Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

What comic strip character has been a spokesperson for both the Boy Scouts and the Red Cross and is getting the star treatment this coming September.

Would you believe Dennis the Menace?

Fantagraphics books is releasing the first two years worth of Hank Ketcham’s collected strips in a 600 page hardcover edition, at just under $25, and plan to continue issuing one new book every year until the artists entire run is completed.

Ketcham began work on the likable rascal’s adventures in 1951 and continued doing so up until his retirement in 1994. Even today he is still being published in over 100 newspapers worldwide.

This character has been everywhere from Hollywood to Broadway and has several times transcended the traditional comic page and appeared in animated form.

The artist who died in 2001 was always pleasantly surprised by the success of his creation and was overwhelmingly modest about it. He is quoted as saying “that people only looked at his work for 30 seconds…..then used it to wrap fish”.

In interviews he always credited his wife Alice with the original inspiration for the strip, when she burst into his home studio, exasperated that their four-year-old son Dennis had dismantled his room instead of taking a nap.

“Your son is a menace!” she said and a legend was born.

Fantagraphics are also the publisher of the Complete Peanuts books which is a reprinting of the entire run of that particular strip, the third volume of which has just been issued.