The Ultimate Dennis the Menace Thread 3 3

[tth2]

I went back and edited the posts to include the dates.

 

[bobpfef]

The Lulu annual I pulled out last night was from 1957.

 

Stanley stopped doing Lulu sometime around 1958/59, so these annual are from them or earlier. I'll dig them up tonight and see what the dates are.

I believe the Nancy annuals are done after his run on Lulu, but again, I'd have to look that up to be sure.

 

The Nancy and Lulu Summer Camp Annuals the John Stanley wrote are all connected short chapters of one long book length story. I think those Annuals come in just under 100 pages though I am not really sure. They are well worth searching out, particulary the Nancy one with a skunk on the cover, one of Stanley's best, imo.

 

Interesting to know! Do you know what year these came out?

Joe

[Jeffreykli]

Does anyone know anything about this one? I'm just hosting the scan for Mister_Comics. Cool book.

 

[ComicBookGuy]

The Lulu annual I pulled out last night was from 1957.

 

Thanks for looking for that! Lulu's creators, then, like Disney and Dennis's creators, are all experimenting with these long stories well before the superhero genre is. I find it kind of paradoxical that the very young kids' comics were the precursors to today's mature-sounding "graphic novel," rather than the comics written for older audiences, such as the EC's. The St. John's book pointed out by Adam is an exception, obviously, as it's not intended for kids -- from what I could see! This info all pretty much answers the question as to what Dennis the Menace's place in the history of the graphic novel goes, but if someone wants to weigh in on which Disney comic may qualify for first graphic novel, I'd certainly be curious. Or, is there an even earlier example -- pre-Disney???

 

Joe

[ComicBookGuy]

Does anyone know anything about this one? I'm just hosting the scan for Mister_Comics. Cool book.

 

 

This comic is one of several giveaways Ketcham did: one on safety (not listed in Overstreet), one on poison, one on coping with family stress, etc, which were given out free to kids for educational purposes. (Funny, but I don't remember getting any free comics when I was a kid! ) Thanks for posting it! It looks in great shape!!! It's great to come back to the thread and find answers to questions and some other pictures besides my own!

 

Here's continuing with my sequence of the giants, Dennis the Menace Giant #11:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Dennis the Menace Giant #12:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Dennis the Menace Giant #13:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Dennis the Menace Giant #14:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Dennis the Menace Giant #15:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Dennis the Menace Giant #16, a reprint of #9:

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Dennis the Menace Giant #17:

 

[Bonds25]

Awesome, awesome books ComicBookGuy!! I love Dennis the Menace, and your copies are amazing!

[ComicBookGuy]

Awesome, awesome books ComicBookGuy!! I love Dennis the Menace, and your copies are amazing!

 

Bonds25, thanks for the kind words! I have noticed you have great taste in comics, and I always enjoy reading your posts. It's always great to find other Dennis fans, and I'm glad you are enjoying this. I've had a busy week at work and am happy to get back to posting here.

 

To continue the fun, here's Dennis Giant #18, which reprints #6. It says 6th printing but is actually the 5th printing. An interesting point about this issue is what a tough time I had finding this. The fact that it's a reprint may have something to do with it, being what I would call the X-Men 67-93 Syndrome: low print runs, less collectibility, etc. For what it's worth, here's the best copy I've been able to find thus far. At some point I want to compare all the printings of this and find out if there are any significant differences among them. I initially bought these to read, then I purchased this for the "completionist" in me, and now I'm actually interested all the details of these books, such as getting all the printings and seeing what differences - if any - exist...

 

[ComicBookGuy]

Dennis the Menace Giant #19. Notice that these latest ones are published by Hallden / Fawcett. It seems that one of Fawcett's last hurrahs in the comic industry would be Dennis comics, which they will publish right up until the end in the late 1970s, early 1980s, when Marvel takes over...

 

[Bonds25]

Dennis the Menace Giant #13:

 

 

Nice copy, and a good summation of Dennis!

[escape-migration]

Just found this site..... THANKS for all the great covers that have been posted.

 

I've been a Dennis fan all my life, and its nice to finally see some of these early gems.

 

Has anyone ever attempted a Dennis index? With story titles, art credits, etc for the first 100 or so issues? I've started collecting data related to the early Giants. As the years went on, Fawcett reprinted heavily from the 50's and 60's books. Just wondering if anyone has ever taken on an indexing project for Dennis....

 

Thanks again for starting this thread! Peanut butter samiches and root beers for ALL involved!

 

escape

[tth2]

Welcome to the boards! Any info and covers that you can share with us would be greatly appreciated.

