Paperback Menace!

Dennis the Menace I think I knew about as a television series before I became acutely aware of it as a comic strip. The craftsmanship of the single panel always impressed me. Hank Ketcham was always able to do so much with a few lines (Alex Toth comes to mind). There was a liveliness to the panels, an energy that perfectly informed the theme of the strip, which was that the domestic tranquility was threatened at all times by the ferocious vigor of youth. Mildly scandalous in a decade where children were akin to time bombs.

Here are a batch of the earliest Dennis paperbacks, bundles of chaos thrown into the bliss of the American dream. Enjoy!
 

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