I know what you're thinking. Dennis the Menace? Isn't that the dorky strip that ran in the papers and spawned a mediocre-looking movie in the mid-'90s? Yes. It is also one of the funniest and most inventive comics that I've read this year, because Fantagraphics is going back to the beginning and reprinting the early strips in deluxe hardcover editions, ala their successful Complete Peanuts series. In these pages, Dennis isn't just a lovable scamp with toothless humor, but an outright rebellious hell child with a touch of precociousness and long-suffering parents, teachers and barbers who handle his temperament with bitter sarcasm and dry wit. Dennis is a likable character, but he's also a terror, and so his "antagonists" are also just as likable and just as funny. As with anything that is produced on such a hectic schedule, every strip here isn't gold, but there are a stunning number of laugh-out-loud cartoons to be found in this book, not to mention some interesting insights into parenting and being a kid.
Ketcham's approach to Dennis was clearly different than that of Charles Schulz to Peanuts. In the introduction and foreword by Brian Walker and Patrick McDonnell, respectively, we learn that Ketcham often used art assistants and gag writers, and the origins of Dennis seem as much a commercial necessity as a creative indulgence. However, as if to provide a counter-argument to the common wisdom that nothing good comes from commercial pressures, I think I might actually like the early Dennis the Menace better than the early Peanuts. Part of that might be that while Peanuts was Schulz's window into the world, and often as much about a philosophy and worldview as the gag, Dennis was meant to serve up laughs every time.
Indeed, Dennis the Menace is much funnier than I remembered it being when reading the comics as a kid. Ketcham gets a lot of mileage out of Dennis as precocious mischief-maker, fully aware of the nature of beer, dad's flirtation or mom's sexy allure, but at the same time Ketcham maintains Dennis's childlike innocence. In some strips, Dennis seems like he was legitimately trying to help, such as when he can't understand why his mother is unhappy that he "saved them money" by giving himself a haircut, or unaware of the adult connotations to his behavior, as when he invites friends in to visit his mother in the bath. At other times, he gleefully tells his mother about the pretty women that his dad was flirting with or seems fully aware of his behavior, as when he asks his mother "Gee whiz! How did you get downstairs so fast?" when caught with his hand in the cookie jar. This isn't inconsistency, it actually gives Dennis a little more depth. He's neither a deliberate monster nor a precocious innocent, but a blend of both, making him a perfect target of ire in some strips and heroic protagonist in others. He's a figure of rebellion, which is always something easy to root for.
Not that Dennis is the only character of importance in the Dennis the Menace strips. Dennis's father has a flirtatious nature with attractive women and a sarcastic sense of humor, both of which help to humanize him. The latter reminds me quite a bit of the way that Calvin's father (from Calvin & Hobbes) deals with his child, and it's nice to see that the adults, rather than being portrayed as dolts, are allowed to use their greater experience and sharper senses of humor to deflect some of the madness that Dennis inflicts on their life, even if their inability to fully comprehend the inner workings of his childlike mind means he sometimes gets the better of them. Dennis's mother is just as interesting a figure, played up as someone still sexy and desirable (including by other men, something Dennis loves pointing out to his father), someone who is stern and the true ruler of the household. In some ways, she's the quintessential '50s mom, doing all the home chores and being concerned with clothes, appearance, that kind of thing, but there's no doubt in reading the strips that of the two parents, Dennis's mom is probably the smarter of the two, and definitely the one who can more easily enforce the rules upon her child. Ketcham's work here comes out of the '50s, and so there's a certain amount of time-displaced gender roles, but really, the relationship between father, mother and child is fairly progressive for its time.
Something notable about this book is that Ketcham worked pretty much entirely in one-panel cartoons. Occasionally the panels were divided so that you got effectively a two- or three-panel story, but mostly these are one-panel strips. There's a lot of storytelling going on in these single panels, as Ketcham (or his assistants) chose just the right moment to capture that encourages the reader to imagine the past and future of the strip, even though we're only seeing the present. When we see Dennis's dad chatting up a pretty girl in the living room, and Dennis is peeking in saying "Mom wants to see you in the kitchen. And right now!" we know what's been happening and what's going to happen. When we see Dennis battling another boy and saying "Dennis. And what's your name?" the whole story, and the joke behind it, is there. It's as if Ketcham had a window into the lives of these characters, that they were running all the time, and he just pulled out the funny moments.
The Complete Dennis the Menace is more than just a beautifully-designed chunk of comics history. It is not something to be bought just for "indy cred" or to broaden your knowledge of the history of the medium. It's not just interesting for the influences it clearly had on a variety of creators. It is, viewed objectively alongside work being produced today, an often laugh-out-loud collection of humor cartoons with polished art and perfect timing. One of the best collections of the year, to be sure.
