![\"Dennis](\"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/dennis-the-menace-50-years-of-mischief.jpg\")
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By various (DC Thomson & Co.)
\nISBN: 0-85116-735-7<\/p>\n
The Americans may have a lock on super-heroes, and the Japanese do details and speed-lines like nobody else can, but Britain too has an area of comic strip supremacy. Nobody does wicked little boys like us.<\/p>\n
This book celebrates half a century of pranks, mischief and innocent skulduggery in the form of the legendary \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and still going strong \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dennis the Menace. True, Hank Ketchum may have a seemingly similar character \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one which oddly debuted in America the very same week \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but that tow-haired blonde kid is only pretend mean. He has a soft, cute core.<\/p>\n
The Yank kid is a lovable moppet, really, but the character devised by David Law is a fun-loving, recalcitrant, practical-joke playing force of nature. He began buried within the pages of the Beano<\/em><\/strong> on March 17th 1951 but rapidly progressed to the colour back cover, then the front, then both<\/em> covers of Britain’s most successful and long lived comic for children of all ages.<\/p>\n Under Law \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and probably the only \u00e2\u20ac\u0153law\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he’d acknowledge – Dennis grew thematically and artistically wilder and more elemental, a true archetype and role model for naughty boys everywhere. Scripter Ian Gray co-created Gnasher, an Abyssinian Wire-Haired Tripe Hound in 1968 as the perfect pet and partner-in-crime for the lad, just as Law’s declining health compelled DC Thomson to line-up an understudy artist.<\/p>\n David Sutherland had been drawing The Bash Street Kids since 1962, and in 1970 when Law finally retired he took over Dennis as well, drawing him until 1998, when he semi-retired and went back to just drawing the Bash Streeters. David Parkins became the third Dave to handle Dennis.<\/p>\n The success of the character is unquestioned. TV, books, computers, toys, clothing, foods, and a fan club with more than a million members attests to that. But the real secret is within these pages. In selected strips from five decades, the antics and exploits that appeal to the wilful kid in us all, are gathered together as a hugely engaging textbook of mayhem.<\/p>\n This is a brilliant tribute to a British icon.<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a9 2000 DC Thomson & Co. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By various (DC Thomson & Co.) ISBN: 0-85116-735-7 The Americans may have a lock on super-heroes, and the Japanese do details and speed-lines like nobody else can, but Britain too has an area of comic strip supremacy. Nobody does wicked little boys like us. This book celebrates half a century of pranks, mischief and innocent … <\/p>\n