Dennis The Partnership

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

It is widely known that cartoonist Al wiseman joined Hank Ketcham on the Denis the Menace from very early on. Their syles were alrady similar and it apparently took Wiseman very little time to adjust to Ketcham's radical inking style. Still, if you look at the number of redo's and overlays he produced for his succesor when he finally left the panel years later, it is hard to imagine him not helping his friend out in any way at leats in the first perio. The Sunday page started in 1952 and here are a few sampled. The style here closely resembles that of the daily panel at that time.

Wiseman, Say!

Monday Cartoon Day.

Some time ago I showed a couple of cartoons by Al Wiseman from the pocket gag magazine Zowie. Al Wiseman is mostly know for drawing the Dennis the Menace Sunday pages and comic books for most of the fifties in a style undistiguishable from that of Dennis creator Hank Ketcham. These rare cartoons give us a look at his personal style before he took on Dennis. At the time I noticed how much less cartoons Wiseman sold than Ketcham (and most of them not signed either). Since then I found that he did contribute regularely to Charly Jones' Laugh Book a monthly gag magazine with less emphasis on half nakes ladies and saucy gags than others. He drew mastheads for features, illustrated articles and even did a series of cartoons of pretty ladies you could order. He also drew covers, which he did sign. Here is a look at the forgotten work of a mostly forgotten master.

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.