The Ultimate Dennis the Menace Thread 3 3

[Jon-migration]

I posted Dennis the Menace #9 on Tuesday morning on ABPC. Next up #13.

 

I'm still looking for scanable copies of #2-7, 17 25 29 43

 

Jon

[Allen Ross-migration]

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

[Allen Ross-migration]

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:

[ComicBookGuy]

Thanks for the great preview, Allen. The panels you showed look great and show Dennis being a menace as opposed to the tamer modern version. The smoking one reminds me of the Jackson Island scene from Tom Sawyer, when Huck introduces Joe and Tom to smoking. I have yet to receive my book though I pre-ordered it on August 31 on Amazon.

 

Thanks to you and Scrooge for posting those reviews. I will paste them up in case the links die on us as I want to preserve all this stuff for the future.

 

Joe

[ComicBookGuy]

I have seen a couple of reviews so far, both positive:

Newsarama

ComicBookResources (near the end).

 

Newsarama review:

 

JOURNEY INTO COMICS: DENNIS & WALLY REMIXED

by Michael San Giacomo

 

More than 50 years ago a harried father named Hank Ketcham created a comic strip about every parent’s nightmare, a menace named Dennis.

 

His little cartoon, inspired by his own son, lasted until 1994 and continues today under the pen of his assistant.

 

Dennis The Menace 1951-1952 (Fantagraphics Books, $24.95) is the first in a long series of books that will collect every, yes every, Ketcham Dennis The Menace cartoon panels in 600-plus page volumes, starting at the beginning.

 

Just as the company has taken on the Herculean task of reprinting every Charles Schulz “Peanuts” collection, which will take more than 12 years to complete at a rate of two volumes a year, Fantagraphics is doing the same for durable Dennis.

 

The thick, hardbound books will be published twice a year for the next 11 years and reprint every Dennis newspaper strip drawn by Hank Ketcham from 1951 to his retirement in 1994. That’s more than 11,000 single panel cartoons.

 

But the cartoons in the first edition are more than 50 years old. Can they possibly still be funny today?

 

The answer is a resounding yes, but check a few out for yourself. Your local bookstore won’t mind some browsing.

 

Like the one where an angry Dennis stands, hands on hips, and tells his mother, “Don’t shout at me. I’m not your husband.” Or the one where he is sitting in a corner complaining to his dog, Ruff, “You’re lucky you’re an orphan.”

 

Ketcham, who looks remarkably like Dennis’ dad, drew on the universal problems of parenthood and raising a kid that he both loved and, at times, wanted to toss to the wolves. Except that it would be cruel to the wolves.

 

Though Dennis was just a kid, he never surrendered to the adults, at least not without a fight. Dennis appeals both to kids and their parents in the wonderful series of one-panel joke after joke.

 

Though the little guy has lost his luster over the years as fads come and go, seeing the cartoons collected in one place is heartening.

 

ComicBookResources review:

 

HANK KETCHAM'S COMPLETE DENNIS THE MENACE 1951-1952 by Hank Ketcham, 590 pg b&w hardcover (Fantagraphics;$24.95)

 

 

On the heels of their very successful PEANUTS reprints, Fantagraphics is giving the high end reprint treatment to another iconic American comic strip, DENNIS THE MENACE. These earliest strips are real eye openers. The Dennis here, reportedly based on Ketcham's own 4 year old son, isn't yet quite iconic - he only slowly morphs into the now-familiar character, doesn't yet always wear his trademark overalls and striped T, hasn't yet accumulated his supporting cast and, horrifying to the later Dennis, already shows an interest in girls - but Ketcham's work is: both sleek and chaotic, pure and economical, invisibly incorporating an encyclopedia of techniques. Ketcham was a master of facial expression and body language - every figure beautifully tells a story - and I don't think anyone else in any medium or any era has come anywhere near him in capturing, in equal portions, the innocence, malice and raw intelligence of small children. The book includes all the daily panels for almost two years, and on top of everything else, they're still funny as hell. Fantagraphics deserves special commendation for their production and packaging, and this package is terrific. Don't miss it.

