On March 12, 1951, Hank Ketcham's
Dennis the Menace comic strip first hit American newspapers. It's still running to this day, in more than 1,000 newspapers, because comic strips never, ever die.
Where it Gets Weird:
Just a few hours before Ketcham's
Dennis the Menace hit the nation, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, issue No. 452 of the British comic
The Beano hit newsstands even though it was dated 17 March, 1951. This particular comic was notable for featuring the first appearance of what went on to become cartoonist David Law's most famous creation:
Dennis the Menace.
Fair to fair, this kid looks like he could kick Dennis's ass.That creepy muskrat at his feet is supposed to be Dennis' dog.
Where it Gets Even Weirder:
So, their comics strips had the same exact name, and for some bizarre reason were published
on the same exact day. That means the guy in the UK just ripped off his American counterpart, right? Or vice versa?
Was this just belated revenge for Yorktown?Nope. By all accounts, neither man knew, or had any way of knowing, that there was an equivalent comic being developed an ocean away. No lawsuits were filed. After all, if one of them had caught wind of the other ahead of time, he'd have changed the title--it's to neither creator's advantage to create confusion among readers (for all you know the other comic is the worst thing ever). It just appears to be a massive coincidence, or as Carl Jung would have called it,
synchronicity.
Besides, aside from this freak occurrence, the two characters had nothing in common. Hank Ketcham's take on Dennis was based on his own son, and David Law's Dennis was more like a gritty reboot of Calvin.
Something tells us this kid actually does piss on stuff in his comics.Hank Ketcham and David Law decided to amicably continue their separate works, and both characters ended up becoming immensely popular with their respective audiences.
Though they clearly bought their shirts from the same thrift shop.However, it was Hank Ketcham's Dennis that got made into a movie in 1993 starring Walter Matthau, Marty's mom from
Back to the Future, and that blond kid from
Rushmore.
Also, a down-and-out Doc Brown had a cameo.Coincidentally, a totally different
Dennis the Menace movie came out in Britain the same year, albeit this film was called
Dennis because it was, in fact, a blatant
ripoff of Hank Ketcham's
Dennis the Menace. Why they didn't just coincidentally make a film about the UK's Dennis is anyone's guess, but we're willing to bet that it was because such a film would not get a PG rating.
Seriously, this kid rocks.
