Hank Ketcham, Creator of Dennis the Menace
Innocence and charisma are still in style. The simple, chuckle-making humour through the eyes of a five-and-a-half-year-old child has captivated comics readers for over half a century. Dennis the Menace was created by Hank Ketcham in 1950, using a child's naive view of the world to discover fun buried in the commonplace stuff of life.
The Dennis the Menace panel was named after the real Dennis, the son of Hank and Alice Ketcham. Apparently, there was an incident concerning the four-year-old's naptime and the chaos he wrought in his bedroom rather than snoozing. His provoked mother stormed into Hank's studio exclaiming, "Your son is a menace!" The cartoonist made the immediate connection, coming up with a panel about a rambunctious, loveable boy, full of joyful mischief. After only five months after creation, the strip debuted on March 12, 1951 in 16 newspapers under the Post-Hall Syndicate, to the immediate approval of post-war baby-booming families. *(1) Dennis the Menace began appearing on Sundays in 1952. Such acclaim took the comic panel to an amazing 246 newspapers world-wide by 1953 - only two years into syndication.
Born in Seattle, Washington on March 14, 1920 to Weaver Vinson Ketcham and the former Virginia Emma King, Henry King Ketcham was the son and grandson of U.S. Naval officers. He was always fascinated with cartooning and knew by age six that he wanted a cartooning career. The inspiration began when a friend of his father came to visit. The fellow was an artist in advertising who sketched characters Moon Mullins and Barney Google for the young Ketcham. *(2)
Briefly attending the University of Washington in 1938, Hank dropped out in the first year and began working for Walter Lantz (the Woody Woodpecker creator) and later, for Disney, at the rate of $25 a week. He used his artistic talents to help produce classic animation films such as "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia," both in 1940 and "Bambi," in 1942. Afterwards, Hank joined the war effort, serving in the Navy in WWII. His skills were put to use drawing cartoons for War Bonds, military posters and training aids.
Hank took up freelance cartooning from his home in Connecticut, with his art appearing in various magazines including the treasured New York Times. He created "Half Hitch," a comic based on an unlucky sailor's stint in the navy. It appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in the mid-1940s. (The comic appeared again in newspapers from 1970 to 1975 under King Features Syndicate. "Half Hitch" eventually disappeared from print - though popular with seamen, it did not catch on with civilian readers.)
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