[ComicBookGuy]

The book was also reviewed positively at The Fourth Rail.

 

Scrooge, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

 

Here is the review from the link:

 

HANK KETCHAM'S COMPLETE DENNIS THE MENACE VOL. 1 HC

 

 

 

Fantagraphics Books

Writer/Artist: Hank Ketcham

Editor: Gary Groth

 

Price: $24.95 US

 

I know what you're thinking. Dennis the Menace? Isn't that the dorky strip that ran in the papers and spawned a mediocre-looking movie in the mid-'90s? Yes. It is also one of the funniest and most inventive comics that I've read this year, because Fantagraphics is going back to the beginning and reprinting the early strips in deluxe hardcover editions, ala their successful Complete Peanuts series. In these pages, Dennis isn't just a lovable scamp with toothless humor, but an outright rebellious hell child with a touch of precociousness and long-suffering parents, teachers and barbers who handle his temperament with bitter sarcasm and dry wit. Dennis is a likable character, but he's also a terror, and so his "antagonists" are also just as likable and just as funny. As with anything that is produced on such a hectic schedule, every strip here isn't gold, but there are a stunning number of laugh-out-loud cartoons to be found in this book, not to mention some interesting insights into parenting and being a kid.

 

Ketcham's approach to Dennis was clearly different than that of Charles Schulz to Peanuts. In the introduction and foreword by Brian Walker and Patrick McDonnell, respectively, we learn that Ketcham often used art assistants and gag writers, and the origins of Dennis seem as much a commercial necessity as a creative indulgence. However, as if to provide a counter-argument to the common wisdom that nothing good comes from commercial pressures, I think I might actually like the early Dennis the Menace better than the early Peanuts. Part of that might be that while Peanuts was Schulz's window into the world, and often as much about a philosophy and worldview as the gag, Dennis was meant to serve up laughs every time.

 

Indeed, Dennis the Menace is much funnier than I remembered it being when reading the comics as a kid. Ketcham gets a lot of mileage out of Dennis as precocious mischief-maker, fully aware of the nature of beer, dad's flirtation or mom's sexy allure, but at the same time Ketcham maintains Dennis's childlike innocence. In some strips, Dennis seems like he was legitimately trying to help, such as when he can't understand why his mother is unhappy that he "saved them money" by giving himself a haircut, or unaware of the adult connotations to his behavior, as when he invites friends in to visit his mother in the bath. At other times, he gleefully tells his mother about the pretty women that his dad was flirting with or seems fully aware of his behavior, as when he asks his mother "Gee whiz! How did you get downstairs so fast?" when caught with his hand in the cookie jar. This isn't inconsistency, it actually gives Dennis a little more depth. He's neither a deliberate monster nor a precocious innocent, but a blend of both, making him a perfect target of ire in some strips and heroic protagonist in others. He's a figure of rebellion, which is always something easy to root for.

 

Not that Dennis is the only character of importance in the Dennis the Menace strips. Dennis's father has a flirtatious nature with attractive women and a sarcastic sense of humor, both of which help to humanize him. The latter reminds me quite a bit of the way that Calvin's father (from Calvin & Hobbes) deals with his child, and it's nice to see that the adults, rather than being portrayed as dolts, are allowed to use their greater experience and sharper senses of humor to deflect some of the madness that Dennis inflicts on their life, even if their inability to fully comprehend the inner workings of his childlike mind means he sometimes gets the better of them. Dennis's mother is just as interesting a figure, played up as someone still sexy and desirable (including by other men, something Dennis loves pointing out to his father), someone who is stern and the true ruler of the household. In some ways, she's the quintessential '50s mom, doing all the home chores and being concerned with clothes, appearance, that kind of thing, but there's no doubt in reading the strips that of the two parents, Dennis's mom is probably the smarter of the two, and definitely the one who can more easily enforce the rules upon her child. Ketcham's work here comes out of the '50s, and so there's a certain amount of time-displaced gender roles, but really, the relationship between father, mother and child is fairly progressive for its time.

