Review: Dennis the Menace 1953-1954

Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace 1953-1954
Written and Drawn by Hank Ketcham
Published by Fantagraphics Books. $24.95 USD

This is the second volume in Fantagraphics' planned complete run of Ketcham's famous strip about the towheaded troublemaker. The back cover describes the strip as "heartwarming mayhem," but that's doubly untrue. Dennis isn't heartwarming--he's a little shit--and the strip is all the better for that. There are no strips so far that break from the template of Dennis doing or saying something to cause his parents or other grown-ups as much consternation and embarrassment as possible in order to let us know that deep down, he's a cute kid. Sure, he loves his parents, but like most children, he uses that love to get what he wants or to get away with doing what he wanted to do. I don't want to overthink this, but perhaps one reason why Dennis has endured is that readers respect him. He stays true to himself. In fact, there was one gag where Dennis is playing House with a girl and he suggests they use his dog Ruff's house, and I thought, "No, Dennis, not House. That's not you, kid." Girls are the enemy, after all.

And as for mayhem, Dennis' breaking of the rules always seems too calculated to call it that. I'll buy the premise that he says things out loud that he heard his parents mention privately about the neighbors, not knowing the meaning, but I think he knows by now that anything they say is likely to cause trouble for them if he repeats it to the party mentioned, so that's calculated as well. Maybe I have overthunk it.

The beauty of this book is in the pacing. You can read months of work in minutes, and while little will make you laugh out loud, it's all of a pretty high quality of familiar humor and excellent linework. There are perhaps more strips here that came from less distinct sources than in the first volume, so some are a little blurry in their line, but most look sharp. There also appear to be more straight-on or three-quarter views of Dennis' face, which is fascinatingly grotesque in its gargoyle-like nose. There are also more gags with Dennis interrupting Mom sitting on Dad's lap or Dennis showing a recognition of his mother's beauty, for you Oedipal types. Unlike Peanuts, there isn't an anticipation reading these cartoons as far as when characters like Margaret or Joey will show up. The strip evolved very little and that's also part of its charm. The joy here is in just speeding through one gag after another from that little pain in the ass and losing yourself in the rhythm of it, like eating Chee-Tos.