[ComicBookGuy]

Just found this site..... THANKS for all the great covers that have been posted.

 

I've been a Dennis fan all my life, and its nice to finally see some of these early gems.

 

Has anyone ever attempted a Dennis index? With story titles, art credits, etc for the first 100 or so issues? I've started collecting data related to the early Giants. As the years went on, Fawcett reprinted heavily from the 50's and 60's books. Just wondering if anyone has ever taken on an indexing project for Dennis....

 

Thanks again for starting this thread! Peanut butter samiches and root beers for ALL involved!

 

escape

 

Escape, I echo Tim when I say... WELCOME TO THE BOARDS!

 

I am very pleased to find yet another Dennis fan out there. I have begun compiling an index of Dennis stuff. I completed the info on the twelve hardbacks and 48 paperback collections. I have just started writing down info on the Dennis regular series and will post that soon. ANY info you have, please share! That's what this thread is for. I see this thread as a long-term project. In answer to your question about indexing, it has NOT been done to my knowledge except for what I have done so far. I think with the large amount of reprinting that has occurred it's very helpful to create an index. I am sure we can have the 166 regular series, the friends series, the 194 giant/bonus series, all the odd titles, and digests indexed within a year. Eventually I'd like to take all the info from this thread and just create a website from it.

 

Joe

[BillyBatson4360]

Wow! I'm glad I found this thread. I was casually doing some surfing on the web, trying to find information about Al Wiseman (one of my favorites and the greatest "unsung" artist in comic book history) and I wound up here!

 

Took me awhile to wade through the thread and register, but I'm glad I did.

 

Dennis comic books by Wiseman were what hooked me on comic collecting way, way back. While I graduated to super-hero books as I got older, I always had a fondness for the old Dennis books.

 

I'd love to post some of the cover scans I've got. I purchased a large group of issues from a single collector I found through an ad in the Comic Buyers Guide nearly 20 years ago. Most of the issues are VF-NM (I've never gotten proficient in the numerical grading system). They are all in the first 20 issues of the regular Dennis magazine.

 

My question is this: how do you add a scan to your post? Do I need to have the scans stored on another website? If someone could talk me through it, I'd love to contribute.

 

In answer to a question I saw while going through the thread - quite a few of the drawings signed "Hank Ketchum" are not by Ketchum. Most of the comic covers on those early issues are indeed the work of Al Wiseman. Ketchum also used assistants on the newspaper strip as well

 

Also, the Grand Comic Book Database has undertaken the daunting task of indexing every American-produced comic book. They have quite a few issues of Dennis already indexed, but the list is far from complete.

 

Finally, the first "gaphic novel" is supposed to be some wordless books put together I believe in the 1920's or 30's by an artist named Lynn Ward who used woodcuts to tell complete stories. The next entry was completed by cartoonist Milt Gross who completed a graphic novel called "She Done Him Wrong." I have a copy of it somewhere - can't locate it right now.

 

Well, I've babbled on long eough for my first post. I'll share more in future posts.

 

To sum it up, while I love Dennis in general, it's those issues by Wiseman that really stand out head and shoulders above the rest.

[tth2]

I'd love to post some of the cover scans I've got. I purchased a large group of issues from a single collector I found through an ad in the Comic Buyers Guide nearly 20 years ago. Most of the issues are VF-NM (I've never gotten proficient in the numerical grading system). They are all in the first 20 issues of the regular Dennis magazine.

 

My question is this: how do you add a scan to your post? Do I need to have the scans stored on another website? If someone could talk me through it, I'd love to contribute.

 

"Billy", let me first say WELCOME TO THE BOARDS!

 

And thanks for your insights, particularly on whether it really was Hank Ketchum doing the covers. As to your question, there are 2 ways to do this.

 

The easiest way is if you indeed have your scans stored on another website, in which case you only need to click the "image" link below and then paste in the URL in the box that appears. This is the best method if you have really large scans.

 

The second easiest way is to use these boards as your website, but the size of your scan is limited to 150kbs. The steps are:

 

1. Post the text that you want to post, then hit "continue".

 

2. You'll see a prompt asking if you want to attach a file. Go ahead and attach the file, and then hit "OK, Submit".

 

3. You'll now be returned to the thread, and your post will appear at the bottom of the thread. You'll see a link to "attachment" at the top of your post. Click the link, and you'll come to a page with your scan. Copy the URL for that page, then return back to your post.

 

4. Click the edit link for your post. Now click on the "image" link, and then paste in the URL for your scan into the dialogue box that pops up.

 

5. Confirm you want to make the change, and you should get a test page showing what your post will look like, including the scan. Click continue and voila, back in the thread with your scan now showing.