 

Something notable about this book is that Ketcham worked pretty much entirely in one-panel cartoons. Occasionally the panels were divided so that you got effectively a two- or three-panel story, but mostly these are one-panel strips. There's a lot of storytelling going on in these single panels, as Ketcham (or his assistants) chose just the right moment to capture that encourages the reader to imagine the past and future of the strip, even though we're only seeing the present. When we see Dennis's dad chatting up a pretty girl in the living room, and Dennis is peeking in saying "Mom wants to see you in the kitchen. And right now!" we know what's been happening and what's going to happen. When we see Dennis battling another boy and saying "Dennis. And what's your name?" the whole story, and the joke behind it, is there. It's as if Ketcham had a window into the lives of these characters, that they were running all the time, and he just pulled out the funny moments.

 

The Complete Dennis the Menace is more than just a beautifully-designed chunk of comics history. It is not something to be bought just for "indy cred" or to broaden your knowledge of the history of the medium. It's not just interesting for the influences it clearly had on a variety of creators. It is, viewed objectively alongside work being produced today, an often laugh-out-loud collection of humor cartoons with polished art and perfect timing. One of the best collections of the year, to be sure.

[ComicBookGuy]

Here is another Dennis record, which apparently reprints three previous records all onto one disc. Since I've never listened to the records I can't say whether this is re-issuing anything except the "I Hate Spelling" record I posted earlier. I haven't owned a record player since the mid-1980s, so I can really only look at the covers. This says "1961" on the cover, but I think this was released much later and I distinctly remember having this record lying around our house in the 1970s.

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Here's the rare JN solo album, made possible by his fame playing Dennis. This is one of the rarest of all Dennis-related collectibles. It is KEM Records LP 27. I have seen this on eBay a total of two times. I'm without a digital camera lately, so this is all that will fit in my scanner:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Here's the back cover with the contents of the album. I have never heard this since I don't have a record player. Anyone remember this? I mentioned this record to Gene Carpenter of All-American Comics, and he was familiar with it but said he had never heard it and was aware of its rarity.

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Here is the 1960 tv show soundtrack, also an album. I am posting an eBay image instead of my own since this shows the entire cover. This album appears fairly frequently. Finding it in nice shape is the challenge since it's a kids' record.

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Here is the back cover, or all that will fit into my scanner anyway:

 

[Allen Ross-migration]

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

[Allen Ross-migration]

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

[ComicBookGuy]

Thanks for sharing, Allen. When I receive my copy I will be sure to post my favorites as well.

 

In the meantime, speaking of Dennis dailies, I watched this auction this past summer for the original art to the panel from September 18, 1957. These really do not come up for sale too often, and this piece sold for $998.00. Here's the auction link:

 

Dennis Art Auction

 

Here's the artwork:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

While there's nothing special about the panel above, apart from the running gag about Dennis always being in the corner, what sets this auction apart is that it includes Ketcham's signature, along with a letter and the original envelope the art was mailed in. This makes its provenance and authenticity crystal clear. I'd say the buyer got a great deal. Here's the image of the letter and envelope:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

A couple days ago I received an email from Comic Buyer's Guide reporter John Jackson Miller, who is also the author of the Standard Catalog for comics, the book that reports circulation figures for comics. I was glad to see he used the Dennis circulation figures from this thread to help with the book. He referred me to a thread on Dennis he had started. Here is his initial post in the thread, in which he declares Dennis one of the top-selling comics of 1963:

 

 

 

As you may know, I've gathered more than 2,500 Statements of Ownership from 20 or so publishers since 1960 for the CBG Standard Catalog -- and from that have been able to piece together something of a competitive picture of some of those early years. Still, there are holes in the data -- and (thanks to Brently) -- a Statement just came in that is something of a surprise.

