Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The Gentle Giant

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

Yesterday, I showed a couple of cartoons by Al Wiseman. Wiseman was the sole artist of the Dennis the Menace Sunday page in the first ten yers or so. Wiseman was supposedly left alone to do this page with his regular writer, although as I understand it they were working at some sort of Hank ketcham studio. This was before Ketcham left to live in Switserland. Bt still, if you look at the first few years it is hard to believe Ketcham didn't have at least some sot of hand in it. Ketcham was still developing his style and the Sunday page grew with the daily cartoon in that respect. As with more of these stories I believe that the end result probably colored the perception of the earlier years. Whatever the collaboration was, these early Dennis the Menace Sundays are just as masterful als the cartoons and in my opinon they deserve a full color reprint.

I may have shown some of these before, but the majority of these Sundays is new, as are the few coor scans I have maganed to make.



4 comments:

Peter Huggan said...

Yes, you can sometimes see Ketcham's looser "glossy magazine" style showing up in a few panels here and there.

I agree the Sundays should be collected in a book ASAP! Also the Dennis the Menace comic book by Wiseman should be reprinted in it's entirety as it's a mastery of style and design!

Ger Apeldoorn said...

I think the comic book would be seen as a children's thing and therefor not worthy of a reprint. I actually believe the first few years of the Sunday stand a better chance. Although the Fantagraphics reprint series of the panels didn't sell very well. At least, I saw most of them in an Amazon bargain sale...

Rich Clabaugh said...

I assume the FANTAGRAPHICS series has ben discontinued? Too bad, I find them laugh-out-loud funny. I would love to see these Sunday's get the deluxe treatment too and while I'm dreaming let's add to the list YOGI BEAR, FLINTSTONES, MISTER MAGOO and GORDO Sundays collections as well! Thanks Ger!

Ger Apeldoorn said...

Well, for me they had reached the point where the daily strip stopped being funny and artwise it was still impressive, bu nolonger surprising after 1960. But a Sunday collection from the start I would buy and I am sure many people would.