until Lee Holley arrived.

 

Now, on to the first scan of the weekend for me. Awhile back

someone mentioned a great double page spread of the havoc

Dennis caused in a department store at Christmas time.

 

Here it is. From the very first Dennis Christmas Giant (no number).

I apologize for the distortion in the scan, but I wasn't about to

squish the book flat on my scanner and risk damaging the spine.

 

Notice the Hank Ketchum joke near the bottom. Actually, the

guys responsible for all of this are Mssrs. Toole & Wiseman.

 

You'll also notice that Dennis does not appear anywhere

in the drawing.

 

[BillyBatson4360]

Here's a full-page spread from the second Christmas Giant (Dennis Giant # 3).

 

Notice a couple of things.

 

The initials on the building blocks:

 

H-K = obviously Hank Ketcham

 

A-W = Al Wiseman

 

But who is J-M?

Jim, your middle initial wouldn't be "M," would it?

 

Also, I don't know if you can read it on the scan, but at the bottom you'll

see that Dennis got that "Genuine Fred Toole Complicator" that was advertised

on a department store sign earlier in the issue (see my other full-page

scan a few pages back on this thread):

 

[BillyBatson4360]

Yeah, you can't make it out, but the "Complicator" is in the little orange box at Dennis' feet.

 

Finally, here's another ad for vintage Dennis merchandise.

This is from way before the era when character t-shirts

were popular. Note the prices and the use of the old

postal zones instead of a ZIP code.

 

[Wiseguy-migration]

 

From Billy:

 

But who is J-M?

Jim, your middle initial wouldn't be "M," would it?

 

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

 

No, more than likely it was for my sisters, Merrily and Janice.

That's my take.

 

 

JRW

[Wiseguy-migration]

Billy, more observations on that Christmas story:

 

The name of the store in the comic is, "Dolmans". There was a real store in Pacific Grove

called, Holmans.

 

In the upper left portion of the panel the woman is speaking to the, "Adams Emplyment Agency". Most likely that refers to Frank Adams.

 

If you turn the right page over, to the last page of that story, you will see the name of

"Crenshaw Contruction Company" refering to George Crenshaw.

 

 

Also there is a story featuring "Punky" that I like.

 

 

 

JRW

[ComicBookGuy]

Great stuff, guys! You're finding all kinds of things in the comics I never knew were there and certainly never would have looked for.

 

Seeing that article from the Hawaiian paper is fantastic since it tells us two things we didn't know: 1) Dennis was in 1956 the best-selling comic, and 2) the giants were selling 1.25 million copies per issue. Wow! The article by Mark Carlson jumped from 1952-1960 with the circulation numbers, and when he said Dennis was selling 800K in 1960, does that mean just the regular title? I would assume so, but I'm surprised he doesn't use the numbers from the giant series since they are higher, or, maybe they weren't as high by 1960? All idle speculation on my part, but I will say I put a lot of credence on the Hawaiian newspaper article since journalism back then took fact-finding seriously, and their sources were probably Fred and Al, who were in a position to know these facts. Thanks for posting that, JRW!

Joe

[BillyBatson4360]

Joe -

 

As someone who's been involved in journalism - both as a reporter and as the subject of interview

articles, I don't place all that much faith in "facts" as they appear in newsprint.

 

As you correctly surmise, the figures probably came from Fred & Al - who have a vested interest in

making the comic book look very successful. I also thought when I read the articles that the

reporter (who probably knew little to nothing about comics) did not understand that there was a

regular comic and that the 100-page issues were twice-a-year specials. I'd be willing to bet that

the 1.25 million figure was the circulation of the regular comic at that time. I've seen a circulation

statement in Dennis comics from just a tad later that stated the average circulation was

900,000.

 

My presumption is that the vacation specials sold better than Christmas specials simply because

comic sales in those days were always higher in the summer.

 

I guess what I'm saying is I wouldn't be surpised to find that the Giants were selling 1.25 million

or more - I just think the reporter got their facts a little tangled.

 

And Jim, as always, your personal insights into the stories and the sly little in-jokes you dad

drew into them are always appreciated.

[Jon-migration]

For all you scan fans:

 

Kevin posted Dennis #26 on ABPC. I'll be posting Dennis #24 later tonight. #33 is next on my agenda.

 

Jon

[mica]

Way back on page 28 of this thread, Jim Wiseman talked about Ruff taking a bath.

 

"Another DTM fact, we were the owners of Ruff the dog.

Ruff 'found' our family when we lived in Los Angeles.

I think that was around '55.

Ruff lived with my father until somewhere around 1966.

Look for a story that shows DTM trying to give Ruff a bath.

That was Ruff and me."

 

Is this the story you mentioned?

If not I don't think anyone would mind glancing at it.

It's been forever since I added anything to this thread.

Of course most of us meager collectors are standing around in amazement at how wonderful this thread is.

Many are probably afraid to jump in and say anything.

Mica

[mica]

[mica]

 

[mica]

This was from Dennis and Ruff # 2. The cover is not Wiseman (at least I don't think so, but I am untrained). Enjoy, Mica

[mica]

And just for more fun. Here's a small cartoon from the inside front cover of Dennis and Ruff # 2

(which is semi-related)

I'm sure some other forum member can come up with a good cover scan of Dennis and Ruff # 2

(I got so carried away I forgot to scan the cover, but I'm sure Joe or someone has a crisp clean copy)

in case someone wants to be on the lookout for this awesome issue.

This was the back-up (last story) in the book.

Mica