Dennis the Menace Book 1956

Dennis the Menace must have been hugely popular right from the very beginning if he was to get his very own book less than five years after his first appearance in The Beano in 1951. Yet that's exactly what happened, with the 1956 Dennis the Menace book coming out in time for Christmas 1955. I love the front cover of this book, with the entire town, including no less than three policemen and even a cat, cowering in fear as Dennis strides along with a big bucket of bright red paint. Wonderfully illustrated by Dennis' creator and first artist Davey Law, I was fortunate enough to pick up a copy that still has the vibrant colours it was printed with back in the 1950s. Here's the accompanying back cover, which just captures the spirit of the character so well.

These were the days before Gnasher entered this scene (I posted his first appearance here), so it's up to Dennis to carry the fun on his own. There is no price tag inside the book, but I believe it cost 5/-, for which readers got 80 pages (counting the covers), all of which were printed with red and black ink. I can only assume this was to show off Dennis' infamous red and black jersey. For comparison, the 1956 Beano and Dandy annuals both cost 6/-. I'm not sure about The Dandy, but The Beano book had 128 pages.

The book contains a mixture of comic strips and text.

I'm a big fan of Davey Law's Dennis but of course 1950s Beano comics can fetch a premium and are hard to come by. Early Dennis books are certainly collectable, especially this 1956 edition, but for those wanting to see Law's work on a bit of a budget getting a hold of them is well worth doing. I picked this up just this week for $35 (New Zealand dollars, so about £17) and it's in pretty nice condition. However, I believe most of the Dennis strips in the early books were actually reprinted from strips published in The Weekly News, not The Beano. In addition to his Beano strips, Davey Law drew 184 Dennis comics for The Weekly News which were published from 7th November 1953 - 17th August 1957 (197 strips were published in total, 184 new ones by Law, one Beano reprint and 12 by another artist). It was probably a smart idea reprinting these in the book as I imagine most readers would be more familiar with his Beano appearances.

Dennis the Menace books were bi-annual affair up until 1978, when they were paused until 1983. A book was then published every year from 1987-2011, with 39 editions published all up. I understand that instead of producing an annual for 2012 D.C. Thomson published The Beano and The Dandy celebrate Dennis the Menace. Published as part of Dennis' 60th birthday celebrations, this book was marketed as a history book however text throughout is short, instead allowing the strips themselves to tell the story.

For whatever reason the books were not resumed again after this, but it goes without saying that Dennis' popularity continues to reign in The Beano every week. I doubt he'll ever be replaced.

The Changing Face Of Gnasher

Gnasher is the most famous dog in British comics, closely followed by The Dandy's Black Bob. He first appeared in Beano issue #1363, dated August 31st 1968 (you can read the full strip here), when Dennis found him on the streets. He was an instant hit, but it took a long time before he was a regular character. He appeared in the following issue, #1364, as a character in Pup Parade illustrated by Gordon Bell.

His next appearence was issue #1370, dated 19th October 1968, and he had changed quite a bit since his first appearence!

As of #1392, dated 22nd March 1969, Gnasher finally started appearing every week with Dennis, something he deserved right from the start!

From then on, he changed almost every issue for the next one and a half years! Here are four of those changes.

#1384 - Gnasher's first appearence in full colour!

But when did Gnasher become Gnasher? These early strips definatly don't star the Gnasher we know and love today, he was far messier back then! I think I've managed to cut it down to a single issue - #1467, dated 29th August 1970. To be even more precise, I think it's the third panel on Dennis' page that marks the start of our current Gnasher! 

Gnash!

Another first, and this time it's about Dennis the Menace's hair growing legs - Gnasher! Dennis' creator (David (Davey) Law), got the idea for Dennis whilst watching a play and the original ideas were scrawled on the back of a hankerchief. That was in 1951. It was 17 years on when Dennis got the Abyssinian Wire-Haired Tripe Hound, he picked him up off the street and then took him along to the dog show. However, this wasn't the first time Dennis had owned a dog. His dad was walking one in the park way back in the very first episode on 17th March 1951, and earlier in '68 he picked another dog up off the street, in several different issues! So dogs were a big part of Dennis' world.

Ian gray, the scriptwriter for Dennis the Menace at the time, gave Law the following instructions for drawing Gnasher: 'Draw Dennis the Menace's hair, put a leg at each corner and eyes, nose and teeth at the front'. He did a pretty good job of it as well didn't he!

So here is the first ever comic strip published with Gnasher, which appeared on the back cover of Beano #1363, August 31st 1968.

In the last box 'Dad' send Gnasher off to Pup Parade, where he would appear the following week. Gordon Bell, the artist of Pup Parade, illustrated Gnasher perfectly, and with a bit more of a cartoony face! This story though, as far as I can find, has never been posted up online. So here it is! Enjoy!

Gnasher did not appear alongside Dennis that week. In fact, he didn't appear again until #1370, then vanished until #1377, then #1380, had two consecutive weeks in January 1969, then came back in #1387 and then started appearing every week from #1392, dated March 22nd 1969.

Then, in 1986, Gnasher went missing! After many anxious weeks and campaigns, he returns, the father of six pups. Only one of them is kept - Gnipper. The two later went on to star in their very own comic strip called 'Gnasher and Gnipper'. In a more recent issue Gnasher sets off to find the other pups who are at all four corners of the world, which was illustrated by Tom Paterson. When the Dennis the Menace fan club started, Gnasher had his own section entitled 'Gnashers Fang Club' and even had his very own hairy badge with moving eyes and would quickly become the most popular part of the club. All of the most popular Beano free gifts were based upon Gnasher. Dennis the Menace changed it's title to Dennis the Menace and Gnasher, and remains like that today. From 1977 to 1986 he had his own story called 'Gnashers Tale and more recently one called Gnasher's Bite, which appears on the back page of The Beano every week.

Beano #3580 - What's wrong?

The latest issue of The Beano has let us down (and so have I, with that 70's comic I keep promising! I've finally decided - it's to be a 1979 issue of Whoopee.)First of all - it's £1.50!! And Barak Obama?!?! What is he doing on the cover? Maybe if I read the comic backwards there is some sort of secret message! In the Dennis and Gnasher story Obama, obviously, is in it. Dennis has a mobile phone (*sigh*) and has to get permission from the American government to menace the president's bodyguards. Surely he should just go out thre and menace them anyway.

Oh - and get rid of that mobile!As usual, Meebo and Zuky is a letdown, still thinking that the Cat vs dog thing is a good idea (or maybe I'm just too used to it)... but the Minnie the Minx strip, although it may sound strange - it's actually true!

Now were going to zoom over to the centre pages, to the pull-out poster. I'm hardly surprised it wasn't advertised on the cover or even in the previous issue, it's rubbish! It's very pixelated and all the images have just been taken out of previous Beano's and put on top of each other. I can't see many people hanging that on their wall!
Long live the Beano!