 

We can now guess that the third best-selling title of the very Silver-Agey year of 1963 was...

 

...Dennis the Menace!

 

Fawcett sent three different titles second class: Dennis the menace, Dennis the Menace Bonus Magazine Series, and Dennis the Menace Pocket Full of Fun. But collectors have paid these comics so little attention that in a decade we've only gotten a handful of Statements for these comics, and, before today, none before 1967.

 

What this form states is that, in 1963, the six issues of Dennis sold an average of 493,534 copies, out of a print run of 946,053. That makes it, not counting Mad, the single highest circulation figure reported in 1963.

 

Archie was at 471,166. Gold Key's best, Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, is at 446,000. Charlton's top book, Flintstones, was at 325,350. Marvel's action books (that it reported, anyway) were all in the 185,000-200,000 range. Tarzan was at 332,460.

 

DC is trickier because for three years beginning in 1963, it ran the forms but neglected to include the actual sales figures. In 1963, only Sea Devils had circ figures. But by looking at 1962 reports and then the figures again in 1965, when DC ran "make-up" numbers for some titles (after, one guesses, the USPS complained), only two DC titles look like they would have topped a half-million: Superman and Superboy (Batman's 1960s sales didn't catch fire until the TV show. Adventure and Action were doing mid 400,000s, from the looks of it.)

 

So, unless more information comes in, Dennis looks like your 1963 #3, probably bumping Archie, Action, Adventure and WDC&S, in some order.

 

But...

 

...with only a handful of Fawcett figures in, we really can't judge how reliable or consistent their reporting was. In this form they throw in a number of free copies to hit a round "total distributed" number, which is sometimes a flag that the publisher is winging it. We have, for example, in the case of Charlton, found enough wild swings to make the whole lot of data suspect; maybe this is the case here. Maybe not.

 

At any rate, dig through your old Dennis comics. If you find any forms, scan 'em and send them my way -- or just type up the "preceding 12 months" data and e-mail it to me or post it here. This is a piece we knew was missing -- we just didn't know how big a piece it was -- at least, not from looking at the 1967 numbers we already had from it.

 

--John Jackson Miller

 

Here is the link for the whole thread:

 

CBG Dennis the Menace thread

[Jon-migration]

I posted Dennis the Menace #29 on ABPC today. Next up is #13

I'm still looking for scanable copies of #2-7, 17 25 43

 

Jon

[313-migration]

Well I've been lurking and learning and having fun here long enough, I guess I'd better introduce myself and contribute a little bit!

 

My main interest is the comics produced by the Toole/Wiseman team, and eventually being able to read every story they did. I'm doing this by collecting reading copies and scans, and though I don't own any pristine issues, I've thoroughly enjoyed viewing the stunning issues ComicBookGuy and others have posted, along with more Dennis collectibles than I ever knew existed.

 

Two members of this board, escape and Jon, have posted many Dennis issues to a.b.p.c. that I probably never would have seen otherwise, thanks guys! And Jon, I have Dennis #43 and will put it on top of the scanning stack, OK?

 

Anyway, this Ultimate thread has become an amazing source of Dennis information that just wasn't available before. Thanks to all, and I'm glad to be a little part of it. As soon as I learn how to upload files, I'll share a few scans of a book I haven't seen here yet.

 

Jim

[313-migration]

This paperback came out in 1979 and I picked it up in a used book store a few years later. I've never seen it since, but since the Internet came around I've been able to see just how hard it is to find! But the first 4 pages have come loose, so I won't be able to retire on this book.

 

I think H.K. did the art, although maybe someone can correct me. Although there are a few "love-oriented" daily panels reprinted, the majority of the book is like the example I've posted below, two drawings per theme. I've always thought they looked like they could be used as greeting cards... maybe that was the original intent for the art. I also think this is the raciest thing I've ever seen in the Dennis universe.

 

The publisher is "Character Imprints" in Boulder, CO. Here's the cover...

 

[313-migration]

The back cover...