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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This is cool! I had several of these when I was a little guy. Thanks for sharing. Hadn't thought about them in years.
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome, but to be clear these are not my books. I gleaned these from the wilds of the internet and assembled them here for a grand view. Glad you liked it.
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I had four or five of the Crest books, but it looks like maybe the artwork from some of the earlier books was carried over....Household Hurricane looks familiar. I got them for Christmas one year and I think I read them until they fell apart. I was probably four or five when I got them.
DeleteI had a bunch of those pocket-sized books of comic strips.....several Peanuts, Beetle Baileys and others. I miss seeing those in bookstores. Heck, it's hard to even find a bookstore these days.
Too true. I still look at vintage paperbacks but cartoon ones were likely read with such vigor that copies are indeed rare.
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Cartoon paperbacks were a big part of my childhood; I sort of miss the format. Newspaper strips no longer hold the central place in our culture they once did. As a kid, I used to go to a used bookstore for old comics and paperbacks. This is how I discovered Walt Kelly, Jules Feiffer and Harvey Kurtzman. The first book with text I bought for myself was The Babysitter's Guide.
ReplyDeleteComic strips are such a meager part of the newspaper experience now that it's hardly worth the effort. I still will glide through the pages, but the small size limits the styles it takes to achieve clarity.
DeleteI wish I'd spent more time in the last two decades gathering old paperbacks than some of the lame ass comics I've followed.
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