The 60 yo Menace!

(guardian.co.uk)

The Beano's Dennis the Menace is 60 years old.

He was advertised as the "world's naughtiest boy" and was first seen in 1951 starting out on the back of a cigarette packets.

It wasn’t long before Dennis had stolen his famed red and black jumper that gave the Beano it’s much needed boost and inspired a new wave of comic strip kids that shook up post-war Britain.

The late 80s showed that Dennis the Menace had never been so popular. In 1988 his fan club had over a million members.

Today he remains the Beano's most popular character and has his own international TV spin-off, which has been renamed Dennis and Gnasher, after his canine sidekick who first appeared with Dennis in 1968.

So how did this naughty boy, bully his way into children's and adults affections?

It all began in Scotland, where the Beano's publisher DC Thomson & Co are still based.

The Beano's history reveals - when the comic's editor George Moonie heard a music hall song that had the chorus "I'm Dennis the Menace from Venice" and went back to suggest a character with the same name.

Writer Stephen McGinty, said the birth arrived in a St Andrews pub while chief sub Ian Chisholm and artist Davey Law were brainstorming.

Ian Chisholm grabbed a cigarette packet, sketched a picture of "a knobbly-kneed boy with dark spiky hair" and that was the moment a British comic strip legend was born.

Dennis did have a few false starts wearing a tie and blue jumper, and it was Davey Law who gave him his distinctive red and black jumper, then came the outsized shoes and devilish grin.

(guardian.co.uk)

For contemporary Beano artist Lew Stringer, it was Davey Law who turned the concept into a character to sit alongside his predecessors like Desperate Dan in the Dandy, Superman in Action Comics and Batman in Detective Comics.

The Beano was flagging by 1950 and was no longer radical in anyway. It was the stylised action and progressive storylines from Dennis the Menace that kept the Beano going and changed the face of British comics. 

 There was an energy that Dennis had, it was new and modern and he became one of the first naughty kids characters of the post-war period.

In most children's books a bad child gets made good - but this has never happened with Dennis he has never got ‘better’

After Dennis we saw other characters; the Bash Street Kids, Minnie the Minx and Roger the Dodger.

Many Beano characters, like Biffo the Bear - whom Dennis replaced on the cover in 1974 - have since fallen by the wayside.

So why has Dennis survived? It is believed that he succeeded where others haven’t because he has evolved but has never lost his essential naughty nature.

It shouldn’t really be needed to be pointed out that 1951 was a totally different world.  

What children are allowed to do has changed, as have the punishments.

The beatings - or slipperings - that concluded in each week's story have had to stop in our gentler age of punishment but the editors have kept the "blatant anti-establishment" motif running through the strip.

Though Dennis was looked upon as very bad and has even been called "quite evil"  by some in the past, he's now been softened for television and to fit into modern society.

He has been given a ‘fun’ makeover, and is slightly younger looking.

In the late 1980s, the Beano changed Dennis's attitude to Walter the Softy to avoid accusations of homophobia.

Euan Kerr who edited the Beano between 1984 and 2006 revealed in his book about his time working for the Beano  that he turned Walter into a "confident, likeable character" and toned down Dennis's bullying of his swotty, flower picking nemesis . "We eventually gave Walter a girlfriend too as a measure to combat any further criticism," he revealed.

But this is now the age of anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos), anti-bullying strategies and health and safety fears, so a question which keeps popping up in the press from time to time is; Is Dennis the Menace still an appropriate character?

My answer is...: Of course he is! Adults do attempt to put a fence around kids rather than seeing that adults are the ones who influence and inspire what a child is to become.

Adults do punish children, it is part of growing up which will always run through every decade to different degrees.

Dennis the Menace is a survivor and he should be looked upon as a great inspiration to us all!

                                                       Happy Birthday Dennis!!