70 Years Of Dennis
Celebrating a big Beano birthday for Scotland’s favourite menace
Celebrating the anniversary of the Beano comic book icon, Dennis The Menace
ONE of Scotland’s most famous comic book characters, Dennis the Menace has been annoying fictional residents of Beanotown and delighting readers for 70 years.
Making his debut in issue 452 of Beano on March 17, 1951, Dennis has been a firm favourite of the comic’s legions of readers ever since.
Though he’s now known as Beano’s biggest name and a star of comic, stage and screen, Dennis’s beginnings were a lot more humble.
“Dennis was originally sketched in St Michael’s in Fife, on a piece of scrap paper, and now he’s global. I think at the last count it’s 87 countries,” says Mike Stirling, head of Beano Studios Scotland, about the worldwide success of animated series Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed.
The character was initially dreamed up by then-beano Editor George Moonie, at DC Thomson in Dundee, inspired by the chorus of a 1935 British hall song by Eddie Pola, Dennis the Menace from Venice. He tasked sub-editor Ian Chisolm with sketching a mischievous child character to fit the name, which artist Davey Law transformed into the instantly-recognisable menace who leapt from scrap paper to comic book pages.
Davey gave Dennis his trademark – a tuft of black spikey hair – but his famous red and black stripy jumper didn’t debut with the character.
“When Dennis first appeared he was wearing a tie of all things. The jumper didn’t appear until a couple of months later,” Mike says. “Reader mail was coming in saying that people loved him. New characters all started off black and white and if they were good, they went to red and black and that’s the reason why Dennis evolved to have the red and black stripy jumper.”
Dennis’s success was fairly rapid, being given his own annual in 1956, only five years after his debut. It wasn’t until 1974 that Dennis became a cover star – when he was drawn by David Sutherland – where he remains to this day.
David took over as Dennis’s artist in 1970 and according to Mike, that’s when Dennis really came into his own.
“David’s Dennis had this real-life consistency, he would always be instantly recognisable. This is probably the evolution of what you would describe as the Beano style of art, every artist has adopted that to a greater or lesser degree.”
Today’s Dennis, drawn by Beano
Parkinson, has subtle differences in looks and personality, evolving with each younger generation of readers.
“He wears trainers now instead of boots and if you look closely, he’s got he has pockets in his shorts so they’re more like cargo shorts,” explains Mike. “He’s a really relatable character across generations. This is where we’re fortunate because people inherently know him.
“Generation Alpha, who are reading the Beano
“Dennis encourages out” them to speak
nowadays, are pushing back against grown-ups. They’ll tell a grown-up to pick up their litter, they’ll call out adults who are displaying racist attitudes and that’s a really good thing. Dennis encourages them to have that voice and to speak out if something’s not right.”
And what does the future hold for Dennis?
“I think the future’s really bright,” Mike says, “Long after I’ve been involved, Dennis will be still be going. He started out as a 10-year-old and he will always reflect the life of the 10-year-old kid that is engaging with him. Because of that, he’ll always be relatable and somebody that they can aspire to be like.”