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.