Now in paperback! The first two years of Hank Ketcham's classic!
Dennis the Menace began on March 14, 1951 (four months after Ketcham's friend and colleague Charles Schulz started his own historic comic strip) and Dennis went on to become the second most popular cartoon kid in the world (after Charlie Brown). The timing was perfect: the post-war generation, at the height of the baby boom, embraced the perennial troublemaker and turned Dennis into a global publishing, merchandising, and multi-media phenomenon, with over 50 million book collections sold, a fondly remembered live-action TV show from 1959-63, a cartoon from 1986-89, theatrical productions, several cartoon specials, two major motion pictures in the '90s, and a full-length animated film in 2002. The strip is still enjoyed by millions of newspaper readers every day.
The reason for Dennis' success is easy to figure out: It was one of the most brilliantly observed and empathetic comic strips about childhood ever drawn. Ketcham captured the mischievousness, rambunctiousness, and anarchy of a kid's world better than any other cartoonist. The strip appeals to both parents and children—while parents shake their heads ruefully at how accurately Ketcham caught the essence of children's natural zest for mayhem, children identify with Dennis and the chaos that he leaves in his wake—just a hop, skip, and a jump away from their own fantasy of themselves!
Ketcham drew Dennis the Menace from 1951 to 1994, when he retired and let his assistant take over the strip. This first volume of Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace publishes every single panel strip from 1951 and 1952 in one handsome and thick paperback volume resembling a Big Little Book on growth hormones.
